NZ Oil and Gas Exploration

New Zealand Government Breach of UN Sea Law

The New Zealand Government have breached the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) by failing to undertake any Environmental Impact Assessments prior to issuing oil and gas exploration permits in the EEZ surrounding New Zealand.

A Doomer's view

Arctic Ice Melt to Amazon Oil Spills: Climate Meltdown Roundup For June 5, 2013

Chinese debt

5 signs that China is about to fall off of a debt cliff

Quartz,

17 June, 2013

In a classic case of procrastination, China has been keeping its massive debt crisis at bay by issuing more debt. However, Fitch’s Charlene Chu, a leading expert on China’s debt, thinks the country’s time is up. ”The credit-driven growth model is clearly falling apart,” said Chu in a recent report. Chu’s argument is that usually “stress starts in the periphery and moves to the core.” 

Here are five signs that she’s right:

1) Plummeting exports in May

A government crackdown on fake trade invoicing likely caused a sharp drop-off in exports, which rose 1% year-over-year in May, compared with 14.7% in April. (Export traders overstate export orders to take out cheap loans in Hong Kong, funneling those loans into shadow banking investment products, which offer higher returns.) That means export growth (and economic growth overall) has been much less than China’s headline data suggest.

2) The spike in interbank rates continues

Smaller banks are scrambling to get cash. Interbank rates began spiking in early June, when the export invoice crackdown officially began. The immediate cause was the alleged default on mid-tier Everbright Bank’s 6 billion yuan loan from Industrial Bank. The crackdown on invoicing probably worsened the resulting liquidity shortage. The one-week rate has come down only a little from early June.

3) A crackdown on unsecured loans is imminent

A scheme similar to fake trade invoicing is brewing in short-term bank notes. In Q1 2013, banks issued 670 billion yuan in short-term bank notes, up 198% from the same period in 2012. ”Over the last couple of years is that banks will kind of invent assets out of thin air in order to create loans,” Anne Stevenson-Yang, founder of Beijing-based J Capital Research, explains. ”The main one over the last few months is reverse [repurchasing agreements], which manage not to be booked against a bank’s loan-to-deposit ratio, so it’s kind of like free money.” If the government blocks this form of interbank trade, mid-tier and smaller banks will suffer even more.

4) Businesses are lying about profits and drowning in debt

The latest report from Caijing says that 71 firms in Guangdong exaggerated their earnings by more than $1 billion combined. And the problem extends beyond Guangdong. ”It is an open secret that aside from state revenue, all the other economic data are jellyfish,” (link in Chinese) a Fujian township accounting worker told Yicai (the implication being that jellyfish are 90% water). As companies lean more on credit-fueled investment in real estate and infrastructure projects (link in Chinese), they are more likely to inflate earnings to mask their lack of genuine growth. And as we recently discussed, corporate debt could amount to as much as 220% of the GDP.

5) Local government financing platforms are desperate for loans

China’s businesses and local governments aren’t bringing in anywhere near enough cash to keep up with debt payments. As a result, local government-affiliated investment vehicles are willing to borrow at rates of 17.5-20%  and they’re padding their balance sheets with fake collateral, based on a recent government survey. Obtaining those kinds of new loans to pay off the old ones will become nearly impossible if the crackdown on fake invoicing and short-term bank notes dries up all that excess liquidity.

Antarctic ice shelf mass loss

Warm Ocean Causing Most Antarctic Ice Shelf Mass Loss

NASA,

13 June, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- Ocean waters melting the undersides of Antarctic ice shelves are responsible for most of the continent's ice shelf mass loss, a new study by NASA and university researchers has found.

Scientists have studied the rates of basal melt, or the melting of the ice shelves from underneath, of individual ice shelves, the floating extensions of glaciers that empty into the sea. But this is the first comprehensive survey of all Antarctic ice shelves. The study found basal melt accounted for 55 percent of all Antarctic ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008, an amount much higher than previously thought.

Antarctica holds about 60 percent of the planet's fresh water locked into its massive ice sheet. Ice shelves buttress the glaciers behind them, modulating the speed at which these rivers of ice flow into the ocean. Determining how ice shelves melt will help scientists improve projections of how the Antarctic ice sheet will respond to a warming ocean and contribute to sea level rise. It also will improve global models of ocean circulation by providing a better estimate of the amount of fresh water ice shelf melting adds to Antarctic coastal waters.

