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There is some confusion over whether the world's most famous shoes were indeed Iraqi. While a brother of Muntadar al-Zeidi, Durgham, insisted they were from the Baghdad factory of Iraqi shoemaker Alaa Haddad, cobblers from Turkey, Lebanon and China have lodged claims.
Istanbul producer Ramazan Baydan insists the brown, thick-soled shoes are his and currently known as Model 271 but soon to be renamed the Bush Shoe, or the Bye-Bye-Bush Shoe. He has hired an agency to promote them, claims to have taken 300,000 orders since the protest and plans to employ 100 extra staff to meet demand.
The originals have been destroyed by investigators trying to determine whether they had contained explosives, which may come as a blow to Zeidi when he learns that Saudi Arabian Mohamed Makhafa had, reportedly, offered US$10 million ($17.4 million) for his "shoes of dignity" and their "high moral value".
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