 Beauty contestant barred over 'Taiwan' sash: government Taipei (AFP) Nov 25, 2015 - A beauty contestant from Taiwan has been suspended from an international pageant after Beijing objected to the sash she was wearing, the woman and the government in Taipei said. Ting Wen-yin was kept out of the Miss Earth contest in Austria because she refused to compete for "Chinese Taipei" -- the name by which Beijing insists the self-ruled island should be known. Ting, 22, said pageant organisers had initially given her a "Taiwan ROC" sash -- short for "Republic of China", the territory's preferred name -- but later said there had been a mistake. When she declined to wear the replacement ribbon, she was told to "just leave" and barred from the stage over the weekend. "It seems some department from China had reported it, then the organisers told me to replace it with Chinese Taipei at the evening event," Ting wrote on Facebook. Taiwan and China separated in 1949 after a civil war, and despite more than six decades of self-rule, Beijing insists the island is a renegade province awaiting reunification. Both governments insist they are the legitimate rulers of greater China. Taiwan participates in international events as Chinese Taipei, the name of its capital, instead of Republic of China (ROC) to skirt mainland sensitiveness. Ting said her stance stemmed from not wanting her home to be "humiliated", at a time when Taiwanese are growing wary of expanding Chinese influence. "On the map, Taiwan is Taiwan. All the nations enter using their country names, while we use the name of a city," said Ting. Taiwanese foreign ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang said in a statement the "Chinese Taipei" sash had been replaced because of pressure from China. The Miss Earth pageant -- whose finals are on December 5 -- bills itself as an event promoting environmental awareness, and says the winner serves as an ambassador for campaigns. The furore comes just weeks after a historic summit between Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Singapore, the first meeting between leaders since the 1949 split. It also comes after Canada's Chinese-born Miss World contestant claimed she was being denied a visa to compete in this year's finals in China because of her criticism of Beijing's human rights record. |
Late Russian leader Boris Yeltsin's "nuclear button" briefcase went on display Wednesday as a major new museum devoted to the legacy of Russia's first president opened in the Urals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin -- whom an ailing Yeltsin anointed as his heir on New Year's Eve 1999 with the words "Take care of Russia" -- unveiled the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre in the former leader's home city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains.
Putin called the museum a "tribute to the memory of Russia's first president" and the radical change the country went through in the 1990s.
"I remember the words of Boris Nikolaevich that the whole country now knows: 'Take care of Russia,'" Putin said at the ceremony.
"They were addressed to all of us, the current and future generations. Boris Nikolaevich wanted our country to be strong, prosperous and happy. We have already done a lot to achieve those goals."
Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev laid flowers at a monument to Yeltsin and toured the museum accompanied by his widow Naina and daughter Tatyana Yumasheva.
The Boris Yeltsin centre showcases Yeltsin's pivotal role in ushering in free-market policies after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but public opinion remains broadly negative eight years after his death.
"It's wonderful that we will be launching such a tradition -- a tradition of respect for a president who stepped down and his legacy," his widow Naina Yeltsina told Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid.
Yeltsin led Russia from 1991 to 1999 before stepping aside and nominating his protege Putin, then a little-known spy boss, to succeed him.
He died in 2007 at the age of 76.
-'The most dramatic moments'-
The museum recreates Yeltsin's Kremlin office with the original furniture and row of rotary dial telephones.
In a glass case sits the famous briefcase, which had a button inside authorizing the use of nuclear weapons -- now with the electronics removed.
Exhibits that aim to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of the 1990s include mockups of an empty grocery store and a living room with the ballet Swan Lake playing on loop on state television, as happened in 1991 when Soviet hardliners staged a failed coup.
After winning public support at the barricades that year, Yeltsin came to power with an ambitious agenda of unpopular reforms.
But his heavy drinking and heart problems tarnished his reputation and his approval ratings fell to single figures.
Among the politicians interviewed for videos shown in the exhibition was Yeltsin's former first deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader who was gunned down in Moscow in February.
"He was a rebel, Yeltsin," said Nemtsov.
"I can't say he was very up on political and economic theory, but he understood in practice all the stupidity of the Soviet planned system."
Yeltsin's daughter Yumasheva, who was one of his most trusted advisors, told TASS state news agency the centre aimed "to tell the truth about the 1990s", from the constitutional and economic crises of the day to the first Chechen War.
The museum's website quotes Yeltsin as saying that thanks to him, "Russia will now never go back to the past."
A Levada poll in December found just 11 percent of Russians rated Yeltsin positively, while 40 percent said they viewed him negatively. The rest took a neutral view or gave not answer.
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