The study uses reconstructions of ice accumulation, satellite and aircraft readings of ice thickness, and changes in elevation and ice velocity to determine how fast ice shelves melt and compare the mass lost with the amount released by the calving, or splitting, of icebergs.

"The traditional view on Antarctic mass loss is it is almost entirely controlled by iceberg calving," said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California, Irvine. Rignot is lead author of the study to be published in the June 14 issue of the journal Science. "Our study shows melting from below by the ocean waters is larger, and this should change our perspective on the evolution of the ice sheet in a warming climate."

Ice shelves grow through a combination of land ice flowing to the sea and snow accumulating on their surface. To determine how much ice and snowfall enters a specific ice shelf and how much makes it to an iceberg, where it may split off, the research team used a regional climate model for snow accumulation and combined the results with ice velocity data from satellites, ice shelf thickness measurements from NASA's Operation IceBridge -- a continuing aerial survey of Earth's poles -- and a new map of Antarctica's bedrock. Using this information, Rignot and colleagues were able to deduce whether the ice shelf was losing mass through basal melting or gaining it through the basal freezing of seawater.

In some places, basal melt exceeds iceberg calving. In other places, the opposite is true. But in total, Antarctic ice shelves lost 2,921 trillion pounds (1,325 trillion kilograms) of ice per year in 2003 to 2008 through basal melt, while iceberg formation accounted for 2,400 trillion pounds (1,089 trillion kilograms) of mass loss each year.

Basal melt can have a greater impact on ocean circulation than glacier calving. Icebergs slowly release melt water as they drift away from the continent. But strong melting near deep grounding lines, where glaciers lose their grip on the seafloor and start floating as ice shelves, discharges large quantities of fresher, lighter water near the Antarctic coastline. This lower-density water does not mix and sink as readily as colder, saltier water, and may be changing the rate of bottom water renewal.

"Changes in basal melting are helping to change the properties of Antarctic bottom water, which is one component of the ocean's overturning circulation," said author Stan Jacobs, an oceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. "In some areas it also impacts ecosystems by driving coastal upwelling, which brings up micronutrients like iron that fuel persistent plankton blooms in the summer."

The study found basal melting is distributed unevenly around the continent. The three giant ice shelves of Ross, Filchner and Ronne, which make up two-thirds of the total Antarctic ice shelf area, accounted for only 15 percent of basal melting. Meanwhile, fewer than a dozen small ice shelves floating on "warm" waters (seawater only a few degrees above the freezing point) produced half of the total melt water during the same period. The scientists detected a similar high rate of basal melting under six small ice shelves along East Antarctica, a region not as well known because of a scarcity of measurements.

The researchers also compared the rates at which the ice shelves are shedding ice to the speed at which the continent itself is losing mass and found that, on average, ice shelves lost mass twice as fast as the Antarctic ice sheet did during the study period.

"Ice shelf melt doesn't necessarily mean an ice shelf is decaying; it can be compensated by the ice flow from the continent," Rignot said. "But in a number of places around Antarctica, ice shelves are melting too fast, and a consequence of that is glaciers and the entire continent are changing as well."

Imagery related to this release is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130613.html .

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
Headquarters, Washington
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Maria-Jose Vinas Garcia 301-614-5883
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov 

Rates of basal melt of Antarctic ice shelves (melting of the shelves from underneath) overlaid on a 2009 mosaic of Antarctica created from data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua spacecraft. Red shades denote melt rates of less than 5 meters (16.4 feet) per year (freezing conditions), while blue shades represent melt rates of greater than 5 meters (16.4 feet) per year (melting conditions). The perimeters of the ice shelves in 2007-2008, excluding ice rises and ice islands, are shown by thin black lines. Each circular graph is proportional in area to the total ice mass loss measured from each ice shelf, in gigatons per year, with the proportion of ice lost due to the calving of icebergs denoted by hatched lines and the proportion due to basal melting denoted in black. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine/Columbia University 

› Larger view 
Calving front of an ice shelf in West Antarctica. The traditional view on ice shelves, the floating extensions of seaward glaciers, has been that they mostly lose ice by shedding icebergs. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Jefferson Beck 

› Full image and caption 
This photo shows the ice front of the ice shelf in front of Pine Island Glacier, a major glacier system of West Antarctica. The image was taken during the NASA/Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Chile (CECS) Antarctic campaign of Fall 2002. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine

› Larger view

Destroying Australia's native forests

A Biomassacre Down Under 

by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

Energy Justice Network,

18 June, 2013

A new report out of Australia, Biomassacre: How Logging Australia’s Native Forests for Bioenergy Harms the Climate, Wildlife and People, by Markets for Change, highlights the harm to forests, climate, wildlife and human health from logging native forests for industrial-scale bioenergy.

