Best quotes from around the world

"You will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you."

PARIS, January 15, 2010 (AFP) - Best quotes from around the world over the past week:

"YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN"

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken -- you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you."

-- US President Barack Obama, offering Haitians 100 million dollars in immediate earthquake aid and every element of US power to help them.

THREE MILLION PEOPLE

"Early estimates indicate that nearly three million people -- almost a third of Haiti's population -- may need aid, making this one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas."

-- Former US president Bill Clinton, warning of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Haiti in an op-ed in The Washington Post and imploring Americans and others to open their wallets to aid the quake-stricken nation.

MIRACLE

"It's a small miracle."

-- UN chief Ban Ki-moon, announcing that an Estonian police officer was pulled out of the rubble alive and transferred to an Argentinian hospital in Port-au-Prince. The United Nations said at least 36 of its staffers were confirmed to have died in the devastating Haiti quake, the worst disaster in its history to strike the global body.

VERY SORRY

"I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologise for the way the demarche was handled and perceived."

- Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, apologising to Turkish Ambassador Oguz Celikkol for giving him an angry dressing down in front of cameras to protest a Turkish television series portraying Mossad agents as baby snatchers.

NO YOU CAN'T

"Such filthy actions are easy to carry out but such adventurism will do you no good."

-- Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani, accusing US President Barack Obama of state terrorism over the killing in a bomb attack in Tehran of a leading atomic scientist.

NO SLAVE LABOUR

"The tombs are located in the direct vicinity of the pyramid and even overlook it. If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs in this area."

- Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, about workers' tombs found near Egypt's largest pyramid.

ANOTHER MAN'S WAR

"The American empire's war in Afghanistan is not our war. It's not in Jordan's interest."

- 78 Jordanian opposition figures, including influential Muslim Brotherhood leader Hammam Said, in a statement demanding an end to Jordan's cooperation with the CIA.

MOURNING GOOGLE

"I don't know what I'll do without Google. I've come here to pay my respects to Google."

-- Message placed on top of Google's sign at its Beijing headquarters after the Internet giant vowed to stop bowing to Chinese Internet censors and risk banishment, in protest at cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

SHOT IN THE DARK

"He shot them, even the ones who were already dead."

-- Rasul Sangki, deputy mayor of the town of Ampatuan in the Philippines, tells a court how he saw Andal Ampatuan Jnr, the chief suspect in the Philippines' worst political massacre, personally lead a cold-blooded ambush and murder of 57 people.

OUT OF HIDING

"We are no longer hiding any more."

-- Zeng Anquan, 45, featured in a front-page photo of the English-language China Daily, after being "married" to his partner in what the paper called the first public gay partnership ceremony in China.

IN OUR DEFENCE

"This test is defensive in nature and not targeted at any other country."

-- China announces a successful test of a missile intercept system in what analysts described as a show of its advanced air defence capabilities.

KICKING THE BALL

"Now, the ball is in the Thai court. It's up to Thailand whether to kick it or not."

-- Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on a festering row with Thailand.

VICTIM OF PORN

"It is because of the influence of pornography on the Internet that I was only able to go to junior college."

-- An unidentified Chinese student who said his studies suffered after he discovered Internet porn but has been rewarded for reporting pornographic websites.

OFF THE JOB

"Paresh Baruah has been removed from the railway service with immediate effect."

-- Statement from Indian railways after realising that one of the country's most wanted militants was still on the payroll 30 years after he last turned up for work.