"At this difficult time, I need to return to China as soon as possible and join the people in disaster relief."

Chinese President Hu Jintao in a phone conversation with leaders of Venezuela and Chile on April 15 after powerful earthquakes jolted China's Qinghai Province. Hu decided to cut short his South America visit and headed home to help direct relief efforts  

"From Google to the renminbi, China is being blamed for all that ails the United States. Unfortunately, this reflects a potentially lethal combination of political scapegoating and bad economics."

Stephen Roach, Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, writing in the Financial Times on April 2

"We do not agree that China wants only to get resources from Africa. When the West tells us that China is only after African resources, sometimes we remind them that they themselves have been after African resources."

John Kayode Shinkaiye, the African Union's Chief of Staff of the Bureau of the Chairman

"These are arguably the most complete hominid skeletons ever discovered."

South African paleontologist Lee Berger speaking to media after discovering fossils determined to be of a new species, Australopithecus sediba dating back about 2 million years. The bones belong to a preteenage boy and a woman estimated to have been in her late 20s or early 30s found perfectly preserved in a cave north of Johannesburg

"It is enormously important that Hu is coming. It shows China's commitment to the prevention of nuclear terrorism and to nuclear security not just in the country but globally."

Kenneth Luongo, President and founder of the Partnership for Global Security and co-chair of the Fissile Materials Working Groups, commenting on Chinese President Hu Jintao's attending the recent Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington