| "In many sectors, the treatment provided to foreign businesses is still better than that for Chinese domestic companies. If there was anything the Chinese Government could improve, it could be market access."
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, responding to complaints from foreign companies about the investment environment in China, in Beijing on November 29
"What European countries really need is the capacity to form blood, rather than blood itself. So it is high time to ask whether European countries can be more open to investment from Chinese firms."
Wang Yiming, Vice President of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission of China, speaking at the Europe China Forum in Brussels, Belgium, on November 29
"We have no time to lose. I very much look forward to reaching agreement on granting China market economy status without waiting until the last hours."
Joaquin Almunia, EU Competition Commissioner, at a forum on China-EU relations titled Europe and China: Rivals or Strategic Partners?, in Brussels, Belgium, on November 29
"Germany stands firmly behind its partners in the EU and has already contributed enormously by tapping its own resources. However, we also have our own debt to deal with."
Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a regular government news conference in Berlin on November 28, rejecting the repeated calls for more financial support to resolve the eurozone debt crisis
"We have planned exercises (in the region), which have nothing to do with Syria."
Russian Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov, telling reporters in Yekaterinburg on November 29 that the dispatch of Russian navy warships to the Mediterranean Sea was a part of scheduled exercises
"NATO is confident the transition process will succeed…Beyond 2014 NATO aims for a strong and lasting partnership between Afghanistan and its international partners. The end of transition is a stage in a shared journey, not the end of it."
NATO civilian representative spokesman Dominic Medley, in a joint weekly press briefing in Kabul, Afghanistan, on November 29 | 
