"The adjustments are in fact part of the whole designing process," Li said, when asked if the late changes damaged the architectural integrity of the National Stadium.

He explained that the realization of huge construction projects depends on social, political, economic and cultural conditions, and designers are obliged to optimize their works with ingenuity.

In recognition of his contribution to the Beijing Olympic Games, Li was invited to participate as a torchbearer in the Greek leg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay in March.

"Some Western countries have always adopted a double standard on the human rights issue and condemned China and other developing countries, but turned a blind eye to their own human rights problems."

Luo Haocai, Director of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, at the opening ceremony of the inaugural Beijing Forum on Human Rights on April 21. Luo said China has never shunned its existing human rights problems and has vowed to solve them

"China is far too important for the international community, and global problems cannot be solved without China. People who have never been to China will gradually realize that China is totally different from what they imagine."

Thomas Heberer, a leading China expert in Germany, challenging the opinion that there will be a confrontation between a rising China and the West in the long run, when talking to Xinhua News Agency

"Today, there is no need to get worked up and say, ‘We must put more oil on the market,' because the demands of oil consumers are probably motivated by political reasons."

Ali-al Naimi, Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, rejecting calls for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to raise output amid record prices, which topped $119 per barrel in New York on April 22, in an interview with Petroleum Argus, an oil industry weekly

"If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Famed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in a lecture at George Washington University on April 21 in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary, where he said he believes primitive life is very common in the universe but intelligent life is fairly rare

"This is the new face of hunger-the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are."

Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Program, warning that the rise in food prices is unleashing a "silent tsunami" to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger