"We need to have a firm, constructive, appropriate, but prudent, response [to North Korea's nuclear test]. There has to be some punitive actions, but also I think these actions have to be appropriate."

Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Wang Guangya

"The exit could be achieved by forming a national unity government, but if we failed, we have to call early elections or form an interim, technocrat government." 

Palestinian Fatah leader Hussein al-Sheikh told reporters after the Qatari foreign minister failed in mediating a power-sharing agreement between his party and the ruling Hamas movement

"China has a relatively tougher challenge. It is heavily reliant on exports to the United States as a driver of growth. But China is a relatively big economy, and the mix of exports to the United States is more focused on non-durable consumption goods and capital goods, which appear less at risk in the current slowdown.''

A forecast by economist Andrew Tilton of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that before the invasion of March 2003."

Dr. Gilbert Burnham, leading researcher of a study attempting to calculate the number of Iraqis who died since 2003, made by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

"China's women are becoming more visible in business. Traditionally women have always been on the inside and men have been on the outside. It hasn't been until the economic reforms that women have actually started to make inroads into the public arena." 

Rupert Hoogewerf, who has published China's rich list since 1999, commenting after the chairwoman of a local paper packaging company topped the list of 2006