"China took only 30 years to produce the environmental problems that had gradually emerged in developed countries over 200 to 300 years. As a big developing country with a population of 1.3 billion, China is under unprecedented pressure for both economic development and environmental protection."

Zhou Shengxian, Minister of Environmental Protection of China, on environmental challenges to the country at a theme forum of the World Expo in Shanghai on July 4

"I do not feel any different today than usual. The memories of the July 5 riot [in 2009] are fading and it should not be intentionally mentioned. We should look forward."

Dilare, a freshwoman at the Foreign Language School of Xinjiang University in Urumqi, talking about the deadly riot that scarred the city last year

"The newest member of the UN family has been born today. This is truly a watershed day."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, after the UN General Assembly approved the establishment of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. The new UN body is tasked to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls around the world

"Those who still pretend that we are not a nation at war are complicit in these deaths."

Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, after a July 1 attack on a Sufi shrine in Lahore by two suicide bombers that left at least 37 people dead and 175 injured

"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression...and this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy."

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, on his theory spending cuts by the world's richest nations will hurt the world economy rather than improve it

"We're in danger of raising the first generation who could live sicker and die younger than the generation before them."

James Marks, Senior Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey, on results of a study of the institution that found that adult obesity rates rose in 28 U.S. states over the past year and that more than one third of children and teens are obese