Miss Gibraltar Kaiane Aldorino won the Miss World crown for 2009, defeating 111 other hopefuls at a glittering ceremony in South Africa. "Thank you South Africa, this is the most wonderful moment of my life," said a tearful Aldorino. Mexico came second, with South Africa taking third place.
Earlier African drums and traditional dancers kicked off the Miss World pageant in South Africa, where the glitzy night began in the shadow of reports that one contestant was linked to a religious cult. The run-up to the event was tainted as organisers asked a court to suppress a local newspaper report linking Miss Indonesia, Kerenina Sunny Halim, to an American religious cult.
According to a report by the weekly Mail and Guardian, Halim belongs to The Family International, which has been mired in child and sexual abuse allegations by former members. The 23-year-old Halim told the Jakarta Globe that she is a member of the church, for which she did humanitarian work after the Asian tsunami in 2004, the Mail and Guardian said.
The newspaper said the church group's late founder David Brandt Berg preached free love to his followers, encouraging females to go into the world and engage in "flirty-fishing" of men. "The Mail and Guardian has besmirched the reputation of a young woman without any justification for doing so," responded the Miss World company in a statement. The Johannesburg High Court early Saturday ruled against the bid to force the newspaper to remove the story from its website.
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