A look back at the week in the words of those who made the headlines.
The ultimate test of our progress will be the extent to which we can mobilise all of the people to think and behave in a manner that puts the interests of society as a whole ahead of their own private interest.
- Taoiseach Brian Cowen sets out his vision as his takes office.
The reality is that, out of the best times any Irish government was ever handed, Fianna Fáil has created catastrophe and chaos.
- Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny's message to the new Taoiseach.
The old days are gone. The old days will never return.
- The North's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, speaking at an investment conference in Belfast.
We have lit the torch on top of the world.
- A member of the Chinese mountaineering team who scaled Mount Everest with the Olympic flame.
Every US president has to have a war.
- Ex-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev says a new cold war between the larger nations could be on the cards because of America's continued military build-up.
We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off.
- The United Nations' Anthony Banbury explains why relief agencies are finding it difficult to deliver aid to cyclone survivors in Burma.
I'm not a monster. I could have killed them all.
- Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who kept members of his family in a dungeon, complains that media coverage of the case has been "one-sided".
We're not saying athletes can't express their views, but not at Games venues.
- The International Olympic Committee's Giselle Davies says the organisers want to keep the Beijing games free of politics.