Anastasia Lin (林耶凡) is an actress who believes her outspoken advocacy of human rights in her native China played a big role in her winning bid in May to become Canada’s contestant in the Miss World pageant.
However, the host nation for the global beauty pageant was changed from Australia to China, and now the communist nation appears to have singled Lin out among the contestants and is stalling over her visa application. As a result, it is unclear whether Canada is to be represented at all in the Dec. 19 pageant in Sanya, China.
Miss World Canada chief executive Ike Lalji said he assured officials at the pageant’s London headquarters that Lin would focus on the competition and not go out of her way to draw attention to her involvement in Falun Gong, which Beijing outlawed in 1999.
“She is not going to do anything crazy over there that is going to upset the government of China,” he said. “Our whole approach is to do it peacefully. If anything is going to happen, it is going to happen in a very civilized way.”
However, Lin, 25, said that if she is allowed to go, she would continue to speak out for Falun Gong.
“I am in the Miss World contest. I am not going to do anything irrational, that is non-peaceful,” she said, but added: “I am going to speak my mind, that is for sure.”
“I’m going back to China for the Chinese people,” Lin said. “I want them to have hope and see that someone else outside is fighting for their freedom. I guess that is what they are most afraid of.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not