Loose cannons

March 8, 2000
Issue 

It's called North America

"We need to articulate more clearly where we are." — US Senator Craig Thomas, calling for a more threatening stance towards China in relation to Taiwan.

Non-core obligations

"You can ignore your obligations under an international treaty if you choose to do so." — Prime Menzies John Howard, speaking to well-paid shock jock John Laws.

Screwing who?

"If you have a society based on debt forgiveness, who's going to invest in debt anymore? So you really screw up the market." — World Bank chairperson James Wolfensohn rejecting calls for debt relief for the Third World.

Just like before

"I responded ... out of friendship for the Indonesian people ... I would like Indonesia to be strong, unified and democratic." — Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger on why he has accepted President Abdurrahman Wahid's appointment of him as a political adviser. Kissinger was instrumental in shaping US foreign policy for south-east Asia in the 1960s and '70s.

Market rules OK

"We don't know anything. But if something is cheap, we buy it." — The manager of a Phnom Penh hotel, one of several businesses accused of buying cut-rate electricity from a private company that stole it from the state power company.

Worried

"No foreign investors will be willing to come to invest in Cambodia where workers are strong." — Roger Tan, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, complaining that garment workers are becoming too well organised.

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