Verbatim

3 minute read
TIME

‘A stable is better, for there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk. The parliament is worse than a stable.’
MALALAI JOYA, female member of the Afghan parliament and longtime critic of fellow legislators whom she deems to be warlords. Joya was suspended after making the comment, in a television interview, that compared parliament to a stable

‘Americans have many virtues—we are a hardworking, innovative people—but we are also impatient.’
HENRY PAULSON, U.S. Treasury Secretary, opening a two-day U.S.-China trade summit in Washington D.C. by warning that the talks needed to address “immediate concerns” such as the effects of China’s trade surplus and its undervalued currency on the U.S. economy

‘Politicizing trade and economic issues is absolutely unacceptable.’
WU Yi, Vice Premier of China, in her speech at the talks’ commencement, in which she added that the parties should not “blame the other side for our own domestic problems”

‘I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this Administration has been the worst in history.’
JIMMY CARTER, former U.S. President, in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, sparking a hubbub in which a White House representative shot back that Carter is becoming “increasingly irrelevant.” Carter later said he was only comparing George W. Bush’s foreign policy with that of Richard Nixon, which he called “good and productive”

‘For me, it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t look back.’
DANICA PATRICK, racing driver, on competing in the Indy 500 against two other women, Sarah Fisher and Milka Duno—the first time in history the race has had such a large female presence

‘Not all Rastafarians smoke.’
ZAHRA REDWOOD, the first Rastafarian Miss Jamaica and contestant in the Miss Universe pageant, scheduled for May 28, saying she wanted to undo the common stereotypes surrounding her faith, in which smoking marijuana is considered a sacred rite

Numbers

LINGUISTICS
8,000 Age, in years, of rock carvings in northwest China that archaeologists say might be early Chinese characters, a finding that would more than double the estimated age of written Chinese’s origins
3,000 B.C. Estimated era that Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (in modern-day Iraq) are believed to have developed cuneiform, the world’s earliest known written language

RECORDS
8,848 Altitude, in meters, at which the world’s highest mobile phone call was made, on May 21, by climber Rod Baber from the summit of Mount Everest
-30 Temperature, in degrees Celsius, when Baber made the call. The phone’s batteries were taped to his body to ensure they would stay warm enough to work

SEVEN WONDERS
45 million Number of people who have voted in an Internet campaign to choose seven “new” wonders of the world out of 21 historic buildings and monuments
2,200 Estimated years since intellectuals in the Mediterranean and Middle East named the ancient seven wonders. Only one, Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza, survives

MEDICINE
43% Increased risk of heart attack for people taking the GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug Avandia, according to a new study that prompted a safety alert from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company disputes the analysis
6 million Number of people worldwide who have taken Avandia since it came on the market eight years ago

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