Loose cannons

May 5, 1999
Issue 

Just possibly

"The disclosure that American firms have been selling oil to [Serbia during April] ... is likely to undercut American efforts to moralise to the rest of the world." — Sydney Morning Herald, April 28.

Clearly

"We clearly recognise the importance of the NATO alliance to businesses in the United States and globally." — Joseph Gorman, chairman of TRW, Inc., one of the business sponsors of the NATO summit. Businesses paid more than US$7 million of the event's US$8 million cost.

Lost

"It is puzzling that there should be so much missing ... We need to find it." — Den Woodhead, one of three British government scientists trying to find 60 kg of plutonium that went missing after it was pumped into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield nuclear plant.

Up to the minute

"I think [John Howard] is governing an Australia that no longer exists; he's governing, in his own mind, an Australia that existed 30 years ago." — Dame Rachel Cleland, the 93-year-old widow of one of the founders of the Liberal Party.

Which part?

"Part of growing up is learning how to control one's impulses." — Hillary Clinton, introducing her husband to a gun-control rally.

If they pay cash

"Sales of food, medicine and other human necessities do not generally enhance a nation's military capacities or support terrorism." — US under-secretary of state Stuart Eizenstat, announcing that US companies will now be allowed to sell food and medicine to Iran, Sudan and Libya.

Smart

"A drastic violation of our air space." — Bulgarian foreign minister Bogomil Bonev, after a NATO missile fired at a target in Yugoslavia went through the roof of a house in the Bulgarian capital.

Love

"Kim Beazley still talks to him and a lot of people still do ... prison can't take away from you your intelligence and your understanding of politics or love of the Labor Party." — WA state Labor MP Norm Marlborough on former leader Brian Burke, of WA Inc fame.

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