Verbatim

‘Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it.’
STEPHEN HARPER, Canadian Prime Minister, on his administration’s decision to raise the country’s military presence in the Arctic to better display Canada’s authority over the Northwest Passage

‘The masses do not write history.’
ZAHI HAWASS, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, on the “New 7 Wonders of the World.” Egyptian authorities are angry that the Great Pyramids of Giza did not make the list of winners, which were tallied in a global online vote

‘I’m Prince Tomohito, the alcoholic.’
PRINCE TOMOHITO, a cousin of Japanese Emperor Akihito and sixth in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne, addressing a welfare organization in the city of Sendai. There is a strong stigma attached to alcoholism in Japan and disclosures by public figures are rare. Tomohito has been undergoing treatment at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo

‘That’s what amazed me … that they let people keep playing the slots.’
LARRY RAMOS, a Las Vegas tourist, after a gunman fired 16 shots at gamblers inside the New York-New York casino

‘My view is that the U.K.’s antiterrorist effort is in the wrong century.’
RONALD NOBLE, Interpol’s secretary-general, pictured at left, on the recent British terror plots. Authorities in London neglected to share information from the investigations of three failed car-bomb attacks, and have not made adequate use of a passport database

‘There is a common misperception about how methane gets into the atmosphere. It is actually through belching rather than the other end.’
MICHAEL ABBERTON, a scientist at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in the U.K., on cow belching as a major source of methane emissions that contribute to global climate change. Each cow belches around 100 to 200 liters of methane daily

Numbers

AERODYNAMICS
50% Proportion of the primary structure of Boeing’s new Dreamliner aircraft, unveiled on July 9, that is made of carbon fiber and other composites instead of aluminum. The new materials will reduce the weight of the plane
20% Percentage by which the design of the Dreamliner will reduce fuel usage compared to similarly sized planes. But some environmental activists argue that the jet, which is smaller than its Airbus rivals, will result in more overall flights and therefore more air pollution

WEATHER
89 Number of years since snow had fallen in Argentina until Buenos Aires was blanketed on July 9
2 Number of deaths caused by the snowfall, which came after an unusually cold winter

THE MOVING EARTH
10 Number of centimeters a year, on average, that Mexico City sinks
14 Depth, in meters, of a sinkhole last week in a Mexico City neighborhood, forcing the evacuation of 30 families

WORLD CONCERT
$42 Amount that thirsty audience members forked over for a beer at the Live Earth concert in Sydney on July 7, where enterprising scalpers capitalized on record lines
10 million Estimated number of people around the world who watched the Live Earth concert online. TV trackers are still crunching numbers, but the total won’t come close to the 2-billion mark that organizers were shooting for