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'We are ready to resume the human-rights dialogue.'
YANG JIECHI, Chinese Foreign Minister, agreeing to restart talks with the U.S. on China's rights record that had been suspended since 2004

'Then get out of here, you total jerk.'
NICOLAS SARKOZY, President of France, to a man who accused the increasingly unpopular leader of "dirtying" him while greeting constituents at a Paris trade fair. A video of the outburst posted the next day by the newspaper Le Parisien tallied more than half a million hits in just a few hours

'It's a total waste of time and money.'
LORD FOULKES OF CUMNOCK, a member of Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee, calling for an end to the "circus" inquest into Princess Diana's death, which began last October

'Terrorism completely negates the teachings of Islam, which is the faith of love and peace.'
MAULANA MARGHOOB-UR RAHMAN, chief rector of the Darul-Uloom Deoband near New Delhi, one of the oldest and most radical Islamic schools in South Asia, disavowing extremism at a gathering of Indian Muslim clerics on Feb. 25

'All I remember is that when I fell, I looked down at my foot and it had turned the other way. The rest is just a blank.'
EDUARDO DA SILVA, striker for English soccer team Arsenal, on the horrific, season-ending broken ankle he suffered after being tackled during a Feb. 24 match against Birmingham

'This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are.'
MARKETA IRGLOVA, musician, after winning an Academy Award for the song Falling Slowly from the movie Once. Host Jon Stewart brought her back onstage after the orchestra accidentally cut off her words following co-songwriter Glen Hansard's acceptance speech

Numbers

GAMBLING
$1.97 million Amount a British man won on a Feb. 22 horse bet at William Hill bookmakers in North Yorkshire, where he is a regular customer
98¢ Amount he placed on eight horses. He placed similar bets on an almost daily basis. The odds of winning were 2 million to 1

ARCHAEOLOGY
150 million Age, in years, of a fossilized sea creature known as a pliosaur, discovered recently on the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, where at least 40 other fossils await excavation
15 Estimated size in meters (49 feet) of a pliosaur from nose to tail. Its jaws were large enough to chomp a small car in two

ECONOMY
58% Percentage of Americans who say their income is falling behind the rising cost of living, compared with 44% who said the same six months ago
13% Percentage who cite housing as the biggest economic problem

FOOD
49% Increase this year in the cost of basic staples in Africa, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), as food prices worldwide soar
90% WFP estimate for how much of their income the global poor — those earning less than 50 cents a day — already spend on food

Sources: New York Times; A.P.; Guardian; O Globo; Calcutta Telegraph; Chicago Tribune
Numbers Sources: William Hill Media (2); BBC (2); Pew Center for Research (2); BBC (2)