Protests as Brazil's acting president begins term

Street protests and controversy over the absence of female ministers clouded Brazilian acting President Michel Temer's political honeymoon Monday as he began his first full week in power. Temer took over from president Dilma Rousseff last week after the Senate voted to open an impeachment trial on charges that she illegally manipulated the budget. In a television interview late Sunday, Temer vowed to unite Brazil after months of increasingly divisive debate over the impeachment of Rousseff, who accuses Temer of leading a coup.

But just days into the job, Temer finds himself under steady attack from the left. Jeering and pot banging could be heard in parts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo during his television interview. Street protests also took place Sunday in several cities, including the capital Brasilia and the financial center Sao Paulo. Another was held Monday in Rio de Janeiro, which hosts the Olympics in less than three months. "Coup mongers, fascists, you will not get through!" activists yelled. "This coup is setting us years back," said renowned Brazilian film maker Rui Guerra, 84, who was taking part in the protest.

"The popular reaction to the coup continues and the protests should continue," Rui Falcao, president of Rousseff's Workers' Party, said Monday. Polls show Temer - the son of Lebanese immigrants - is unpopular. His naming of a cabinet with no women in it, just as Brazil's first woman president was suspended - has put him on the defensive in some quarters. In his Sunday interview he looked to sidestep the controversy, insisting that women would be given powerful posts, although not at ministerial level. But his reference to women as "representatives of the feminine world" drew derision in opposition social media.