Compiled by DAVID SHANKS
“These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead. The question now being asked is: is this and the killing of all other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?” – JOHN GING, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, on an Israeli attack that killed 43 people sheltering in a UN school in January.
“I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States
and Muslims around the world, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” – BARACK OBAMA appealing at Cairo University in June for an end to a “cycle of suspicion and discord”.
“Stop the sackings. It’s not up to workers to pay for bankers.” – PROTESTERS IN PARIS criticising government policy.
“In substance, there is little difference. Obama has reiterated Bush’s positions, in virtually the same words. Like Bush, he has called for a ‘Palestinian state’, and like Bush, he leaves what he means entirely vague.” – NOAM CHOMSKY on whether he saw any difference in US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between George Bush and his successor.
“I say it solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France.” – President NICOLAS SARKOZY’s June declaration to French parliamentarians was greeted with loud applause. Al-Qaeda threatened revenge.
“Outrageous and disgusting.” – The furious reaction of the WHITE HOUSE to the release in August of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and the scenes greeting his homecoming at Tripoli airport.
“A second No vote would have horrific consequences for Ireland and the Irish,
and I am not the first to say it.” – German ambassador to Ireland CHRISTIAN PAULS speaking before Ireland’s decisive Yes to the Lisbon Treaty.
“You are increasingly more beautiful than you are intelligent.” – SILVIO BERLUSCONI’s October remark on TV to a female politician prompted 98,000 women to sign an online petition deploring his attitude.
“Mr Bono, tear down this wall!” – ANDREAS LINTZ, a German student, annoyed by the barrier designed to
keep non-ticket holders out of the Berlin gig celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.
““We risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”
– OBAMA told 190 heads of state and government at the UN in September: “We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act.”
“Today, more than one billion people are hungry.” – UN secretary general BAN KI-MOON, who fasted in
solidarity for 24 hours, at the end of a UN food security summit in November, which offered “crumbs” to the world’s hungry, according to Oxfam.
“We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honour those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.” – OBAMA addressing the apparent contradiction of waging two major wars and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.