Protesters demand president’s exit

Close to 1m demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices, and corruption — and to call for the impeachment of left-wing president Dilma Rousseff.

The protests come as Brazil struggles to overcome economic and political malaise and pick up the pieces of a boom that crumbled about the time Rousseff took office in 2011.

Rousseff, now early in her second four-year term, is unlikely to face the impeachment proceedings demanded by many opponents. A fifth year of economic stagnation and a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal at state-run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, has fuelled their anger.