Brazil protests: Troops to be deployed to five major cities

Brazil’s government has announced it will deploy troops to five major cities to control a wave of protests which has seen almost a quarter of a million people demand better public services.

Members of a national force will be sent to Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Ceara and the capital, Brasilia.

All of the cities are hosting games in FIFA’s Confederations Cup.

The announcement comes after riot police and protesters clashed in fresh protests on Tuesday in Sao Paulo.

Brazil’s ministry of justice said that Recife was the only Confederations Cup host city not to request military support.

A source in the ministry said it would be up to local governments to decide how long the troops would stay.

Shops and banks in Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo, were vandalized on Tuesday by groups of masked activists, who fought other demonstrators trying to stop the violence.

The protest was the latest in a wave of demonstrations engulfing at least a dozen cities.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was proud that so many people were fighting for a better country.

The protests were sparked by anger at a rise in public transport fare prices in Sao Paulo on June 2 but have since mushroomed into much broader discontent with high levels of corruption, the poor state of the health and education services and the high cost of living.

They are the largest since 1992, when people took to the streets to demand the impeachment of then-President Fernando Collor de Mello.