I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

I think that in the West, many citizens, especially younger citizens, take their freedoms and institutions for granted and focus on their frustrations with their governments' inability to solve pressing problems.

You have made people listen. You have made people care, and you have taught us that whether we are poor or prosperous, we have only one world to share. You have taught young people that they do have the power to change the world.

Good, healthy democratic societies are built on three pillars: there's peace and stability, economic development, and respect for rule of law and human rights. But often, we take stability - peace in terms of security and economic activity - to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar of rule of law and respect for human rights, because no country can long remain prosperous without that third pillar.

Usually, when you look around the world, people are killing each other, fighting over scarce resources.

Not only do these abominable weapons lie buried in silence and in their millions waiting to kill or maim innocent women and children; but the presence or even the fear of the presence of a single landmine can prevent the cultivation of an entire field, rob a whole village of its livelihood, place yet another obstacle on a country's road to reconstruction and development

Tony Blair is a very able politician; he's perhaps one of the best of his generation. He made a major contribution in many areas, but in Iraq I believe he got it wrong. He got it wrong.