Brazil leader acknowledges social protests

Brazil’s president has embraced an outbreak of protests against her government across the country, after the South American country saw some of its biggest ever rallies earlier this week.
Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil’s 1964-85 dictatorship, said on Tuesday that the protests were evidence of a vibrant democracy and acknowledge the need for better public services and more responsive governance.
"The massive size of yesterday's protests prove the energy of our democracy, the force of the voice of the street and the civility of our population,'' she said.
"My government hears the voices clamouring for change, my government is committed to social transformation," she said.
"Those who took to the streets yesterday sent a clear message to all of society, above all to political leaders at all levels of government."
The demonstrators are demanding better education, schools and transport after mass protests across at least seven cities on Monday, which intensified after clashes with police in Sao Paulo.
Demanding more
Many of them have begun to demand more from their government and are angry that billions of dollars in public funds are being spent to host the World Cup and Olympics while few improvements are made on infrastructure elsewhere.
The office of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights urged the Brazilian authorities on Tuesday to exercise restraint in dealing with the social protests in the country and called on demonstrators not to resort to violence in pursuit of their demands.
The UN body said it welcomed the statement by Rousseff that peaceful demonstrations were legitimate.
A survey by the Datafolha polling agency suggested a large majority of participants at the Sao Paulo protest on Monday night had no affiliation with any political party and nearly three-quarters were taking part in the protests for the first time.
Local news media estimated more than 240,000 people participated in demonstrations Monday night that were mostly peaceful.
However, violence was seen in Rio de Janeiro, where 20 officers and 10 demonstrators were injured in clashes, and in the cities of Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte.
State legislature attacked
The vast majority of Rio's protesters were peaceful, but a group had attacked the state legislature building and set a car and other objects ablaze.
As the group moved on to the state legislature building, footage broadcast by the Globo television network showed police shooting into the air.
At least one demonstrator in Rio was injured after being hit in the leg with a live round allegedly fired by a law nforcement official.
Protests also were reported in the cities of Curitiba, Vitoria, Fortaleza, Recife, Belem and Salvador.
Monday's protests came not only during the Confederations Cup but just one month before a papal visit, a year before the World Cup and three years ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The unrest is raising security concerns and renewed questions over Brazil's readiness to host the mega-events.