Beauty is in the eye of the gunholder

Activists are calling for a boycott of a major beauty pageant to be held in Myanmar next year, citing the military junta’s brutal human rights record since the Southeast Asian country’s 2021 coup. Critics say holding the 2024 Miss Grand International competition in Yangon will bolster a regime desperate for foreign currency while it holds some 19,000 political prisoners and has killed thousands of civilians as it wages war against its own citizens.