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'Congratulations. We've made it on the map. Egypt is the sixth worst country in the world in bird flu casualties.' Amr Selim in the Egyptian magazine Rose El-Youssef Israeli warplanes are dropping everything on the Palestinians: bombs and US, European and Canadian economic sanctions. Habib Haddad in the Saudi-funded Al-Hayat

"It is a fact that Islam as a religion preaches a conduct of 'abstraction' and this does not match with the concepts of figuration as applied in art." -- Safinaz Kazim, Al-Qahira

"Islam is the highest religion. As such it has to be above, not below, a lesser religion." -- Youssef El-Badri to Al-Masry Al-Yom

"There is no Malaysian, Saudi, Egyptian; there is nobody from the East or the West; there are simply Muslims." -- Mahdi Akef to Rose El-Youssef

"The new Iraqis... not only failed to reach any acceptable formula but did not hesitate to imitate some of the most horrible practices of Saddam's regime." -- Abdel-Wahab Badrakhan, Al-Hayat

"The changes in security, the rule of law and services are minimal. They cannot be detected by the naked eye." -- Jabir Habib Jabir, Asharq Al-Awsat

"The aftermath of the US invasion was an absolute catastrophe: no state, no acceptable government, no security and no services. Iraq is left in a state of complete anarchy, division and possible civil war." -- Nouri Hammadi Al-Duleimi, Al-Ittihad