Instead of being a clean, green solution to wean Australia off of fossil fuels, biomass incineration—including liquid biofuels, biomass power and wood pellets—from native forests will “seriously threaten our surviving forest heritage…actually exacerbate climate change” and will come “at the cost of genuine clean, renewable energy,” such as solar and wind power.

Often referred to as “dead koala power” because of its impact on the habitat of this iconic threatened species, the majority of Australians have historically opposed native forest biomass energy, as evidenced by a 2001 Morgan Poll finding that “88% of people opposed the use of native forest for wood-fired power.” A follow up Galaxy poll in 2010 revealed that “77% of Australians want an end to the logging of Australia’s native forests in order to conserve their carbon stores.”

Obvious to anyone who received a passing grade in their 8th grade Earth Science class, cutting and burning carbon-storing forests for bioenergy not only won’t get us out of climate change, but will actually make things worse. Protecting forests, rather than logging them, is the best way to mitigate climate change, according to Biomassacre, since forest “ecosystems play a fundamental role in the global carbon cycle—keeping carbon on the ground and out of the atmosphere.”

The report debunks the bogus 20th century “biomass is carbon neutral” myth pushed by the biomass industry, reminding us that, “in many circumstances, forest biomass combustion emits more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels per unit of energy produced.” While the biomass industry insists that carbon emissions from burning biomass don’t count the way emissions from fossil fuels do, the reality is that the atmosphere doesn’t care where the carbon comes from.

 “Large emissions are created immediately” by burning biomass, says the report, “yet many decades and even centuries are required to regrow and recapture carbon into a restored forest,” and climate scientists maintain that we don’t have that much time to wait.

Meanwhile, other studies paint a bleaker picture by demonstrating a “permanent” increase in atmospheric carbon from cutting and burning trees for biomass energy.  The biomass carbon issue is particularly relevant to Australia, which possesses some of the “most carbon dense forests in the world.” The report determines that the “highest known density” of forest carbon in the world is found in the eucalpytus forests of Victoria.

Biomassacre calculates that “retaining the current carbon stocks of the 14.5 million ha [hectares] of natural eucalypt forest in south-eastern Australia would equal 25.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide,” which would be the same thing as avoiding 460 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year for the next 100 years, or “almost 80% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions for 2008.”

The biomass industry typically argues that forests can always be replaced by tree farms, however the report clarifies that “natural undisturbed forests in south-eastern Australia contain around 40-60% higher carbon stocks than those of monoculture plantations or of forests subject to industrial logging.” Study after study from around the world has demonstrated that intact, natural forests are far superior climate buffers than logged and intensively-managed monocrop tree plantations.

While the biomass industry has largely given up the pretense that they only use forest “waste” to feed their massive incinerators, the report reminds us that “woodchipping has been an enabler and driver of native forest logging, with a massively damaging impact on natural forests.”

Even when the biomass industry isn’t directly competing with lumber quality wood by choosing “low grade” trees to chip for fuel, Australian scientists say that “efforts to remove large quantities of defective stems and logs will be ‘value-subtracting’ for some elements of the biota and key ecological processes.” In other words, the forest doesn’t care how straight its trees are—they’re still providing essential ecosystem services including pure water, clean air, fertile topsoil, flooding and erosion control, wildlife habitat, and a livable climate.

120,000 hectares of forest would need to be logged to feed a 30 megawatt native forest biomass power incinerator, according to the calculations in the report. Native Australian species such as koala, black cockatoo, wedge tailed eagle, and Leadbeater’s possum are all threatened by logging for biomass.

Biomassacre also makes mention of the “dangerous emissions of toxic substances and fine particulates” from biomass incineration, listing “at least five known human carcinogens and at least 26 chemicals categorised as hazardous air pollutants,” including nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and heavy metals.

The report contests the industry assertion that burning biomass from native forests would be an economic boon. Instead, it counters that biomass incineration is “heavily reliant on government financial assistance” and “poor for job creation.”

