1M Brazilians fill streets with protest, violence

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — More than a million Brazilians poured into the streets of at least 80 cities Thursday in this week's largest anti-government demonstrations yet, protests that saw violent clashes break out in several cities as people demanding improved public services and an end to corruption faced tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

At least one protester was killed in Sao Paulo state after a car rammed into a crowd of demonstrators, the driver apparently angered about being unable to drive along a street.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated 300,000 demonstrators swarmed into the seaside city's central area, running clashes played out between riot police and clusters of mostly young men, their T-shirts wrapped around their faces. But several peaceful protesters were up in the crackdown, too, as police fired tear gas canisters into their midst and at times indiscriminately used pepper spray.

Thundering booms echoed off stately colonial buildings as rubber bullets and the gas were fired at fleeing crowds.

At least 40 people were injured in Rio, including protesters like Michele Menezes, a wisp of a woman whose youthful face and braces belie her 26 years. Bleeding and with her hair singed from the explosion of a tear gas canister, she said that she and others took refuge from the violence in an open bar, only to have a police officer toss the canister inside.

It exploded on top of Menezes, tore through her jeans and dug out two quarter-sized holes on the back of her thighs while also perforating a rash of small holes in her upper arm.

"I was leaving a peaceful protest and it's not the thugs that attack me but the police themselves," said Menezes, removing her wire-rim glasses to wipe her bloodshot eyes.

She later took refuge in a hotel along with about two dozen youths, families and others said they had been repeatedly hit with pepper spray by motorcycle police as they too took refuge inside a bar.

Despite the crackdown, protesters said they would not back down.

"I saw some pretty scary things, but they're not going to shake me. There's another march on the 22nd and I'm going to be there," said 19-year-old university student Fernanda Szuster.

Asked whether her parents knew that she was taking part in the protests, Szuster said that "they know and they're proud. They also protested when they were young. So they think it's great."

She added, though, that she wouldn't tell her father the details of the police violence she was a victim of. "If he knew, he would never let me leave the house again."

By Thursday evening, the number of protesters had swelled to 1 million, according local police estimates from cities across Brazil.

In Brasilia, police struggled to keep hundreds of protesters from invading the Foreign Ministry, outside of which protesters lit a small fire. Other government buildings were attacked around the capital's central esplanade. There, too, police resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets in attempts to scatter the crowds.

Clashes were also reported in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, in Porto Alegre in the south, in the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador.

"This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration and it is," said artist Wanderlei Costa, 33, in Brasilia. "It's a shame some people cause trouble when there is a much bigger message behind this movement. Brazil needs to change, not only on the government level, but also on the grass roots level. We have to learn to demonstrate without violence."

The protests took place one week after a violent police crackdown on a much smaller protests in Sao Paulo galvanized Brazilians to take to the streets.

The unrest is hitting the nation as it hosts the Confederations Cup football tournament with tens of thousands of foreign visitors in attendance. It also comes one month before Pope Francis is scheduled to visit the nation, and ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, raising concerns about how Brazilian officials will provide security.

Mass protests are rare in this 190 million-person country, with demonstrations generally attracting small numbers of politicized participants. The ongoing, growing marches have caught Brazilian governments by surprise, but have delighted many citizens.

"I think we desperately need this, that we've been needing this for a very, very long time," said Paulo Roberto Rodrigues da Cunha, a 63-year-old clothing store salesman in Rio.

In Salvador, police shot tear gas canisters and rubber bullets to disperse a small crowd of protesters trying to break through a police barrier blocking one of the city's streets. One woman was injured in her foot.

Elsewhere in Salvador some 5,000 protesters gathered in Campo Grand Square.

"We pay a lot of money in taxes, for electricity, for services, and we want to know where that money is," said Italo Santos, a 25-year old student as he walked with friends toward the square.

Despite the energy on the street, many protesters said they were unsure how the movement would win real political concessions. People in the protests have held up signs asking for everything from education reforms to free bus fare while denouncing the billions of public dollars spent on stadiums in advance of the World Cup and the Olympics.

"It's sort of a Catch-22," Rodrigues da Cunha said. "On the one hand we need some sort of leadership, on the other we don't want this to be compromised by being affiliated with any political party."

Earlier Thursday, the protests took on the feel of a party, especially in Sao Paulo and Rio.

