Grounded

IN JUNE THIS year Brazil was struck by an outbreak of mass protests as sudden as a tropical storm. Brutal policing of demonstrations against a rise in bus fares elicited a wave of solidarity and brought more than a million marchers to the streets on subsequent nights. It also gave vent to previously unsuspected public fury over rising inflation, high taxes, poor public services and political corruption. Even football, a Brazilian passion, became a target of the protesters’ ire. Many carried placards contrasting their government’s lavish spending on stadiums for next year’s World Cup with the dire state of the rest of the country’s infrastructure.