"Mass extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment. That's why China has tightened controls over rare earth production, exploration and trade."

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, defending China's rare earth export control measures

"Without an institutional guarantee to secure the interests of workers, the goal of common prosperity can hardly be realized."

Yue Jinglun, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, on Shenzhen's imminent new labor regulation. The regulation is expected to stipulate class salary negotiations be conducted at least once a year

"Western-led development strategies, however well meaning, did not break the cycle of underdevelopment in Africa. Chinese investments, made for sound business reasons and boosting employment and growth, offer new hope and an alternative way forward."

Financial Times editorial, August 25, under the headline "China's New Scramble for Africa"

"For us this is an important project because we are beginning to diversify the supply of our energy resources."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, opening the Russian section of a long-awaited oil pipeline that will carry Russian crude to China, on August 29

"This is a day that will remain in the memory of all Iraqis. