Brazil: Millions-strong protest puts pressure on president

Vast demonstrations across Brazil have put further pressure on president Dilma Rousseff as she heads into a fight against impeachment proceedings.

Officials estimates say around three million people took to the streets in 200 cities across the country, calling on the president to resign amid widespread anger over corruption investigations and the worst recession in years.

This week lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha, a Rousseff foe, is expected to form a commission to begin impeachment proceedings over allegations of fiscal mismanagement.

Ms Rousseff, who has said she will not resign, is also under pressure from members of her own Workers' Party, whose leaders want her mentor and predecessor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to intervene by taking a cabinet post and bringing in others of his choice.

But Mr Silva is himself awaiting a decision by a Sao Paulo judge on whether he will be detained on corruption charges.

Sunday's protests appear to have further compounded the already-difficult position of Ms Rousseff, who, in addition to the impeachment effort, is faced with a sprawling investigation by federal prosecutors into corruption at state-run oil giant Petrobras that has moved closer to her inner circle in recent weeks.In a statement after the protests, she said:

The biggest demo took place in Brazil's economic capital Sao Paulo, a bastion of simmering dissatisfaction with Ms Rousseff and the Workers' Party.