People of all ages, many of them draped in flags, gathered in front of the majestic domed Candelaria church in downtown Rio, while groups elsewhere pounded out Carnival rhythms or chanted slogans targeting Rio state's governor.

At one point, a police helicopter flew over the crowd, which booed and pointed green lasers at the craft.

When shirtless youths, many of them with T-shirts wrapped round their faces, pushed and jostled their way through the crowd, people spontaneously broke out into a chant of "Without violence!"

But as has been the pattern earlier this week, the clashes began once night fell.

Several city leaders have already accepted protester demands to revoke an increase in bus and subway fares in the hopes that anti-government anger cools. In Sao Paulo, where demonstrators blocked Paulista Avenue, organizers said they would turn their demonstration into a party celebrating the lower transit fares.

But many believe the protests are no longer just about bus fares and have become larger cries for systemic changes.

President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency meeting with top advisers for Friday morning. Rousseff has been largely absent since the demonstrations broke out, making just one public statement but offering no speeches or grand gestures in an attempt to calm the situation.

"This is the start of a structural change in Brazil," said Aline Campos, a 29 year old publicist in Brasilia. "People now want to make sure their money is well spent, that it's not wasted through corruption."

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US sees sanctions impact on Iranian politics

In Iran's presidential vote, US sees signs that draconian sanctions affecting nuclear policy

Associated Press -

WASHINGTON (AP) -- American officials are hailing the election of an Iranian president who vows to seek relief from international sanctions as the first tangible evidence that the U.S. strategy is influencing Tehran's nuclear policy.

The draconian sanctions have wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy and weighed heavily in the June 14 vote for Hasan Rowhani, a candidate who openly criticized how his country's leadership has handled the nuclear file.

His election has opened a debate in the U.S. on whether it's time to ease sanctions and see whether Tehran shifts away from what the U.S. believes is the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. It also has set off intense discussions among government agencies on how to proceed with Iran, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

"I think that the administration should ease off on sanctions and pressure Congress to slow the train because President-elect Rowhani has painted a picture of a more forthcoming, more flexible Iranian nuclear policy," said analyst Cliff Kupchan, director for Middle East at Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based consulting group.

Rowhani's election will have no bearing on the next round of new U.S. nuclear sanctions, set to take effect on July 1.

The U.S. officials said there will be no lifting or easing of sanctions at this time unless Iran offers something concrete in return. Washington is well-aware that hard-line Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's ruling clerics — not the president — call all the shots in policymaking and make every major decision on the nuclear program and dealings with the West.

However, the Americans could offer other concessions to the Iranians at the so-called P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran, which include the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany.

"The question is whether the administration offers a preliminary olive branch, or they say: 'You put down the first piece of silver on the table,'" said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "I would think the administration would be wise to take the signs at face value and offer an olive branch. Olive branches are cheap, and we've got a lot of them in the quiver."

Iran has long insisted its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful — for generating power and medical research.

The U.S. and its international partners are deeply skeptical, however, and some in Congress have begun to push new legislation that would impose the harshest sanctions yet. If passed, the law would move the U.S. closer to a full oil and trade embargo than it has ever been. It is by far the biggest sanctions threat hanging over Iran now.

Kupchan said he believes Rowhani's election has dimmed the prospects for that legislation passing anytime this year. And trying to cut back more on Iran's oil exports would be complicated by the fact that the U.S. would have to persuade China and India to reduce their imports further — a tough sell.

The sanctions starting next month target the local currency, the rial. But the rial has lost about two-thirds of its value over the past two years and analysts say there is little room left on the downside.

This round also aims to stop all transfers of gold to the government or ordinary citizens — something that sanctions opponents cite as an example of penalties that punish the population more than its leaders. Another measure hits at Iran's auto industry, while the U.S. will also tighten existing sanctions on shipping and energy.

Round after round of sanctions by the U.S. and its international allies have wrought serious damage on Iran's economy. On top of the rial's devaluation, inflation has spiked to about 30 percent, food prices have shot up, and critical oil exports have been cut in half. International banking transactions have been virtually paralyzed.

The rial and Iran's stock market rebounded a bit after the presidential election on optimism that tensions with West may ease and Rowhani might take other measures to stabilize the economy. Managing the domestic economy is one of the main roles of Iran's president.

