*** "IT IS TIME we begin dealing with the real Islam and the real West rather than caricatures of each other... What motivates a suicide bomber that his instinct for survival is overcome by a death wish?"

(President Pervez Musharraf criticizing the increasing anti-Muslim bias in the West calling for an alliance of the two. He was speaking at a Harvard University meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts)

*** "SOME ARE ACCUSING ME of endangering the German-American friendship. What kind of friendship is that if you are not free to state your opinion but instead have to stand there and click your heels together?"

(German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder saying his country would not follow the US into war with Iraq)

*** "THE US GOVERNMENT has failed to uphold the very values that President Bush declared were under attack on September 11. It has ignored basic restraints on a government's power to detain that are the hallmarks of free and democratic nations."

(Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch saying that arbitrary arrests compromised the civil rights in the US)

*** "THE AMOUNT OF CORRUPTION and bribery was huge and the circumstances of the crimes were quite serious."

(Official Chinese news agency Xinhua commenting on sentencing to death of former provincial tax chief for embezzling $ 5.84 million)

*** "THIS IS A COURT OF THE OCCUPATION. You have no right to put me on trial, the state of Israel should be on trial."

(Leader of the popular Palestinian uprising 'Intifada', Marwan Barghouti, refusing to recognize the Israeli court trying him for masterminding attacks that killed 26 Israelis)

*** "I AM TRYING to tailor democracy according to the needs of Pakistan."

(President Pervez Musharraf's interview on a BBC programme)

*** "THE MARTYR Mir Murtada (Murtaza) Bhutto, secretary-general of the Pakistani (Al) Zulfikar organization, suggested crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York with a plane..."

(Carlos the Jackal, once one of the world's most wanted terrorist, claiming that the assassinated brother of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was the first person to suggest slamming planes into the WTC during a meeting of an unspecified group of "anti-imperialists" back in 1991 to avenge the destruction of Iraq by the US)

*** "IF THE WHITE HOUSE does not meet my demand... I will be your horrible ghost and I will hunt you in the White House. I will be armed..."

(Threatening e-mail sent by an under-trial man in Turkey to the White House in the wake of 11.9 attacks last year)

*** "SHE'S TALKING RUBBISH. You can't pass judgment on the working classes. If she doesn't it, then get out."

(A 76-year-old resident of a rundown public housing estate calling pop superstar Madonna rude, arrogant and ridiculous for complaining that public housing projects were a blot on the city's landscape)

*** "I THOUGHT: if the coup plotters triumph, and don't put me behind bars, how am I going to feed the family. Honestly, I thought about becoming a taxi driver."

(Russian President Vladimir Putin recounting the fear following his resignation from the KGB during the hardline uprising in 1991)

*** "REMEMBER WE CANNOT buy another planet... We need more than your applause, your comments of well done, or good speech. We need action."

(Fourteen-year-old Ecuadorian Analiz Vergara speaking at the UN Earth Summit held recently in South Africa)

*** "IF THE UNITED STATES believes that it can use a monopoly over sources of energy as a weapon against others, it will end up fighting the whole world and risk losing everything."

(Saudi newspaper 'Arab News' asking the US to listen to 'friends' in the Middle East who advise against attacking Iraq)

*** "HIS DEPARTURE had nothing to do with his July 10 presentation to the Defense Policy Board."

(Rand Corporation announcing the resignation of French expert Laurent Murawiec who described the Saudis as enemies and suggested invading of Saudi Arabia in his presentation to a Pentagon advisory board in July)