After years of pushback by campaigners against the negative environmental impacts of native forest bioenergy, the Australian Government removed all “wood waste” from native forests from the Climate Change Authority’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), “to ensure that the RET did not provide an incentive for the burning of native forest wood waste for bio-energy, which could lead to unintended outcomes for biodiversity and the destruction of intact carbon stores.”

Another gas pipeline explosion in Louisiana

3^rd explosion in Louisiana in 5 days

Major pipeline explodes in Louisiana, area evacuated

A major natural gas pipeline exploded on Tuesday in Washington Parish, Louisiana, destroying a mobile home and causing an evacuation of the area but no injuries were reported, local officials said.

Chicago Tribune,

18 June, 2013

The blast on the Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) pipeline, which transports gas from Texas to south Florida, sent a mushroom cloud into the sky and sparked a fire on the line, according to Lauren Ritchie, a spokeswoman for the Washington Parish sheriff's department.

"There were no injuries and the damage is being assessed," Ritchie said, adding that the fire had been contained.

State and federal officials were taking air quality readings and investigating the incident, which occurred in a rural area near the town of Enon, 80 miles north of New Orleans. Ritchie said 55 residents were evacuated.

A section of the pipeline was shut and natural gas rerouted to customers along other parts of the pipeline system, according to a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners, part-owner of FGT.

The spokeswoman did not give a timetable for when the section would restart or have any details on the cause of the explosion. FGT said repairs on the line would begin on Wednesday.

The pipeline has the capacity to carry up to 3.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The incident comes as homes and businesses ratchet up their air conditioners to counter warm temperatures in the region, increasing gas consumption. FGT issued an alert on its website, saying it was capping the amount of gas that customers can take from the line due to high demand.

One gas trader said FGT prices were higher on Tuesday, but in line with other next-day prices across the country and likely not due to any effect from the explosion.

Florida prices on the ICE exchange were around $4.12 per million British thermal units, up about 9 cents from Monday. Gas at the nation's benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana was heard up 12 cents on the day at $3.90.

The explosion caused about 10,000 customers of the Washington-Street Tammany Electric Cooperative in Louisiana to lose power, but a co-op representative said service had been restored to most of them.

The near 5,500-mile Florida Gas Transmission system is owned by Florida Gas Transmission Co LLC, an Energy Transfer Partners-Kinder Morgan Inc affiliate.

War dills in Jordan

In Drills, US and Jordan Prepare to Attack Syria

'Eager Lion' Drills Seem a Little Too Eager

Anti-war,

18 June, 2013

Our first taste of the ongoing military drill involving the US and Jordan came with the Pentagon sending a  Patriot missile battery which may serve as the basis for a no-fly zone in the region.

Today the Associated Press is reporting that the drill is focused on ground operations, involving commandos from Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon practicing offensive operations, while trainees portraying Syrian refugees vowed to “free Syria.”

Jordanian army leadership insists the drill, officially dubbed “Eager Lion,” is entirely about bolstering defensive capabilities, and say that the offensive aspects are “routine.”

The timing of the operations, as well as revelations that the recent announcements on intervening in Syria was actually the result of a decision made weeks ago, ahead of the operation.

Max Keiser at the G8

Keiser Report: Life in Open Air Prison

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert report from Belfast on location at the G8 and anti-G8 meetings. They juxtapose the protests in China where thousands wait in line to buy gold to protect against G8-style inflationary policies to the less effective protests in Belfast where placards are waved in 'free speech zones;' while, in Westminster, secret proposals are drafted by Rothschilds to retroactively raise interest rates on $40 billion in outstanding student loan debts. The plan is suggested in order to make the debt more attractive to private investors. 

In the second half, Max talks to independent journalist, Luke Rudkowski, about fake shopfronts in Belfast meant to disguise the true state of the economy and about the few protesters demanding communism and socialism when that's part of the reason our financial and economic systems have collapsed.

A citizen drone

Man whose RC drone was shot down over Turkey protest returns to the skies

Forbes,

17 June, 2013

Many of you might be aware of the situation in Turkey, where protests have been going on for longer than two weeks. Some of you on DIYDrones might also be aware that a man was flying a small RC drone above these protests, that is, until his aircraft was shot down by riot police.

I originally wrote about this on sUASNews, but I have an update: that man has a new drone, and has posted some new videos of clashes between police and protesters:

The drone's pilot, who goes by the name Jenk, was able to capture dramatic footage of the violence from the sky before his aircraft went down on June 11. Video from his DJI Phantom showed billowing smoke, and demonstrators scrambling to find cover from high-pressure water hoses and lobbing back the gas canisters from the riot police.

