This Week They Said

Quotes from a week in the news

Quotes from a week in the news

It is necessary that people live in the normal mode. Nothing extraordinary is taking place. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine awaits crisis talks.

They are trying to trample our votes under their feet. Ruslana, the Ukrainian pop star who won this year's Eurovision Song Contest, says that she will go on hunger strike until the country's election result is overturned.

Can you tell me if this is a democracy? I am from Iraq. We had not a democracy, so I wanted to take a picture with the President of Ireland. Zainab Kadhum, a Leaving Certificate student at Ballinteer Community School, is suspended after having her photo taken with the President, Mrs McAleese.

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I would like Iran to continue to demonstrate maximum transparency. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says his team of inspectors has had good access to Iran's nuclear facilities.

Perhaps he didn't appreciate the complexities of creating that degree of infrastructure for people. Minister Of State for Finance, Tom Parlon, distances the Government from the 2007 deadline for decentralisation set down by the then minister for finance, Charlie McCreevy.

There are dead dogs in front of our homes. They stink. Do we have the right to move away? A Falluja resident expresses his confusion about life in the war-torn Iraqi city.

No prisoners were released, no money was paid, no demand was accepted. Ali Ahmad Jalali, the Afghan Interior Minister, on the release of the Northern Ireland aid worker Annetta Flanigan and two colleagues who had been taken hostage in Kabul.

There are peaks, there are valleys, but they're all kind of carved and smoothed out . . . It feels like a low level of despair you live in where you're not getting any answers but you're living OK and you can smile at the office. Jim Carrey, actor, describes what it feels like to be on Prozac.

Personally I blame the Irish. Of all the joints in all the world, I would have laid bets that the reeking pubs of Dublin would be the last to fall victim to the Smoke Police. Instead they were meekly among the first. Keith Waterhouse, the British playwright and columnist, on new plans to ban smoking in public places in England.

It's too much of a hurdle to climb and we are now at the 11th hour. Damien Cassidy, secretary of the Save Bewley's Cafés Campaign.

I nearly died when I listened to Irish Son. I absolutely hated it. It's the worst lyric on a record I've ever heard. I had to take it off in case I committed suicide. It's just horrible. Elton John is not a fan of Brian McFadden's new single.