Brazilian police debate next steps in pay strike

Police officers and firefighters in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro are set for meetings to decide whether to continue their strike over pay. Officials say the stoppage has had a limited effect and one police force has already decided to suspend its action. But other union leaders insist the strike, which comes just days before Rio's annual carnival, will go on. Police in the state of Bahia voted at the weekend to end their 12-day strike after being offered a 6.5% wage rise. Officials in Bahia said they had also agreed that none of the officers who stopped work would be punished. The stoppage had led to an increase in reported murders and violence before troops and federal police were deployed to keep order. In Rio de Janeiro, police and firefighters voted to take action despite being offered a 39% increase in pay. Trade unions said this was not enough to make up for decades of falling wages. On Sunday, some 400 people demonstrated on Copacabana beach to call for the release of several arrested officers, who they say have been locked up in maximum security prisons with criminals they put behind bars. The civilian police decided to call a halt to their action on Saturday, while union leaders of the military police and firefighters were due to decide their next steps on Monday. Very few officers had failed to turn up for work on Monday, according to a spokesman for the military police force, quoted by the Agencia Brasil news agency. Rio's carnival is the world's largest and gets under way on 17 February. The venue for the parades, the Sambadrome, has been completely refurbished over the past 10 months.