Now, it appears that Jenk has either repaired his drone or found a new one, and has returned to the Gezi Park protests to capture more aerial footage.

His newest video, posted June 16 on Vimeo, shows what he claims to be a person who was shot by police. His aerial video, which was shot at night, appears to capture a person in a crowd laying prone on the ground.

I also write about a group of activists here in the states who currently are in a legal battle to have their drone returned from someone's private land. Here's video of the drone over the Turkey protests, a DJI phantom, being shot down.

US sanctions against Iran

Iranian Rial Currency Targeted For Destruction

Forbes,

17 June, 2013

Effective July 1st, the United States has authorized new sanctions directly targeting the already-devalued Iranian rial with penalties for transacting or holding the currency outside of Iran. This represents the first time that the U.S. has focused specifically on the Iranian monetary unit itself and the ninth set of sanctions President Barack Obama has imposed against Iran.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “This new action targets Iran’s currency, the rial, by authorizing the imposition of sanctions on foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct or facilitate significant transactions for the purchase or sale of the Iranian rial, or that maintain significant accounts outside Iran denominated in the Iranian rial.”

The tough sanctions are intended to increase the financial pressure on the Islamic republic to abandon its nuclear program. However, Iran maintains that its nuclear energy program is for peaceful purposes only and has refused to back down arguing that it has this right.

Carney explained how the sanctions also target the foreign assets of Iran’s leaders, “Further increasing the pressure on the Iranian government, the Executive Order authorizes the imposition of additional sanctions on persons who provide material support to Iranian persons and certain other persons designated pursuant to Iran sanctions authorities that are included on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List) maintained by the Department of the Treasury.”

The Government of Iran’s leadership controls a vast overseas network of 37 private businesses for the purpose of managing off-the-books investments that are shielded from the view of international regulators.

This month in exchange for pledges to reduce oil purchases from Iran, the U.S. State Department renewed six-month waivers on Iran sanctions for nine countries in total, including China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan.

In early 2012, the U.S. and the European Union imposed payment sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of weakening Iranian oil exports and blockading transactions with the Central Bank of Iran via Swift. However, a European Union court in February ruled against the EU banking sanctions imposed on one of Iran’s largest banks, which extends to the payment sanctions imposed by Swift in March of last year.

The Iranian currency has already been suffering from record inflation losing more than two-thirds of its value in the past two years, trading at 36,000 per U.S. dollar as of April 30th, compared with 16,000 at the beginning of 2012.

“The idea is to cause depreciation of the rial and make it unusable in international commerce,” according to David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

President Obama issued this latest Executive Order on June 3rd and during an interview Cohen said, “the purpose of the one-month phase-in period is to give financial institutions currently holding rials the opportunity to dump them.”

Protests in Brazil

Brazil protests catch authorities on the back foot

New generation radicalised as protests sparked by fury at bus fare hike mushroom into vast rallies against failing public services and cost of World Cup

the Guardian,

18 June, 2013

Brazilians woke up with a mix of euphoria, fear and confusion after the country's biggest night of protest in more than 20 years radicalised a new generation and left the established political class wondering how to react.

Vast demonstrations, in some cases of more than a 100,000 people, swept through at least a dozen major cities on Monday night, with protesters calling for better public services and an end to corruption.

With organisers now planning further protests, the authorities appear to be uncertain what to do next. Although police in some regions cracked down hard, President Dilma Rousseff praised the marchers.

"Brazil woke up stronger today," Rousseff said in a televised speech on Tuesday. "The size of yesterday's demonstrations shows the energy of our democracy, the strength of the voice of the streets and the civility of our population."

The scale is still being assessed. There are estimates of more than 100,000 in Rio, 50,000 in São Paulo and Belo Horizone, as well as many thousands elsewhere. Although these figures are contested, the combined total is likely to be bigger than any demonstration since former president Fernando Collor de Mello was forced from office in 1992.

An increase in bus fares was the spark last week that ignited much of the country, but the huge protests on Monday night were about far more than transport costs. "Far more than the rise in bus fares, this was a mostly peaceful demonstration against a broken transport system, insecurity and heavy investments being made in preparation for the mega sports events that are not mirrored by improvements of our precarious infrastructure," said Paula Paiva Paulo, one of the groups behind the demonstrations.

