The only good news is, the movie, The Taming of the Shrub, opened last night at a supermarket near you.

The international boycott call was officially launched on Friday, 21st March, 2003, in a short speech at the evening sit-down in Adelaide Street, Brisbane, Australia, by a small local peace group, Not in Our Name Samford.

The launch received a rousing cheer from the crowd. It was issued in support of the call for a world-wide boycott from the human shields in Iraq. International boycott calls have also been issued from the US, the UK, South Africa, Chile, Brasil, Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere.

A spokesman for the group later said: "As the Anglo-American blitzkrieg and mass murder of the people of Baghdad and other parts of Iraq is now under way, with B52 high altitude bombers dropping bombs indiscriminately on Baghdad, all those people worldwide who are opposed to this invasion have been asked to boycott all trade with the aggressor countries for five years. Wherever there is an option, people all over the world have been asked to either do without or select instead the products or services of countries that are in favor of peace. In particular, everyone opposed to this war is asked to boycott and to sell out of the aggressor nations’ currencies.

People opposed to this war who live within the invader countries are requested to go slow economically for the duration of the war, in every way possible, both as a protest and to withhold taxes from their governments."

Stop Press.

As this is being published, Iraq is reporting, via the Internet (Yahoo Headlines, March 22, 10.32am "Baghdad Burns after "Shock and Awe"), 250 civilians killed, 207 wounded. Most western media have deleted all mention of the people killed, and say that Iraqi media are reporting "over 200 people wounded." I have no idea which, if either, is true.

Peter Ravenscroft raven-AT-samford.net Reprint freely anywhere.