"The task of controlling pollution and traffic congestion is arduous."

Acting Mayor Guo Jinlong, listing major challenges to Beijing's Olympic preparation, in a report to the local legislature on January 20

"By 2020, farmers will have the same rights and development opportunities as urban residents."

Ma Liqiang, Deputy Secretary General of the National Development and Reform Commission, telling an international conference on balanced urban-rural development on January 22 that reform of the country's rigid household registration (hukou) system, which divides residents into farming and non-farming population, would be accelerated

"We are not forecasting a recession, but clearly there is a slowdown."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, after the Federal Reserve slashed its key interest rate by 75 basis points, the largest reduction in the federal funds rate that has been used by the Federal Reserve since the early 1990s as its main monetary policy lever

"We believe all our partners in the international community should understand clearly and have no doubts that in order to protect its and its allies' sovereignty and territorial integrity, Russia will use its armed forces, including nuclear weapons, and it can do it preemptively."

Russia's Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluyevski, quoted by Interfax news agency, at a scientific conference in Moscow on January 19

"We are not a banana republic."

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was on a European tour, saying on January 22 that he wasn't concerned about the stability of his country while he was away