"The deadline is only five years away, and we are facing huge challenges at this critical moment."

Chinese Minister of Health Chen Zhu, calling for a "sense of urgency" in international community's efforts to realize the UN's Millennium Development Goals

"China has almost lost its role in the international trade system in setting commodity prices."

Yao Jian, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, when proposing measures to increase China's negotiating powers with overseas commodities suppliers on May 17

"A factory that disconsiders the integrity of human life and treats workers just as part of production lines is the cruelest sweatshop more than anything else."

Qiu Feng, a commentator with Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily News, hitting out at the rigid, quasi-military corporate culture of Shenzhen-based Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract manufacturer operated by Taiwan electronics giant Hon Hai Group, where nine employees committed suicide in the first five months of this year

"Ninety-nine percent of European people are delighted to have Chinese goods and the EU's imports from China are beneficial to EU consumers, and it also help keep European producers awake and competitive."

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, at a forum on the sidelines of the World Expo in Shanghai

"This agreement should be regarded positively and there is no need for sanctions now that we (Turkey and Brazil) have made guarantees and the low enriched uranium will remain in Turkey."

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu, suggesting there was "no need" for further UN sanctions against Iran after Iran, Turkey and Brazil signed a nuclear fuel swap deal in Tehran on May 17, under which Iran will ship most of its low enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 20 percent uranium fuel needed for its reactor

"If the various estimates we have received...come true, then we are in the situation where, 40 years down the line, we effectively are out of fish."

Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environmental Program's green-economy initiative, saying the world faces the possibility of fishless oceans by 2050