Zhou was arrested in June after the tiger pictures he issued in October 2007 proved false. Several local officials who had backed Zhou's claims were later punished for dereliction of duty.

Many scientists believe that the South China tiger is extinct in China in the wild.

"It's better for the United States and the EU to relax their controls on technological exports to China, which will both meet our demand and boost their economies."

Chinese Vice Minister of Finance Wang Jun, when taking questions from an Agence France-Presse reporter at a November 14 press conference on how China could cooperate with Western countries in the fight against the spreading economic crisis

"Call us hopelessly optimistic, but we would have thought the heads of state of 20 troubled economies, gathering in one place, could have agreed to specific, coordinated actions to address the immediate problem of global recession."

Carl Weinberg, chief economist at New York-based consultancy firm High Frequency Economics, feeling disappointed that leaders of the G-20 industrialized and emerging economies stopped short of announcing specific steps at their emergency summit in Washington, D.C. on November 15

"The case for the [Olympic] Games, if anything, is stronger in difficult times, and I believe that the development under way in the east of London will prove a vital shot in the arm for the city when it needs it most."

London Mayor Boris Johnson, downplaying the comment of a British government official in charge of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games that London might not have bid for the sporting gala had it known an economic recession was looming

"Truly, they (critics) want these foreign forces to stay in Iraq because their presence on Iraqi soil has become for them, consciously or unconsciously, a political maneuver."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, attacking critics of a pact giving U.S. troops three years to leave Iraq. Iraq and the United States signed the agreement on November 17, but it must first pass in the Iraqi parliament to take effect