COLIN POWELL, U.S. Secretary of State, after surveying the devastation in Aceh, Indonesia, caused by the tsunami that struck on Dec. 26
"The world is not overreacting to the tsunami, but is underreacting to misery in other places."
DAVID BECKMANN, president of Bread for the World, a Christian charity, on the comparative lack of international interest in many of the world's humanitarian crises
"At first there were some friends with me ... after a few days they were gone."
RIZAL SYAHPUTRA, Indonesian police trainee, who survived for eight days adrift at sea after the tsunami swept him away from a mosque in Aceh
"We have to give them more ... they built Kuwait, and they raised our children."
WALEED AL-NUSIF, editor in chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas, on the need for Gulf states to donate more to tsunami relief efforts in South and Southeast Asia
"This is the right path, and we will continue to walk on it with courage, until our people finally have a normal, complete, progressive, beautiful and great country."
CHEN SHUI-BIAN, Taiwan's President, praising the island's recent constitutional reforms in his annual New Year's Day address
"The U.N., without the U.S. behind it, is a failed institution."
RICHARD HOLBROOKE, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on the international organization's need to improve relations with its host nation
"Hi, I'm Richard Gere, and I'm speaking for the entire world."
RICHARD GERE, Hollywood actor, appearing in a TV ad urging Palestinians to vote in Sunday's election