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By Syed M.Aslam
Jul 24 - 30, 2000

*** "WE HAVE not grown out of the colonial system which treated the press as its adversary."

(Director of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, I.A. Rehman, demanding freedom of access to information to public in general and journalists in particular)

*** "NEVER HAVE so few caused so much harm to so many for so long. The day of reckoning has arrived."

(Stanley Rosenblatt, a lawyer for 500,000 ill Florida smokers, asking the jury a reward of $ 123-196 billion from the tobacco industry for smoking-related illnesses)

*** "NO. I SAID NO . . . I have good days and bad days and it is your job to create an environment that makes it easier for me to talk."

(Gaffe-prone Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori refusing point-blank to answer questions from the journalists. He was annoyed by the publication of his off-the-record remarks)

*** "ADVERTISING IS the way to finance everything these days, why should space be different?"

(Sergei Zhiltsov, spokesman of Russian-built space module 'Zvezda,' shrugging off criticism for putting advertisement of the sponsors of the project on the rockets)

*** "HARRY ARRIVED very, very fully formed. I really did feel he was someone who walked up and introduced himself in my mind's eye."

(British author Joanne K Rowling saying that she was inspired to write the schoolboy wizard character of Harry Potter, the biggest phenomenal in the history of publishing. Over 30 million copies of first three Potter books were sold worldwide and were translated into 31 languages while the latest book had an initial print run of 5.3 million)

*** "WE WERE hoping to build a small, profitable company, and, of course, what we have done is built a large, unprofitable company."

(Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of world's most famous e-commerce website Amazon.com)

*** "DO YOU think they would give it to me if it wasn't worth it to them? I earn every cent."

(Actor Mel Gibson justifying the $ 25 million he received to star in the box office hit 'The Patriot')

*** "WHAT IS IT? I am against IT. This does not suit our country. This is not America. This country does not lack population. We have 100 crore [one billion] people — what good is science and technology other than rendering skilled people useless."

(Laloo Prasad Yadav, the former chief minister of Indian state of Bihar and leader of Rashtriya Janata Dal party, replying to a question during a television interview)

*** "SOMETIMES I FEEL as if I am working to make that gentleman richer."

(Andrew Jarvis, a Hong Kong consultant whose personal rent, utility [bill] and phone payments all eventually goes to Li Ka-shing business empire which owns a string of hi-tech communications, real estate and power companies)

*** "FROM CAMP DAVID 1979 to Camp David 2000 is all a path of compromises. Our Palestine is from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea and we will not give up a grain of soil."

(Qais Odwan, head of Palestinian students' council in Gaza, opposing making unacceptable concessions to Israel during a protest rally urging Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to pull out from Camp David summit)

*** "AN AWFUL lot of scientists are following an awful lot of leads, and the leads are tantalizing!"

(Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, head of Neuroscience and Neuropsychology of Aging Programme at the National Institutes of Health US, commenting on the accelerated interest and research to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease)

*** "BEENZ WERE designed for the digital world, just as dollars were designed for the offline world."

(Charles Cohen, CEO and founder of beenz.com, commenting on unregulated 'beenz' cybermoney which is used exclusively for the purchases on the Internet. Worth 200 to a dollar, over one billion beenzs are in circulation)