Verbatim

Thursday, Mar. 20, 2008

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'The Shoah fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive.'
ANGELA MERKEL, German Chancellor, using the Hebrew word for Holocaust in the third speech ever delivered in German to the Israeli parliament

'He said we should eat them. Even the U.N. white people — he said we could use them as pork to eat.'
JOSEPH 'ZIGZAG' MARZAH, ex-death squad leader in Liberia, alleging at the war-crimes tribunal in the Hague that former Liberian President Charles Taylor — now on trial — ordered his soldiers to cannibalize the flesh of their enemies

'The past week has been an incredibly difficult time for Bear Stearns. This transaction represents the best outcome for all of our constituencies.'
ALAN SCHWARTZ, president and ceo of Bear Stearns, which, as part of a federal bailout, was acquired by rival JPMorgan Chase for $236.2 million — a meager $2 per share

'I'm so, so happy with this.'
HEATHER MILLS, on a $48.6 million settlement in her divorce from former Beatle Paul McCartney

'It's a message to Iran that the United States will never leave, even after Bush is gone.'
WAEL ABDUL LATIF, Iraqi parliamentarian, on Senator John McCain's recent visit to Iraq

'2008 might be the most difficult year for China's economy, because there are a lot of uncertainties both inside and outside the country.'
WEN JIABAO, Chinese Premier, on the danger posed by rising inflation and a slumping global economy

Numbers

MORTGAGES
46,700 Number of cases of U.S. mortgage fraud in 2007. False information on mortgage applications has cost the banking industry $1 billion over the past decade
2% Percentage of properties in foreclosure last year in Florida, the American state with the highest rate of mortgage fraud

CHINA
$1 billion Monthly expenditure in China on upgrades to energy infrastructure. China is now the world's second biggest consumer of energy after the U.S.
20% Increase in energy efficiency that China has targeted by 2013

AEROSPACE
4 hours Time it will take to fly from London to Sydney on a space plane being developed by Europe's EADS Astrium
$308,200 Estimated cost per ticket aboard the proposed four-passenger craft. The 10,600-mile (17,000 km) journey currently takes more than 21 hours and costs about $1,000

MIDDLE EAST
500 Number of construction workers, mostly from South Asia, in the United Arab Emirates whom police say vandalized property on March 18. Rising inflation in the Gulf state has triggered labor protests
80% Percentage of U.A.E. residents who come from overseas

Sources: A.P.; BBC; JPMorgan Chase; A.P.; New York Times; Financial Times
Numbers Sources: A.P.; Mortgage Asset Research Institute; Wall Street Journal (2); BBC; EADS Astrium; A.P.; Economist Intelligence Unit