Stampede for 'Bush shoe' creates rush for orders

Their deployment as a makeshift missile robbed US President George Bush of his dignity and landed their owner in jail. But the world's most notorious pair of shoes have yielded an unexpected bonanza for a Turkish shoemaker.

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Co, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad on Dec 14.

Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 - more than four times the shoe's normal annual sales - following an outpouring of support for Zaidi's act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces.