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Edited by Syed M. Aslam
 Dec 04 - 10, 2000

*** " GOOD SISTER . . . Pardon any mistakes I may have made, or any pain that I may have caused you."

(Recorded apology of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif to his arch political rival, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Sharif and Bhutto, both two-time prime ministers, are facing numerous corruption cases)

*** "IF YOU ARE A GOOD PARENT, you are a good parent in a rich country, in a poor country, in a communist country, in a free country."

(Arletis Blanco Perez, on the future of her five-year-old son with whom she fled the US for her native Cuba)

*** "QUEEN ELIZABETH II has revoked US independence for 'failure to elect anybody as President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves and, by extension, the free world'."

(Mock notice from the Queen of England published by a number of US newspapers in the aftermath of the Florida deadlock)

*** "WE ARE THE MOST voracious consumers in the world. A world could die because of the way we North Americans live. Give it a rest. November 24 is the Buy Nothing Day."

(TV commercial asking people to stay away from shopping on November 24, the Buy Nothing Day to make fun of consumerism. The event started in the US in 1993 is now celebrated in more than 40 countries around the world)

*** "THIS IS THE HARVEST of the peace process, de facto apartheid and social and economic suffocation . . . People have no faith in the process. They do not believe in the so-called peace, and they feel they have nothing to loose. This is the fuel."

(Director of Gaza City's Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, Raji Sourani, commenting on the popular uprising against Israel)

*** "*** "I CAN HOLD things in both hands and turn the pages of a book. It's brilliant."

(Eleven-year-old Jeremy Driver expressing happiness at successful testing of world's first bionic hand in Nottingham, UK)

*** "THE RESULTS RECONFIRM that aspirin is beneficial in preventing a first myocardial infraction."

(Study conducted by Yale School of Medicine, USA, showing that taking aspirin regularly reduces the risk of heart attacks by over 30 per cent)

*** "IT REALLY IS TIME . . . that we moved British politics beyond the time of Margaret Thatcher."

(British Prime Minister Tony Blair slamming the former Iron Lady for publicly attacking his policy of contribution of troops to a European Union rapid action force calling it 'a monumental folly')

*** "I THINK THIS IS VERY, very unfair. They were not supposed to get bail. Apartheid is still running in this country."

(Johan Botha, father-in-law of one of three black job-seekers who were mauled by police dogs repeatedly by white policemen in South Africa)

*** "ANY STUPIDITY carried out by the enemy will open the gate of hell and the price will be very high and they will not be able to bear it."

(Armed wing of Hamas, Ezzedin Al Qassam, warning Israel of repercussions if it tried to kill any Palestinian Islamic or nationalist leader)

*** "FOUR MEN IN DARK SUITS got out, and then the fifth man looked friendly so I went up and asked him 'Excuse me, do you know where there's a toilet here anywhere.'"

(Twelve-year-old Berlin boy Tarkan Lohde describing how he slipped past German President Johannes Rau's bodyguards and asked the surprised head of the state for directions to the nearest washroom)

*** "AT FIRST I was really worried but have been told that it's a gift and nothing to worry about."

(Father of two-year-old Harry Fairweather whose magnetic force field triggers the alarms whenever he visits a shop in London)

*** "WITH ITS GROTESQUELY excessive military spending, Switzerland is in a league of its own internationally."

(Leader of Swiss Socialist Party Werner Marti which gathered 100,000 signatures needed to force a referendum for $ 1 billion annual military spending to maintain large-scale reserve forces, fighter planes, armour and artillery)