Foreign Leaders
Page 12
- You know, my father was a great encouragement for me, because he spoke out for women’s rights, he spoke out for girls’ education. And at that time I said that ‘Why should I wait for someone else? Why should I be looking to the government? To the army, that they would help us? Why don’t I raise I my voice? Why don’t we speak out for our rights?’
- And, as a consequence of the pressure that we've applied over the last couple of weeks, we have Syria -- for the first time -- acknowledging that it has chemical weapons, agreeing to join the convention that prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the Russians -- their primary sponsors -- saying that they will push Syria to get all of their chemical weapons out. The distance that we've traveled over these couple of weeks is remarkable.
- Putin stepped in, but he didn’t step in to save Barack Obama. Putin stepped in to maximize Russian influence in the Middle East. That is, strategically, a defeat for the United States.
- It ought to be a shock to all of us, as a nation and as a people. It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation. That's what happened in other countries when they experienced similar tragedies.
In the United Kingdom, in Australia, when just a single mass shooting occurred in those countries, they understood that there was nothing ordinary about this kind of carnage. They endured great heartbreak, but they also mobilized and they changed. And mass shootings became a great rarity. And yet, here in the United States, after the round the clock coverage on cable news, after the heartbreaking interviews with families, after all the speeches and all the punditry and all the commentary, nothing happens.
- No other advanced nation endures this kind of violence. None.
Here in America, the murder rate is three times what it is in other developed nations. The murder rate with guns is ten times what it is in other developed nations. And there's nothing inevitable about it. It comes about because of decisions we make or fail to make. And it falls upon us to make it different. - The foundations of equal rights are threatened by the hyper-sexualization that touched children between six and twelve years old.
- While the president is happy to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, he won't engage with congress.
- President Obama hasn't been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia. And your humble servant hasn't been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either…We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed. But I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems.
- From our viewpoint, it seems absolutely absurd that the armed forces, the regular armed forces, which are on the offensive today and in some areas have encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off — that in these conditions they would start using forbidden chemical weapons, while realizing quite well that it could serve as a pretext for applying sanctions against them, including the use of force.
- How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidences? We're not like the American administration. We're not social media administration or government. We are the government that deal with reality - when we have evidence.
- But for us, in Syria, we have principles. We'll do anything to prevent the region from another crazy war. It's not only Syria. Because it will start in Syria...
- The first question that they should ask themself, what do wars give America? ...No political gain, no economic gain, no good reputation. United States is at all low...the credibility is at...all-time low. So this war is against the interests of the United States.