Woman’s 20-year love for beauty pageants

A 37-YEAR-OLD woman has been such an ardent fan of beauty pageants that she has been collecting newspaper cuttings of such contests for the past two decades.

Ida Rahayu Abdullah Thani, who is from Klang, Selangor, has been compiling thousands of these clippings even from Chinese and Tamil newspapers, Kosmo! Ahad reported.

“The Chinese dailies usually have big coverage on beauty pageants. They will publish many photos,” she said, acknowledging her obsession with both local and international contests.

The mother of three said her interest was piqued when she chanced upon news reports about Astrid Carolina Herrera of Venezuela who was crowned Miss World 1984.

Ida Rahaya, who is in the beauty and make-up business, also said she had met Miss Universe 1992 Michelle McLean of Namibia when she visited Malaysia.

Others on her favourite list included Aishwarya Rai and Malaysian beauty queen Kavita Kaur Sidhu, whom she admired for her looks and intelligence.

>Three robbers who pretended to ask for water and directions from an oil palm trader ran off with his car and a shotgun, reported Metro Ahad.

Ng Kong Soon, 49, had his possessions stolen after the robbers assaulted and tied him up in Kuala Dipang, Perak.

> The short run of Malaysian-made movie Jagat in the cinemas has left its director Shanjhey Kumar Perumal disappointed from what he perceived as unfair treatment, reported Pancaindera, an entertainment pullout of Mingguan Malaysia.

Apparently, it was only shown for three days in the cinemas despite a prior agreement.

“It was supposed to be available in 19 cinemas and shown for two weeks. But after three days, the cinemas pulled it out. Their excuse is that the halls that showed Jagat were not full and they had to give way to other blockbuster movies,” Shanjhey was quoted as saying.

“I understand that cinemas may complain about a lack of profits. Who wouldn’t want to make money?

“But this is a question of whether local cinemas will champion local movies.”

> Found in translation is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.