Despite the economic pain of sanctions, Iran has continued to defy Western demands to halt uranium enrichment, a process to produce nuclear fuel that can be used either for electricity generation or weapons production. Iran has even ratcheted it up over the past few years, as sanctions have mounted.

At a hearing early this month on sanctions, before Rowhani's election, senators grilled administration officials on why the intense economic pressure Iran is feeling has not translated into a change in Iran's nuclear calculus policy.

The policymakers pointed to an Iranian request at the last P5+1 talks for sanctions relief, but seemed hard-pressed to come up with evidence of any other policy effects.

Now, Rowhani's election is being touted by U.S. officials as the "smoking gun."

"The accumulated weight of the sanctions has woken them up from their sleep," said Iran analyst Mehrzad Boroujerdi, director of the Middle East Studies program at Syracuse University.

Conservative lawmakers in Congress, who take a harder line on sanctions than the Obama administration, have made clear they see no cause to let up.

"We need to take our sanctions to maximum levels to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons breakout capability," Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. told The Associated Press in an email. Kirk and other conservative politicians have dismissed the notion that Rowhani is a moderate reformer, saying he was hand-picked by Khamenei.

The administration has spoken in somewhat softer language about the election's outcome.

"I see it as a potentially hopeful sign," White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told CBS.

Ultimately, the stakes of Iranian inaction are about as high as they can be.

"What Rowhani has given us is a new trajectory for diplomacy but not necessarily a lot more time," said Kupchan. "This time next year, we will be talking about strikes on Iran."

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Brazil protesters struggle to define next steps

Brazil protesters struggle to define next steps and form lasting movement

Associated Press -

SAO PAULO (AP) -- After a week of mass protests, Brazilians won the world's attention and a pull-back on the subway and bus fare hikes that had first ignited their rage. But many say the real work is just beginning.

Middle-class protesters marching for the first time say the challenge for Brazilians is to keep alive the political spirit that was awakened in the last week, after decades of apathy. They say they hope leaders emerge at the forefront of an eclectic mass movement and present concrete demands to national and state governments.

In short, protesters say it's time to organize around their flurry of grievances, ranging from ending government corruption to improving public education, health care and public safety.

"I think leaders will emerge but in smaller groups," said secretary Juliane Furno, while standing under a banner in Sao Paulo Thursday reading "Only struggle changes life."

"We're all taking the experiences of the past week back to our universities, communities and workplaces. I think things will calm down now but we have politicized Brazil and there's no turning back from that. We won't return to the Brazil of last week."

Despite such enthusiasm, Brazil's protesters face a dilemma that has bedeviled modern social movements in Latin America and beyond. If protests focus too narrowly on single issues such as bus fares, they risk losing steam when the issue is addressed. And if they embrace too many issues, they risk spreading themselves too thin to achieve any of their goals.

The U.S.-based Occupy movement, for example, failed to turn outrage over Wall Street corruption last year into a focused political force. Demonstrators in Egypt did manage to oust leader Hosni Mubarak but have since struggled to stay unified.

On top of that, having emerged from dictatorship only three decades ago, Brazil has no strong national civic groups that could naturally assume leadership of the protests.

"Based on the experiences we had in Chile, it will be key to foment organization," said Gabriel Boric, a former student leader who helped lead protests that forced Chilean President Sebastian Pinera to boost spending on education and social programs.

"In these type of massive movements there is often a rejection toward any sort of representation," Boric said. "But spokesmen will be needed to mediate with authorities and obtain planned goals. The work has to be permanent — they have to create representation and dispute the power of traditional politicians."

The protests in Brazil are fresh and still running on adrenaline. Some of the biggest actions are planned for Thursday night in dozens of cities across the country.

Only one organized group has shown any control of the mobilizations so far, the Free Fare Movement that has fought since 2006 to make public transportation free across Brazil. The group's first protest in Sao Paulo last Thursday drew such a harsh police crackdown that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians were incited to take to the streets with every lament under the sun.

The Free Fare Movement has stuck to its one issue, and won its demands by putting forth leaders who could negotiate with governments.

The rest of the protesters have coalesced only around a general dissatisfaction with the sorry state of public services versus the high taxes citizens pay, as well as the billions of dollar spent on stadiums for the coming World Cup and Olympics.

But when pressed on how to turn frustration and disparate demands into concrete results, few on the streets could describe a way forward. In Salvador on Thursday, about 5,000 protesters couldn't even agree on a single march route, instead splitting up into two groups.

