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WORLD NEWSTuesday 29 December 2015
Puerto Rico policeman fatally shoots 3 officers after fight
DANICA COTO second largest city, author- Ayala told The Associated suspect was injured during still wearing a shirt stained
Associated Press ities said. The suspect was Press. the shooting and remains with blood, explaining that
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico immediately placed under She said authorities were hospitalized. Padilla de- he tried to help the victims.
(AP) — A Puerto Rico po- arrest. about to start negotiations clined to say what kind of “We are a family. I am try-
liceman fatally shot two The suspect, Guarionex with the 50-year-old sus- injuries the officer received ing to stay strong.”
high-ranking officers and a Candelario, held a female pect when the victims were and how they were inflict- “This is a very tragic situa-
policewoman on Monday lieutenant, a male com- killed. She said police did ed. tion that appalls us all espe-
following an argument and mander and a policewom- not yet have information “This took us completely by cially because it occurred
hostage taking at work that an hostage in an office on a motive. surprise,” Col. Hector Agos- during the holidays,” said
temporarily shut down the before he killed them, po- Gov. Alejandro Garcia Pa- to said in a quiet voice at police spokesman Axel
station in the U.S. territory’s lice spokeswoman Mayra dilla told reporters that the a press conference while Valencia.q
Unearthing of Rio slave port sparks debate over black space
JENNY BARCHFIELD American landscape architect Sara Zewde poses for a photo the space its due. social pyramid, yet many
Associated Press at the “Cais do Valongo” or “Valongo wharf,” in Rio de Janeiro, “The fact is that in Brazil Brazilians view their coun-
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The Brazil. Zewde was in Rio working on transportation-related proj- sites dealing with African try as free from prejudice
first few times American ects in between earning master’s degrees at MIT and Harvard heritage are just less impor- and institutionalized racism.
landscape architect Sara and was bowled over by the discovery of the site. tant,” said Elisa Larkin Nas- There has yet to be a civil
Zewde visited Rio de Ja- cimento, who heads Rio’s rights movement, and dis-
neiro’s Valongo Wharf, she (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) Ipeafro Afro-Brazilian Stud- cussions about slavery only
struggled to comprehend ies and Research Institute. began to creep into public
the recently unearthed The unearthing of Valongo, heritage sites are handled “It’s a very neat statement discourse in recent years.
remnants of what was which was excavated as in Brazil. While the develop- of Brazilian racism. They are The tortured history of Va-
once among the biggest part of a multibillion-dollar ers of the “Porto Maravilha” not interested in the history longo encapsulates “Bra-
slave ports in the world. project aimed at bringing (“Marvelous Port”) project of Africans in Brazil.” zil’s unofficial policy of for-
Excavated starting in 2011, bigbusiness to Rio’s long insist they’ve done more Brazilians have long been getting” about slavery, said
the site is largely inscru- derelict port neighborhood, than enough by excavat- loath to grapple with the Washington Fajardo, who
table, even to the trained has sparked heated dis- ing the site, black activists shadow of slavery in a heads Rio’s municipal cul-
eye: The spot where more cussions about how black say more is needed to give country that took nearly tural heritage agency.
than a half million enslaved half of the more than 10.5 Built in 1811 on what was
African men and women million Africans shipped to then the outskirts of town
debarked after harrowing the Americas, compared to replace a more central
journeys across the Atlantic with roughly 645,000 taken slave port, Valongo was lit-
is an open archaeological to the United States. erally buried — first beneath
pit containing a jumble of Slavery was only outlawed the paving stones of the
paving stones. here in 1888 — more than stately wharf reconstructed
A few paragraphs-long two decades later than in to receive the bride of Bra-
cardboard signs are the the U.S. zil’s Portuguese emperor in
sole indication of the histori- Slavery’s legacy still casts a 1843 and then over the fol-
cal significance of the site, pall over Brazil, with its dark- lowing century and a half
which experts hail as one- skinned majority at the bot- beneath layer after layer of
of-a-kind in the Americas. tom of the economic and pavement.q
Puerto Rico governor says US changing view on status
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) governor’s office, Garcia clarify the historic record, the U.S. Congress despite mutual respect. Congress
— Puerto Rico Gov. Alejan- Padilla said the new stance not only before us, but be- the increased autonomy its has evinced no intention to
dro Garcia Padilla has de- contradicts the U.S. past fore the courts, the United constitution granted. revoke the local autonomy
nounced what he is calling position that the autonomy States and the international “Puerto Rico’s transition to it has vested in the govern-
a change in the U.S. gov- Puerto Rico gained through community,” Garcia Pa- local self-government was ment of Puerto Rico. But
ernment’s historic position the approval of its 1952 dilla wrote. Last week U.S. a significant development as a constitutional matter,
on the island’s political sta- constitution should remove Solicitor General Donald B. in its relationship to the Puerto Rico remains a ter-
tus. In a letter to U.N. Secre- it from the U.N.’s list of non- Verrilli filed a friend of the United States, and it has ritory subject to Congress’s
tary General Ban Ki-moon, self-governing territories. “I court brief arguing that yielded many benefits for authority under the Territory
portions of which were believe it is my moral obli- Puerto Rico remains a ter- Puerto Rico and the United Clause,” Verrilli stated in
released Sunday by the gation to defend and to ritory under the powers of States in a relationship of the brief.q