A Brazilian protester waves a flag during demonstrations in São Paulo, one of at least six major cities caught up in protests. Photograph: Nelson Antoine/AP

Many participants said they joined after seeing images of the police violence against protesters in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia last week.

Bruna Rodriguez was one of many students who joined a rally of tens of thousands in Belo Horizonte, which led to violent clashes with police when the protesters attempted to enter the football stadium where a Confederations Cup match was taking place between Nigeria and Tahiti.

"The police were brutal. Although we were chanting 'no violence', they shot people with rubber bullets and punched and beat them. The vast majority of demonstrators were peaceful, even though the Brazilian media are trying to show we were all vandals. That's not true," she said.

She is now planning to join the next march on Thursday. "It's important to fight for our rights. Brazil is a mess. We spend billions on new stadiums, but don't have good hospitals or schools even though we pay some of the highest taxes in the world."

Marcos Barros joined the protests after learning that his friend, Sergio Silva, had lost the sight of one eye after being shot with a rubber bullet during protests in São Paulo last week.

"He was a photojournalist just doing his job," he said. "It is outrageous that police, who are only supposed to target the legs and then under extreme circumstances, would shoot anyone in the eye, let alone a photographer." Others expressed relief and excitement about being able to express their frustration and desire for a better Brazil.

Tatyana Cardoso, a 32-year-old medical assistant in São Paulo, said she had never taken part in a major protest before. After seeing the violence at first hand last week, she felt obliged to participate.

"I think our police, unfortunately, are not prepared to deal with this kind of situation," she said. "I joined because I'm tired of the corruption in Brazil. There's so many wrong things and nobody does anything. We will host the World Cup, but we don't have a decent public transport, for example. Now I'm feeling extremely happy because I think the citizens discovered that something can be done."The demonstrations coincide with the Confederations Cup – a test event for six of the 12 new or expensively renovated stadiums for next year's World Cup. While football is almost a religion in Brazil, the World Cup has focused resentment on a range of issues, as people question why such huge sums are being spent on stadiums for an international event when the country still lacks basic healthcare and education for millions of its citizens.

A girl suffering from the effects of tear gas used by police is helped during the protests in Sao Paulo on Monday night. Photograph: Nelson Antoine/AP

Hackers from the Anonymous group disrupted the government's official World Cup site and changed the home pages of government websites to call on citizens to take to the streets.

During the protests, placards, graffiti and chants focused on social inequality, a shortage of doctors and teachers, shoddy public infrastructure, corruption, evictions for the World Cup and Olympics, overspends on stadiums and widespread frustration that – 28 years after the dictatorship and 10 years since the Workers' party took power – Brazil is still being run on behalf of an elite.

The marches started peacefully and remained that way for the vast majority. One demonstrator joined the protest in São Paulo bearing a banner reading: "I'm 82. I haven't come here to play." But there were also numerous clashes, as well as fires lit, windows smashed and fighting at the legislative assembly in Rio. State security officials reported 20 officers and nine protesters were injured there, according to O Globo newspaper.

Most of the targets were political: government buildings, regional assemblies and official residences. But there was also evident frustration towards the wider establishment. Windows were smashed at banks and notary offices. The mainstream media, particularly the dominant Globo news group, have also been criticised for their links to those in power, control over football broadcasting schedules and coverage of earlier unrest. Some Globo reporters appear to have removed the icon cubes from their microphones after online calls to target the station.

From their organisation via social networks to their size, the demonstrations bore a resemblance to mass demonstration in other nations. But the comparison with Turkey or the Arab Spring only goes so far, according to historian Marco Antonio Villa. "We live under a system of broad democratic freedoms. Unlike Turkey, we don't have regions involved in a political struggle. Unlike the Arab Spring, there is no theocratic dictatorship to fight against," he said. "In each city here, there is a different cause. But there is a general feeling of exhaustion, of anger, of being fed up with the incompetence, corruption of those in power who had turned their back on the nation."

Some local governments are now offering concessions to the protesters. Officials in the southern city of Porto Alegre and Recife in the north-east have announced plans to lower bus fares.

For Rousseff, the demonstrations should be a wake-up call. Although her ratings are still high at 57%, according to the latest Datafolha poll, they have slipped for the first time since she took office in 2011. The economy is moribund and inflation has pushed prices up by more than 15% over the past 20 months. "My government hears the voices clamouring for change, my government is committed to social transformation," Rousseff said. "Those who took to the streets yesterday sent a clear message to all of society, above all to political leaders at all levels of government."