This Week They Said

This was a last resort for someone who is trying to hold on to power and has reached a dead end

This was a last resort for someone who is trying to hold on to power and has reached a dead end. - Pakistani former army general Talat Massood amid reports that president Pervez Musharraf had considered declaring a state of emergency to quell protests against his government.

I spent the better part of the last three months enduring criticism normally levelled at a genocidal tyrant.

-Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation owner, on the public outcry over his purchase of the Wall Street Journal.

Even if there are a few left, we can't find them.

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- Samuel Turvey, a conservation biologist, on the Yangtze River dolphin, which has been declared extinct.

They are bringing in outside bodies to chat to the clubs and try to stamp it out. If I can see they are trying to do that, I will definitely go back.

- Fermanagh GAA player Darren Graham, says he will return and line out for his club. Graham walked off a pitch recently after being subjected to sectarian taunts.

It's a historic moment.

- Boubacar Ould Messaoud, a human rights campaigner in Mauritania, as the country passes a law banning slavery.

It's a bittersweet day.

- Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion as the airline announces it will transfer its Heathrow slots from Shannon to Belfast.

This decision is disgraceful.

- Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea responds to the news.

The Cold War has come to the North.

- A headline in the Russian newspaper Kommersant as Moscow and Canada squabble over territorial rights in the resource-rich Arctic.

It is time that the international community responded with genuine solidarity and aid to displaced Iraqis and to the states housing them.

- Antonio Guterres, chief of the United Nations refugee agency, calls on the West to help house the four million Iraqis displaced by the war.

I am . . . offering to take Mr Jamous's place, to exchange my freedom for his.

- Actress Mia Farrow says she will swap places with Darfur rebel Suleiman Jamous. He has been imprisoned in a UN hospital for more than a year. The Sudanese government says it will arrest Jamous if he leaves the building.

He's a completely normal five-year-old yet he's completely obsessed with the game at the minute, he loves it.

- Mark Quinn of the Irish Chess Union on five-year-old chess "prodigy" Shane Melaugh from Donegal, who has represented Ireland at under-12 level.

Other passengers asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on him.

- Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell after a man smuggled a monkey on to an aircraft en route to New York, hiding the animal under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail.

I definitely know he cannot be in Afghanistan.

- Afghan president Hamid Karzai is asked about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps.

- Pongpat Chayaphan, of the Bangkok Police Department, which has announced officers must wear bright armbands featuring "Hello Kitty" as a mark of shame if they violate department rules.

It is confirmed that there were vestiges of blood found in the apartment occupied by the McCanns.

- Diario de Noticias, a Portuguese newspaper, quotes unnamed police sources who believe four-year-old Madeleine McCann was murdered. She disappeared three months ago from a Portuguese resort.

Folk music was a response to the horror that was going on all around us and Tommy's calm voice helped to bring people back to their senses.

- Mary Lewis pays tribute to the Vietnam War-era role of her friend, the late Tommy Makem.