Any organisation has a future, provided it is properly led and it sticks to the objective of that organisation.

The Malays are spiritually inclined, tolerant and easy-going. The non-Malays, and especially the Chinese, are materialistic, aggressive and have an appetite for work. For equality to come about, it is necessary that these strikingly contrasting races adjust to each other.

I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere.

Most developing countries would know Malaysia quite well. Why? It is because we believe in contacts. We offer them some help for training, for example. We call it 'technical cooperation'.

The UN is hardly democratic.

The Commonwealth is a mixture of developing and developed world, in which the developed countries were very influential and their policies hold sway most of the time.

I know the situation of the Commonwealth generally, and I know that the aim should be to make the Commonwealth much more relevant to the poorer countries.