Ricardo Hammem, a 37-year-old lawyer attending a Sao Paulo rally in a black suit and tie this week, said that despite the amorphous nature of the protests and the lack of central leadership nationwide, the most important step had already been taken.

"It's been a long time coming. Everyone here is unsatisfied, but no one ever complains," he said. "Everyone waits for others to start."

Leonardo Avritzer, a political science professor at the University of Belo Horizonte, said time was short to harness the protests' momentum.

"This movement is like an onion," Avritzer said. "At the heart, there are these well-organized and politicized groups around which there are many external layers. Those external layers are going to disperse very rapidly — especially if the movement doesn't find a way to turn their demands into a concrete, actionable agenda and particularly if they keep up this rhythm of daily protests."

Clive Bloom, professor emeritus at the U.K.'s Middlesex University and the author of several books on protest movements, said he sees common challenges facing protests in Europe and Latin America.

"Theses protests are made up of alliances of numerous causes and ideas," he said. "The difficulty is getting people to follow one of the ideas and see it through. You have 50,000 people out there, and each has their own agenda."

Bloom said a hallmark of modern protests is their dependence on loosely affiliated groups such as hackers collective Anonymous. Yet those groups by definition don't believe leaders can carry out traditional negotiations with governments, and form and disappear at will.

Such groups have driven the protests in Brazil, where every demonstration has included people donning the mask of British rebel leader Guy Fawkes — a symbol adopted by hackers and anarchists globally. Brazil's Anonymous wing, however, has taken down several government and corporate websites and issued demands for combatting corruption and implementing government reforms.

For cab driver Roberto Amorim, what Brazilians need now is patience and to not lose hope if the protests die down.

"There are so many faces and voices out here, they're crying out against the same suffering that most in Brazil know," he said. "Nobody is waiting for deep changes today, tomorrow or next week — I have no idea how it will come about. But the Brazilian people have been so submissive for so long, for now it's good to just see that we're able to put the scare into our leaders."

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Winter storm disrupts air traffic in New Zealand

Winter storm disrupts air traffic in New Zealand, cuts power to homes and closes schools

Associated Press -

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A winter storm bearing powerful winds disrupted air traffic across New Zealand on Friday and cut power to thousands of homes, forced schools to close and generated record-sized waves.

The capital, Wellington, got blasted with winds of more than 130 kilometers (81 miles) per hour. The gusts disrupted bus, rail and road transportation, brought down trees and power lines and ripped tiles from suburban roofs. About 28,000 homes in Wellington lost power.

Ocean waves measuring 15 meters (49 feet) from trough to peak were recorded near Wellington by a government agency. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said the waves, measured from a buoy about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) out to sea, were the largest it had recorded near the capital since it began taking measurements in 1995. The waves washed away parts of some coastal roads and seawalls.

The storm also brought heavy snow to some parts of the South Island.

National carrier Air New Zealand canceled all Wellington flights Friday morning and said it would resume limited service in the afternoon. It warned that passengers could expect ongoing disruptions and that international flights to and from the capital would be affected. Some flights from Christchurch and Queenstown were also canceled or delayed.

Forecasters expected conditions to improve Saturday.

Obama to meet with privacy, civil liberties board

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is holding his first meeting with a privacy and civil liberties board Friday as he seeks to make good on his pledge to have a public discussion about secretive government surveillance programs.

Obama has said the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will play a key role in that effort. The federal oversight board reviews anti-terror programs to ensure that privacy concerns are taken into account.

The president is also tasking the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, to consider declassifying more details about the government's collection of U.S. phone and Internet records. Obama is specifically asking Clapper to review possible declassification of opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the surveillance efforts.

Obama's meeting with the board was taking place Friday afternoon, but the White House wasn't planning to allow press coverage.

The government has already lifted some of the secrecy surrounding the programs following disclosures earlier this month about their existence by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. But the legal opinions from the highly secretive court remain private.

The privacy board was created in 2004 but has operated fitfully ever since, given congressional infighting and at times, censorship by government lawyers. The board was dormant during Obama's first term and only became fully functional in May, before the NSA programs became public.

The board's chairman, David Medine, said the five-member group has a "broad range of questions" to ask about the NSA's widespread collection programs. The board was given a classified briefing on the programs last week and plans to release a report eventually with recommendations for the government.

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