"A negative precedent set here in the United States can have repercussions around the globe and could provoke debilitating beggar-thy-neighbor policies."

Canadian Ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson, opposing a "Buy American" clause in U.S. Congress's version of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan that has sparked angry claims of protectionism from U.S. allies

"With this launch the Islamic Republic of Iran has officially achieved a presence in space."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announcing the country's launch of its first domestically manufactured satellite on February 2

"How can we not vote? All of us here have always complained about being oppressed and not having a leader who represented us. Now is our chance."

Abdul Hussein Nuri, an Iraqi voter in Basra, after participating in the country's first nationwide election in three years, which was also the most peaceful one since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003

"We are old friends, we have known each other in good [times] and bad, the ones when you really get to know friends best."

Raul Castro, the first Cuban president to visit Russia since the Cold War, opening a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Kremlin on January 30, where the leaders pledged to elevate bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership

"We have come out against neoliberal globalization, and now that this globalization is destroying itself, we have to define the world we want."

Candido Grzybowski, the organizer of the six-day World Social Forum that ended in Brazil on February 1, where around 100,000 activists, unionists, students, NGO members and pacifists attempted to reach common solutions on the global economic crisis and other issues