Verbatim

‘No, no for the devil. No, no for America. No, no for the occupation. No, no for Israel.’
MUQTADA AL-SADR, radical Shi’ite cleric, emerging in public for the first time in months, in a fiery anti-American sermon in the holy Shi’ite city of Kufa. He called for U.S. forces to leave Iraq, but vowed to defend Sunnis and Christians

‘Every now and then nature throws up these sorts of things.’
RUSSELL SNELL, New Zealand biotech researcher, whose company is breeding cows that give skimmed milk. The herd descends from a single Friesian cow named Marge, which scientists discovered had a rare gene mutation for low-fat, Omega 3-rich milk while testing New Zealand dairy cows in 2001

‘She can’t be hurt by it but her boys can. Above all else, Diana was a mother.’
ROSA MONCKTON, a friend of Princess Diana, saying images of the princess’s crash featured in a forthcoming Channel 4 documentary in the U.K. are insensitive and designed to boost TV ratings

‘I noticed [Tinky Winky] has a lady’s purse, but I didn’t realize he’s a boy.’
EWA SOWINSKA, Poland’s government-appointed children’s rights watchdog, announcing plans to investigate whether the Teletubbies promote homosexuality. The plan was dropped a day later

‘He’s losing more than he thinks he’s gaining. He’s losing international recognition and he’s losing the respect of his people.’
MARCEL GRANIER, executive at RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest private television station and a frequent critic of President Hugo Chávez, which went off the air on May 27 after Chávez refused to renew its license

‘The chance for a kidney for the contestants is 33%. This is much higher than that for people on a waiting list.’
LAURENS DRILLICH, chairman of Dutch broadcaster BNN, defending a new reality-TV show in which three contestants vie for the kidneys of a terminally ill woman

‘I learned how to always be happy, be patient and to be positive, and this is what I want to teach to the next generation.’
RIYO MORI, Miss Universe 2007, during the May 28 competition in Mexico City. The 20-year-old dancer from Shizuoka, Japan, beat out 77 other contestants to claim the title

Numbers

BRAZIL
$0.20 Cost of a month’s supply of birth-control pills, under a proposed subsidy on the contraceptive
150,000 Estimated number of Brazilians who attended an open-air mass with Pope Benedict XVI during his May visit to the world’s largest Catholic country; the Pontiff has condemned abortion and contraception

POLITICS
87,438 Number of friends listed on Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s page on the social-networking site MySpace, the most among Democratic presidential hopefuls
34,296 Number of friends on Arizona Senator John McCain’s MySpace page, the most among Republican candidates

FOOTBALL
2,500 Meters above sea level set by world soccer body FIFA as the new altitude limit for international games, citing concerns over players’ health
4 Number of South American nations with stadiums above 2,500 m—Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador—that have complained they may have to relocate matches

CORRUPTION
$850,000 Value of bribes authorities say were accepted by Zheng Xiaoyu, China’s former food-and-drug agency chief, in exchange for approving drug licenses, a crime for which he was sentenced to death
170,000 Number of licenses that Beijing says it is reviewing, most of which were granted during Zheng’s tenure. At least 115 deaths worldwide have been linked to tainted drugs from China since 2005