Clad in sleek red gowns and wreathed in smiles, the models lined up in Bangui stadium for the capital's first Miss Central African Republic beauty pageant for three years -- all thanks to Russia. In a ...

At 17, Joyce Malindi won her first beauty contest under the suffocating limits of apartheid South Africa. Fifty-five years later, she was back on the catwalk, silver curls gleaming and brown clogs ...