Eideard

It was one of the busiest slave ports in the Americas, a filthy, bustling harbour where hundreds of thousands of Africans were sold into a life of exploitation and abuse.

Famished, exhausted and with their heads half-shaved, the slaves were herded off ships, groomed in “fattening houses” and dispatched to sugar and coffee plantations across Brazil.

Now, nearly two centuries after Rio’s notorious Valongo wharf began operating, local archaeologists believe they may have located the slave port’s ruins during a multibillion-dollar, pre-Olympic renovation of the city’s harbour. “As soon as the discovery was made I went there,” said Washington Fajardo, Rio’s secretary for cultural heritage. “It is a moving experience, seeing an existing city and then another city two metres below. You feel a bit like Indiana Jones…”

With the 2016 Olympics in mind, authorities are steaming ahead with a project known as Porto Maravilha or Marvellous Port, intended to transform Rio’s dilapidated port into a vibrant tourist and business hub…

Tania Andrade Lima said the Valongo represented a crucial part of the city’s history that had been erased as Brazil sought to cover up the “brutal period of enslavement“. It is believed that some 3 million African slaves were shipped to Brazil between 1550 and 1888, when slavery was officially abolished…

Historians say the Valongo slave market operated from 1818 to 1830. During those 12 years men, women and children from across west Africa were shipped into the port on squalid ships, packed into warehouses and sold…

Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, vowed to build a square where the 19th century ports once stood. “These are our Roman ruins,” he said.

A past that never should be forgotten. Not as something glorious – like the deluded who still celebrate the Confederacy – but as a blight upon humanity that was overthrown, cast aside as a reminder of a crime.

The beach looked busy in the 1950′s

The French owners of historic Newhaven port closed the town’s pristine West Beach in February 2008, claiming it was a health and safety hazard.

Campaigners launched a legal battle against Newhaven Port and Properties (NPP) to get access to the fenced-off shoreline, which is the only sandy beach in the area.

Now a planning inspector has ruled the stretch of sand should be classed as a village green, meaning locals would have the right to use it.

Even though the beach does not have grass, a piece of land that has been used by a town’s inhabitants for more than 20 years can legally be registered as a village green. Newhaven Town Council assembled an archive of more than 1,000 family holiday snaps dating back 80 years to show the beach has been in continuous use.

NPP previously threatened to halt their Newhaven-Dieppe cross-Channel ferry service if they were forced to open it.

Ironically, the beach is overlooked by a famous 19th century fort built to fight off a possible French invasion…

Har! A truly grassroots victory.

The standing joke about the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach used to be that they were like the diesel version of elephant graveyards: the place where old trucks went to die. But lately, they have become a proving ground for technology that produces little or no pollution.

On Tuesday, the first of 25 heavy-duty all-electric trucks rolled off a new Los Angeles assembly line. All are slated to work at the Port of Los Angeles or to make short hauls to and from the harbor. The small fleet results from a partnership involving the Port of Los Angeles, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and a small business called Balqon Corp…

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have launched the nation’s most ambitious port cleanup effort, which bans the oldest and dirtiest trucks and charges cargo fees to help fund the purchase of thousands of new clean diesel and natural gas trucks. The ports also have been offering seed money for promising new technologies.

The Nautilus E30 has a range of 40 miles (under a full load) to 60 miles (when not hauling). It powers up by plugging into a 230-volt or 480-volt charger for about three hours.

Balqon Chief Executive Balwinder Samra received $527,000 from the L.A. port and the air board to fund development of the electric truck. As part of the deal, Samra moved his company from Orange County to Harbor City, near the port, and he will pay a royalty of $1,000 to the port and the air board for every truck he sells that isn’t used at the port.

Bravo! I spent way too much time on the export side of international commerce watching tired old diesels roll down to wheeze and wait to offload at cargo terminals.

I wonder if they’ve gotten rid of the need for bribes to get your shipment out in time, as well.