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“NO DIVINE BOVINE ! The clumsy creature currently inhabiting the White House is a distinctly dangerous animal. Part boneheaded raging bully, part dastardly coward showing signs of advanced stage mad cow disease. Neither of good pedigree nor useful breeding stock, there is essentially very little of substance between the T (bone) and the RUMP, except of course for an abundance of methane and bullshit. It's high time brave matadors for you to enter the bullring, with nimble step and fleet of foot. Take good aim and bring down this marauding beast once and for all. Slay public enemy number one and we will salute you forever. A louder cheer you will not hear from Madrid to Mexico City, from Beijing to Brussels, from London to Lahore, from Toronto to Tehran and ten thousand cities in between.”
― Alex Morritt, Impromptu Scribe

“Financial Times commentator Martin Wolf concluded in 2010: "We already know that the earthquake of the past few years has damaged Western economies, while leaving those of emerging countries, particularly Asia, standing. It has also destroyed Western prestige. The West has dominated the world economically and intellectually for at least two centuries. That epoch is now over. Hitherto, the rulers of emerging countries disliked the West's pretensions, but respected its competence. This is true no longer. Never again will the West have the sole word."

I was reminded of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. When Asian economies were devastated by similarly foolish borrowing the West � including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank � prescribed bitter medicine. They extolled traditional free market principles: Asia should raise interest rates to support sagging currencies, while state spending, debt, subsidies should be cut drastically. Banks and companies in trouble should be left to fail, there should be no bail-outs. South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia were pressured into swallowing the bitter medicine. President Suharto paid the ultimate price: he was forced to resign. Anger against the IMF was widespread. I was in Los Angeles for a seminar organised by the Claremont McKenna College to discuss, among other things, the Asian crisis. The Thai speaker resorted to profanity: F-- the IMF, he screamed. The Asian press was blamed by some Western academics. If we had the kind of press freedoms the West enjoyed, we could have flagged the danger before the crisis hit.

Western credibility was torn to shreds when the financial tsunami struck Wall Street. Shamelessly abandoning the policy prescriptions they imposed on Asia, they decided their banks and companies like General Motors were too big to fail. How many Asian countries could have been spared severe pain if they had ignored the IMF? How vain was their criticism of the Asian press, for the almost unfettered press freedoms the West enjoyed had failed to prevent catastrophe.”
― Cheong Yip Seng, OB Markers: My Straits Times Story

“If the one who is to get us the news is in chains, the news may get to us but with chains!”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“I am halfway through Hillary Clinton's latest called "Living History"...pretty lighthearted on the scale...unlike David Hick's autobiography...I had to skip a couple of hundred pages in the middle of that one because it was too distressing for me to read. Undoubtedly yours will be the same...I will read the beginning, skip all the awful bit in the middle and read your happy ever after bit at the end.”
― Paige Garland, Prison post: Letters of support for Peter Greste

“Trump isn’t the first wannabe dictator who accused the press of being fake news and the enemy of the people. Hitler called the press Lügenpresse, which is German for fake news.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book

“Press freedom is one significant pillar of true democracy pillars, but such democracy stays deaf, dumb, and blind, which restricts or represses the media.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“This glorious ‘liberty of the pressâ€� was nothing but an old and yet eternally new diplomatic trick, making it possible to say all sorts of unpleasant things to foreign powers and yet disclaim responsibility.”
― Franz Mehring, Die Lessing-Legende