Miss Universe Azerbaijan 2013 Aysel Manafova

OHMYGOSSIP — Aysel Manafova is an Azeri beauty queen and current Miss Azerbaijan she will represent her country in Miss Universe 2013 on 9 November in Moscow, Russia. Manafova is the first woman to represent Azerbaijan in the Miss Universe pageant.

Aysel is an Azeri Model from Baku.

Aysel was crowned as the New Miss Azerbaijan 2012 in Baku. In 2013, She appointed to represent Azerbaijan at the Miss Universe 2013.

Miss Universe 2013 will be the 62nd Miss Universe pageant. It will be held on November 9, 2013 at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia. Olivia Culpo, Miss Universe 2012 from the USA will crown her successor at the end of the event. This will be the first time Russia will host. The pageant will be televised on NBC and Telemundo.

Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers. The contest was founded in 1952 by California clothing company Pacific Mills. The pageant became part of Kayser-Roth and then Gulf and Western Industries, before being acquired by Donald Trump in 1996. In 1998, Miss Universe changed its name from Miss Universe, Inc. to Miss Universe Organization and the headquarters moved from Long Beach California, to New York City that year. Donald Trump brought in a new team of professionals to the contest headed by its new CEO, Molly Miles, and president Maureen Reidy. The contest would use the slogan “Redefined for Today” for promotion of the pageants.

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Azerbaijan  is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Known for its wealth of crude oil and natural gas reserves, Azerbaijan is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.

At 86.6 thousand square kilometers (33.436 thousand sq mi) in total and a population of around 9.4 million, Azerbaijan, with its strategic geopolitical location, has been at the crossroads of several civilizations over the centuries. Known to have the majority of the climate zones, the country is home to rich and diverse fauna and flora, which are also reflected in the richness of the national cuisine.

The location of human and pre-human habitation that dates back two million years, remnants of Azerbaijan’s history include Bronze Age petroglyphs and medieval structures. In modern times, it was the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater, and plays. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) also established on May 28, 1918, was the first secular Muslim-majority country built on the principles of a western style democracy with a constitution that granted equal rights to all citizens, including voting right for women. That entity, however, existed only for 23 months as it was invaded and incorporated into the Soviet Union by the Red Army under the name Azerbaijan SSR. At the verge of the Soviet Union’s collapse, ethnic strife in Nagorno-Karabakh and Moscow’s indifference to the conflict resulted in calls for independence and secession, which culminated in Black January. Subsequently, the ADR’s flag was restored as the state flag and, following that, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan emerged as a successor to Azerbaijan SSR on October 18, 1991.

The early years of independence were overshadowed by the Nagorno-Karabakh War with Armenia. By the time of the ceasefire agreement in 1994, Armenia occupied and expelled over half million people from up to 14 percent of the Azerbaijani territory, which included Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly, and Sofulu. Concerning that, four UNSC resolutions calling on Armenian forces to withdraw from the occupied territories, yet to be implemented. As such, Azerbaijan remains to have one of the highest number of refugee and internally displaced people per capita in the world. Despite that, relative to the other Eastern European and CIS states, it has reached high levels of human development, economic development, literacy rate, as well as a low rate of unemployment, and intentional homicide. With diverse musical traditions, the country also won the 56th annual Eurovision Song Contest and recently launched its first telecommunication satellite. Azerbaijan has increasing global significance in counter-terrorism efforts and as a provider of energy security for Europe, as well as its recent non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.

Today, being one of the six independent Turkic states and aunitary constitutional republic, Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 176 countries and holds permanent memberships in 48 international organizations. The constitution of the country does not identify an official religion, and all major political forces are secular nationalist, but the majority of people and some opposition movements adhere to Shia Islam. The Constitution recognizes the language rights of diverse ethnic minorities of the country, which include the State’s responsibility to ensure the development of the minority languages, their rights to be used, as well as the rights of ethnic minorities to be raised in their distinct culture, to get an education, and to engage in creative activities in their native languages. It further states that no one can be deprived of the right to use his native language. By joining the European Convention on Human Rights Azerbaijan also abolished capital punishment in 1998 replacing it with life imprisonment in 2001, and legalized the same-sex sexual activity in 2000. The households headed by such couples, however, are not yet eligible for the same legal protections available to heterosexual couples.

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