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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2012
109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
Rio police strike brings fears for Carnival
In Syria, blasts in pro-Assad city kill dozens
BY JULIANA BARBASSA Associated Press
RIO DE JANEIRO — Not content with legislative approval of a big pay raise, Rio state police officers went on strike Friday, raising fears for the security of the glittering Carnival extravaganza that sets this seaside city throbbing. The work stoppage will force authorities to deploy thousands of soldiers into the streets to provide security in this city of 6 million people that is also in the midst of preparations to host the 2014 World Cup finals and the 2016 Olympics. Officers approved the strike at a raucous outdoor rally Thursday night, just hours after the Rio state legislature gave police, prison guards and firefighters a 39 percent raise to be staggered over this year and the next, along with a promise of more in 2014. The increase was just half of what officers sought, though. They said their salaries have fallen far behind rising prices over the decades, and called their vote to strike a protest against an insufficient raise. “We didn’t want to strike,” said Paulo Nascimento, a search and rescue firefighter. “We’re putting this on Gov. Sergio Cabral’s conscience.” The decision to strike was made by thousands of officers and firefighters who massed in downtown Rio for a six-hour assembly that included fireworks, chants and speeches denouncing Rio’s government. Some longtime officers were proud of bringing together Rio’s security forces in a joint strike for the first time. “I feel like a citizen,” said Joao Morais da Silva, a retired police officer who was shot on the job, losing an eye and damaging his shoulder. “I feel like we’re standing here asking for what’s our right.” Current base pay for police starts at $964 in Rio state, which despite being Brazil’s second-wealthiest state has long paid its officers far less than the salaries earned by their colleagues in many parts of the country. A walkout by security forces could be disastrous for Brazil’s Carnival celebration, the world’s • TURN TO POLICE STRIKE, 2A
BY BASSEM MROUE Associated Press
a German magazine cover. He has the kind of face that makes even the vainest woman jealous: high cheekbones, flawless skin and plump, shapely lips. When he speaks, his ever-soslight Adam’s apple is the first sign of his masculinity. Though Pejic isn’t trying to be a woman, many in the transgender community have already claimed him as their own. He is seen as a bit of a maverick, someone who has embraced his sexuality without any need for explanation or
BEIRUT — Two explosions struck security compounds in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, killing 25 people and wounding 175, state media reported, in a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar al Assad in the nearly 11month-old uprising against his rule. The blasts come as escalating violence between regime forces and an increasingly militarized opposition has raised fears the conflict is spiraling toward civil war. A Syrian offensive aimed at crushing rebels in the battered city of Homs continued Friday, with soldiers who have been bombarding the city for the past six days making their first ground move to seize one of the most restive neighborhoods. State TV blamed “terrorists” for the blasts in Aleppo — the first significant violence in Syria’s largest city — saying they were proof the government is facing a violent enemy. Anti-Assad activists accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to discredit the opposition and avert protests that had been planned in the northern city on Friday. Along with the capital Damascus, Aleppo is Syria’s economic center, home to the business community and prosperous merchant classes whose continued backing for Assad has been crucial in bolstering his regime. The city has seen only occasional protests. Three earlier bombings in Damascus in December and January that killed dozens prompted similar exchanges of accusations. Nobody has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks. Outside one of the compounds hit, the Military Intelligence Directorate, a weeping correspondent on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, collected in sacks and under blankets by the side of the road. Debris filled the street and residential buildings appeared to have their windows shattered. But the
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• TURN TO SYRIA, 6A
Model Andrej Pejic has make-up applied before a photo shoot in New York. RICHARD DREW/AP
GENDER BENDER Androgynous model pushes limits of the runway BY BONNY GHOSH
Associated Press
NEW YORK — On a chilly winter afternoon, Andrej Pejic settles into a Manhattan cafe with a cup of Earl Grey tea, sitting gracefully, long legs crossed. The blue-eyed fashion model gazes out a window, unaware that almost every man sitting at surrounding tables is transfixed. A man in a black leather jacket walks up to the window, presses his face against the glass and kisses it. Pejic giggles and admits: “I find it flattering.” The admirers are likely un-
aware that the beautiful blonde is actually a man. As Fashion Week gets under way in New York City, Pejic is one of the most recognizable — and controversial — faces in the industry. He’s the only top-tier fashion model who can walk down the runway as either a man or a woman. And his androgynous beauty has turned him into a trendsetter in an industry that’s always seeking to push the envelope. “He’s just this beautiful thing that everyone wants a piece of,” says stylist Kyle Anderson, who dressed Pejic for
In Pakistan, a bartender with a front-row seat to history
Margaret Ashong, 62, of Ghana, cries as she recounts her ordeal.
