valienforas
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Dominican Republic clinches Miss Universe
Miss Dominican Republic Amelia Vega, an 18-year-old high school student, has won the Miss Universe 2003 title at a sparkling ceremony in Panama City, beating a field of 70 other pageant queens.
Miss Venezuela Mariangel Ruiz came second, followed by Miss South Africa Cindy Nell.
The winners were announced at the end of a gala night of parades in figure-hugging swimsuits and shimmering evening gowns in the $10 million Figali Convention Centre on the banks of the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.
It is the first time a contestant from the Dominican Republic, a Spanish-speaking country that shares an island in the Caribbean with impoverished Haiti, has won the title.
Ms Vega clinched the pageant with her reply to a question put to the five finalists - "What is the most precious gift you've ever given someone?"
"According to my grandmother, Valentino Shoes Sale it was a letter I wrote to her when she was once very ill," she said, to the applause of some 7,500 festive pageant-goers in the packed auditorium.
Organisers estimate some 600 million people in more than 150 countries tuned in to watch the pageant, a show business perennial jointly owned by property tycoon Donald Trump and America's NBC Television.
As Miss Universe 2003, Ms Vega will take home a year's salary and hold public engagements around the world that will include fund-raising and campaigning for AIDS research and awareness.
One contestant this year was forced to drop out. Miss Iceland, Manuela Osk Hardardottir, could not handle the tropical heat and was treated in hospital over the weekend for dehydration.
A tabloid newspaper reported Miss Spain, Eva Maria Gonzalez, and her roommate Miss Colombia, Diana Lucia Mantilla, got into a fistfight over Ms Gonzalez's smoking habit.
They denied the report.
Panama closed public schools in the capital and announced government workers could leave early to avoid clogging the roadways during the event.
But not everyone Valentino was charmed by the beauty queens.
Thousands of Panamanians protested hours before the start of the contest, saying the $9 million the government paid to host Miss Universe could have been better spent on the country's poor, who make up 40 per cent of Panama's 2.8 million population.
The protesters crowned their own beauty queens, each representing what they say are the country's ills: unemployment, privatisation, corruption, foreign debt, impunity, poverty and misery.
Panama's Commerce Minister Joaquin Jacome says the contest will generate $60 million in revenue for the country.
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