(photo with many thanks to Peking Duck)

Added 6 June: a poignant history of the Square, leading up to the 4th of June, by Jonathan Spence. 
 

"Mr (future) President, do you think my facade will look as bad
as your face after we win the election?"

Let's rewind a bit here.

She was also featured here in this very fawning story (in this website called "Republican Babes", for crying out loud! But anyway.), which gives some background on her as an oligarch. 

Since this is a blog about good-looking babes and politics (not always scantily-dressed)
And earlier and equally fawning article in Pravda features Tymoshenko the clothes-horse, where she goes from this:

               

....to this....  

              


....and this....
                                  


....to this:
                                  

Ahem. Back to the main story.

Go on: ask yours truly if I'm surprised. I was aware of the heady days of this new eastern European democracy, but events have shown that Ukrainians in power suffer from the same type of chronic political diesease as Russians do - from one extreme to the next, with nothing moderate in between:  from feudalism and serfdom under the czars, to the authoritarianism of Communism.

Especially when they don't have the democratic institutions and structures, both to back democratic government and to act as checks and balance on it, whenever necessary.    

Yulia Tymoshenko was an oligarch before she became a government minister. I guess it's back to oligarchy for them. 
 

"The day when we were supposed to leave for Victoria Falls and leave Crowne Plaza......I was called aside by the President of the pageant, Mr John Singh, and he told me that the Chinese were pressuring him to take Miss Tibet out of the pageant.  [emphasis mine]

I was shocked at that moment, but I acted cool and I told him I have not come here to create political propaganda. I was a part of the pageant to promote friendship, tourism and peace everywhere."

There is no further info on whether she actually took part in the pageant in the end, but I certainly hope so. It would be a fucking anti-climax otherwise.

C'mon China (or rather, it's Communist government)...you already have control of Tibet. Can't you at least pretend to be magnanimous and give it 'face' by allowing it some autonomy to choose its own beauty contestants? Think of this as 'internal regionalism'.

And also look at it this way: no one is going to invade Tibet; it's got no real natural resources; and over decades of hardline Maoist-Communist rule on the one hand, and centuries of a medieval theocracy on the other, you guys and the royal-monk families have pretty much screwed it up already - Dalai Lama or no Dalai Lama. 

So what's the problem?

In the meantime, she seems to be getting along well with Miss China.

 

This is really sad.

The title of this article is "Sex slavery disregarded globally".

"A lot of people become victims of sex slavery as a result of fraud. Criminals attract women promising them high-paid jobs in foreign countries. Prostitutes recruited from migrants are considered laborers on the market of sexual services, whereas local prostitutes are valued at a higher extent. People, who use sexual services, say that they would not file a police report even if they come across a prostitute, who virtually works as a slave. Some people even confessed that they prefer young and enslaved prostitutes because they are more submissive." [emphasis mine]

The last third of the article focuses on Russia. (The source address for the picture below has 'slave-russia' in it.)