BY KARIN BRULLIARD
Washington Post Service
WASHINGTON POST SERVICE
Battered immigrant women suffer in silence BY PAMELA CONSTABLE
Washington Post Service
Teresa Gomez, a Salvadoran woman in her 20s, and Margaret Ashong, a grandmother from Ghana, endured regular beatings, threats and insults by the fathers of their children. Like many battered immigrant women, they mostly suffered in silence, fearful that if they went to the police they
BRITISH MAN WANTED FOR 1993 HEIST CAPTURED IN U.S., 5A
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could lose their right to remain in the United States and their source of economic support. It was not until both women ended up in emergency rooms — Teresa with her face slashed and bloodied from a knife attack, Margaret bruised and traumatized from another beating — that they discovered a network of support that eventually helped them obtain
TURKEY QUAKE VICTIMS STRUGGLE IN EUROPE’S COLD, 6A
legal immigration status as well as psychological and financial help. “He treated me like a slave, and there was no one I could tell,” said Ashong, 62, who lives in Arlington County, Va. “He told the police I was not his wife and that they should send me back to my country. But [the police] said to me, ‘Don’t • TURN TO ABUSE, 2A
BRAZIL FILES INJUNCTION AGAINST TWITTER, BUSINESS FRONT
sipped beer at the bar and predicted that the crowd was unlikely to improve. The scene seemed a metaphor for U.S.-Pakistan relations, which boomed with cooperation during the Afghan resistance but now gape with mistrust. Yet Afsar himself is a symbol of the ground-level relations between U.S. citizens and Pakistanis, which, despite the diplomatic tensions, are typically far more amiable than sour. Over the decades, Afsar — a devout Muslim who never tried alcohol — served as a steadfast and good-natured ambassador for Pakistan, building a trail of admirers now scattered around the globe. “For a modest fellow from a mountain village . . . he supervised and served the foreign lunatics with kindness, merriment and unflappable aplomb,” Stephen Masty, who managed the bar in the early 1990s, wrote in an e-mail. The club, then called the American Club, was launched in 1985 as
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — As U.S.-funded Afghan jihadists battled the Soviets in the late 1980s, the unassuming American-run bar in this ancient frontier city bulged with gossiping foreigners. Today, with another Afghan conflict winding down, the watering hole practically echoes with emptiness. Through it all, Khan Afsar, the Khyber Club’s unlikely bartender, had a front-row seat. Except Afsar did not actually have a seat in his spot behind the bar, and all the standing recently became too much to bear. So he has stepped down after nearly 25 years of six-day workweeks that he says left him with admiration for the United States, a rare sentiment in Peshawar and in Pakistan at large. “They are good people” — not to mention good tippers, Afsar said. “They are helping us.” As a recent Saturday evening shift began, a lone Canadian patron • TURN TO BARTENDER, 2A
CAPELLO GIVES ENGLAND EXCUSE TO FAIL AGAIN, SPORTS FRONT
INDEX NEWS EXTRA .............3A THE AMERICAS............4A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ...6B
2/11/2012 5:22:56 AM
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