Nigerian officials celebrated on Monday as a planeload...

Nigerian officials celebrated on Monday as a planeload of beauty queens arrived for the Miss World pageant, which had been threatened by a mass boycott over the country's Islamic stoning sentences. Colourful groups of traditional drummers and dancers were on hand as government ministers welcomed 82 contestants on their arrival from London to take part in a series of events leading up to the pageant in Abuja on December 7.
"There is no boycott," declared Ben Murray-Bruce, head of state-run Nigerian Television Authority, a co-sponsor of this year's pageant.
Junior foreign minister Dubem Onyia told the beauty queens at the airport that Nigeria was determined to uphold human rights following the return of democracy in 1999 after 15 years of military dictatorship. "Nigeria is committed to human rights and will not allow the rights of any Nigerian to be violated," Onyia said. "No Nigerian has ever been stoned to death and the government will never allow any Nigerian to be stoned to death," he told cheering contestants.