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

The Australian 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. This call is for a worldwide boycott of all trade with the US, the UK Australia and Turkey, and go-slow within those countries.

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 Australia 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 indescriminately, 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.

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."

Peter Ravenscroft  raven@samford.net Reprint freely anywhere.