Muntazer al-Zaidi could hardly have anticipated the extraordinary reaction when he hurled his shoes at US President George W. Bush last Sunday to protest at the invasion of Iraq. His “farewell kiss” to the US president has kept the previously unknown TV journalist in the center of global attention.
Zaidi, who was wrestled to the ground by security men, was beaten on the face, investigating judge Dhia al-Kinani said in Baghdad yesterday. But claims that he has asked the Iraqi prime minister to forgive him for his “big ugly act” were immediately questioned by his brother.
Zaidi’s emergence as a role model for anti-US resistance was confirmed by the Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who praised what he called the “shoe intifada [uprising]” at Tehran University.
In London, Media Workers Against the War presented a box of shoes and a letter to the US embassy, saying that the journalist was “guilty of nothing but expressing Iraqis’ legitimate and overwhelming opposition to the US-led occupation of their country.”
Kenani said Zaidi’s letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could lead to a pardon rather than a two-year jail sentence, but Zaidi’s brother Dirgham said in an interview with al-Jazeera that any apology could only have been written “under pressure.”
If it is confirmed, Zaidi’s remorse may not be appreciated by supporters such as the Egyptian who offered to marry his 20-year-old daughter to Zaidi or the Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus who went further: pledging both a daughter and US$30,000 for the Iraqi’s legal costs. A Bahraini admirer offered to buy him a luxury limousine.
It could also be a disappointment for the Saudi who reportedly said he would pay 10 million riyals (US$2.67 million) for the size 10 “freedom shoes.”
Following the old adage that success has many fathers, cobblers all over the Middle East have claimed they manufactured the loafers, though most footwear in Iraq is Chinese-made. The most convincing claim came from Turkey, where manufacturer Ramazan Baydan said he might change the name of the shoe, prosaically called Model 271, to the Bush Shoe or Bye-bye Bush model.
Copycat footwear hurling has apparently also begun elsewhere, with a Ukrainian nationalist, as yet unnamed, throwing his boots at an Odessa speaker arguing in favor of NATO expansion.
It has also been a busy week for the spinoff online game Sock and Awe, which lets players throw virtual brown loafers at Bush. As of Friday, 46 million cyber-shoes had hit the president.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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