Verbatim

“The income gap among Chinese residents has been worsening since the year of 2003 and has reached the ‘yellow’ alarm level. Should there be no effective measures, it will reach the dangerous ‘red’ level in five years.”
ARTICLE appearing in China’s Communist Party-run newspaper Study Times last week, seen as a government acknowledgement that increasing social unrest across the country might be tied to a growing gap between rich and poor

“If this makes the climate loonies in the States realize we’ve got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation.”
JOHN LAWTON, chairman of Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, referring to those Americans who deny what he says is the reality of global warming, a byproduct of which may be increased storm intensity

“There is nothing to be afraid of or that should not be talked about at universities.”
LI AO, controversial Taiwanese author and legislator, stressing the importance of freedom of speech in a lecture broadcast live from Peking University in Beijing. Mainland officials censored coverage of the event following his remarks

“I’m not too sure if his heart is as big as his head.”
HARRY REID, U.S. Senate Minority Leader, on his decision to vote against Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, before the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 5 to recommend his confirmation

“I am furious. They killed my men. If I could, I would drop napalm bombs all over that village.”
TRAIKWAN KRAIRIKSH, Thai marine captain, on the fate of two soldiers abducted and beaten to death by Muslim separatists in the country’s southern Narathiwat province last week

“I have managed to get people talking about the Internet because of something interesting rather than pedophiles and viruses.”
LUCA MORI, Italian computer programmer who found the remains of an ancient Roman villa near his home while looking at satellite images on Google Earth, a map website run by the popular search-engine company

Numbers

$3,500 Price per piece paid by the Iraqi army for an order of American-made MP5 machine guns
$200 Value of the Egyptian knockoffs they received instead; an estimated $1 billion has been embezzled from Iraqi coffers through fraudulent military contracts, according to Iraq’s Finance Minister

47% Increase in monthly stipends, to $916, the French government will give any parent who takes one year of unpaid leave from work after the birth of his or her third child
1.9 Average number of children per woman in France, where the fertility rate must rise to 2.07 to prevent population decline

83% Percentage of 6,336 individuals observed in four U.S. cities who washed their hands after using public restrooms
90% Percentage of women who washed, compared with 75% of men

Performance of the week

Rarely has a disaster-in-the-making been so widely televised—or gracefully avoided—as last week’s EMERGENCY LANDING of JetBlue flight 292, whose front landing gear became twisted just after taking off from Burbank, California, en route to New York. Pilot Scott Burke landed safely in Los Angeles by keeping the damaged nosewheel up as long as possible, before dropping it to the tarmac—sparking flames but nothing worse. “I am so glad we got that guy,” said passenger Alexandra Jacobs. “I just want to give him a big wet smooch.”