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By Syed M.Aslam
Jun 26 - Jul 02, 2000

*** "ARMIES ARE NOT political parties and, in theory, need not answer to anyone but their commanders. So it is unusual when a military regime behaves like a democratically elected government."

(A story in Time magazine commenting on General Pervez Musharraf government's flexibility not to use its military muscle to deal with the agitation of traders against the imposition of the retail sales tax)

*** "I REFUSE to be an accomplice. There's still no justice worthy of that name in Algeria and 10,000 people are still missing."

(French film actress, Isabelle Adjani, turning down President Jacques Chirac invitation to attend state dinner honouring Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Adjani's father was an Algerian)

*** "I MUST confess that this is an embarrassing moment to find myself surrounded by my unremarkable works."

(Prince Charles at a private opening of an painting exhibition in London which displayed 30 of his most recent watercolours. Instead of signing his name Prince Charles puts just a 'C' on his paintings)

*** "PLAYGROUNDS CAN be wonderful places for children to have fun and face new challenges, but far too many playgrounds contain dangers that can injure and even kill."

(Rachel Weintraub, staff attorney and co-author of a report that 170,000 children require emergency medical treatment each year in the US from the playgrounds related injuries)

*** "I LIKE to keep my private life private . . . I don't like the attention. I feel uncomfortable with it."

(Prince William urging journalists to leave him alone saying that he prefers not being followed by cameras)

*** "ONLY THE most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place they can do the least damage: Management . . . The most important skill for any leader is the ability to take credit for things which happen on their own . . . There was a time, long ago, when you could park your lazy butt in a large benevolent company and reasonably expect to retire from it in 30 years as a bitter, broken shell of your former self..... But things won't be so easy in the future."

(Creator of syndicated comic strip Dilbert, cartoonist Scott Adams, explaining the principles of Dilbert's world)

*** "IT IS not the poverty of resource but the poverty of political and social will that is responsible for child servitude. We have read and heard enough. Now is the time to act and restore the childhood of millions."

(Kailash Satyarthi, a leading Indian anti-child labour activist, who staged a demonstration in New Delhi demanding action against exploitation of children)

*** "THESE PEOPLE need some moral support and some comfort. It is now time for authority to serve the people, and not for the people to serve authority."

(King Mohammed VI, the 36-year-old monarch of Morocco, after his return from the tour of drought-stricken south)

*** "COPYRIGHT is a crutch. It's inherent in nature that information wants to be free. An attempt to control information should be just as disturbing as an attempt to control the air we breathe. "

(Briton Ian Clarke, a 23-year-old developer of Freenet, the file-sharing system which lets people download free information with perfect anonymity)

*** "I DO THINK it's rather stupid that we get into 'middle class, working class' . . . I just treat it as a kind of joke. We are obsessed with class in this country."

(Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott on the ongoing debate among the British leaders over the class divisions in the UK)