VERBATIM

"The whole world knows it was Deng Xiaoping's responsibility. It was his crime."
BAO TONG,
ex-Chinese Communist Party official, on who was to blame for the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown

"The extreme right will doom our party to election defeat."
GERALD FORD,
former U.S. President, on the Republicans' chances in the 2000 presidential election

"No one calls it a Christian bomb or Hindu bomb or Jewish bomb."
ABDUL QADEER KHAN,
architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, objecting to being called the father of the Islamic bomb

"Being obese is a normal response to the American environment."
JAMES HILL,
author of a Science article warning that portliness is reaching epic proportions in the U.S.

NUMBERS

20 km: The width of firework displays to celebrate the millennium as envisaged by Californian Dave Caulkins, who proposes using obsolete intercontinental ballistic missiles to launch them.

534: The number of people who died at the hands of South African police in a nine-month period last year.

23 billion tons: The worldwide amount of topsoil washed or blown away every year.

368 million: The number of times the human heart beats in 10 years.

76.5: The average life expectancy of Swedish men, Europe's longest-lived. They are also the safest drivers, have the lowest smoking rate and lowest consumption of alcohol. On the other hand, they have one of the highest suicide rates.

198 km: The distance swum by 23-year-old Australian Susie Maroney from Mexico to Cuba to establish a world ocean swimming record.

9,000: The number of Britons attending hospital emergency rooms each year with injuries caused by struggling with the keys on cans of corned beef.

4: The number of hermaphrodite polar bear cubs found in the Norwegian Arctic, a genetic defect that is thought to be caused by atmospheric pollution.