“Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame”.
Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella who along with Michael Canahan, was found guilty of receiving $2.6 million in kickbacks from private prison facilities for gaoling up to 2,000 children.
“I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards. I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush without adequate information”.
US President Barack Obama, responding to a poll which found that two-thirds of American’s support the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Bush administration crimes.
“I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad”.
A US businessman active in Iraq since 2003, commenting on a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that suggests more than $50 billion reconstruction money has gone missing.
“I think the Israeli troops should get a medal for the way they conducted themselves in that war.”
A former senior Israeli diplomat, Dan Gillerman, touring Australia to lobby for increased Australian support to Israel.
“If this settlement would be indeed built in the future this is definitely the biggest project that Israel has carried out in the West Bank for the last few decades.”
Dror Atkes, head of the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, commenting on Israeli plans to expand the Efrat settlement by 2500 homes, cutting Arab East Jerusalem off from the West Bank.