PARIS, May 25 – Some of the best quotes of the week from around the world:
NO NEGOTIATIONS WITH HELL
“There’s nothing to negotiate in the memorandum because you don’t negotiate with hell.”
Alexis Tsipras, head of the Greek radical leftist Syriza party, commenting on the bailout plan drawn up by the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.
SCARS OF DEMOCRACY
“I am not afraid to show my scars”. “I feel like it’s a kind of victory. We have paid the price for democracy and we have won”.
Ylva Helene Schwenke, a 15-year-old survivor of Norway’s Utoeya massacre showing large scars during testimony at the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, accused of killing 77 people.
ONE MAN, ONLY ONE VOTE
“No, no! What? Do you want one president or two?”
— Judge at a Cairo polling booth, when an elderly man casting his ballot in Egypt’s first free presidential elections asked whether he could choose more than one name from the list.
FUTURE APOLOGY
“Within the past decade more than 10 babies have been born in this family of Abdelbaset Megrahi. One day these Abdelbaset babies will get an apology from the world.”
— Mohammad al-Megrahi after his brother, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, died of cancer declaring his innocence to the end.
GASPING FOR AIR
“We can’t breathe in here. When can we go home?”
— Nimah Mansur, a Yemeni woman whose family fled after Al-Qaeda militants overran their home town in the southern province of Abyan and who are now sharing a refugee tent with two other.
LOCK THEM UP
“The security of Israeli citizens is really undermined as a result of these infiltrators and their behaviour here, so I proposed clearing out the prisons.”
– Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who argues that migrants will harm the Jewish character of the state and wants petty criminals released to make space for 50,000 illegal “infiltrators.”
COURT BATTLE
“We will fight. This is political intimidation. Najib is afraid to face me in elections.”
— Defiant Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim speaks out against Prime Minister Najib Razak after he was hit with criminal charges for his part in an election reform rally.
CAMEO ROLE
“I play (underworld criminal) Wolfsheim for about a few seconds… by the time you look down on your popcorn to pick another morsel, I’d be gone from the film.”
— Indian acting legend Amitabh Bachchan jokes about his brief cameo in his long-awaited Hollywood debut in the new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby”.
CENSORSHIP SENDS LADY GAGA
“The Jakarta situation is 2-fold: Indonesian authorities demand I censor the show and religious extremist separately, are threatening violence.”
— Lady Gaga breaks her silence about a jeopardised concert in Jakarta, saying on Twitter that she is facing censorship from Indonesian authorities and threats of violence from Islamic hardliners.
DEBACLE
“The Facebook debacle is coming off as an insult to individual investors.”
— Dick Green at Briefing.com, commenting on the Facebook IPO flop.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
“We consider our mission in terms of action and combat is finished.”
— French President François Hollande commenting at a NATO summit on the withdrawal of French combat troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year.
STANDING UP
“As Afghans stand up, they will not stand alone”.
— US President Barack Obama telling a gathering of more than 50 world leaders at a NATO summit in Chicago.
RIOT SUIT
“You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off your riot suit.”
— Five NATO protesters sing as they dance a can-can in front of a line of baton-wielding police in Chicago.
IT’S YOUR TURN
“Ben put his finger on me and said : now Jean-Claude it’s your turn”.
— Jean-Claude Trichet, former European Central Bank (ECB) president remembering on May 17th in Washington the words of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at the end of 2009 beginning of 2010, when the financial crisis was shifting from the US to Europe.
NO SYMPATHY
“It’s about time. I’m glad he’s dead.”
– Barbara Zwynenburg of West Nyack, New York, whose 29-year-old son Mark died aboard Pan Am flight 103 which exploded above Lockerbie in 1988, reacting to the news that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted of the bombing, had died in Libya.
CALLER ID
“The President just called to say congrats. Caller ID was blocked, so at first I thought it was a telemarketer.”
— Tweet from Elon Musk, CEO of Space X, after the successful launch of the capsule to the International Space Station.
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