When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause.

Syria is important because it lies at the heart of a region critical to U.S. security, a region that is home to friends and partners and one of our closest allies. It is important because the Syrian regime possesses stores of chemical weapons that they have recently used on a large scale and that we cannot allow to fall into terrorists' hands.

My style in diplomacy is my style as a human being - I'm very direct and very honest.

U.N. Security Council resolutions are only as effective as their enforcement.

I keep trying to bring a more professional approach to New Zealand cricket. It's an uphill battle. I stay in the game because I find it intriguing and interesting. I'm not interested in coaching international sides. I don't mind short-term coaching. I don't want to get involved in the politics of teams.

Over the past months and years, divisions have opened up in Malaysian society. Now it is time for all of us, in government and beyond, to put the bitterness behind us.

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.

The easy way to make money is to get special political privilege. From the beginning of time, business has cozied up to government and gotten restrictions on competition and subsidies and stuff.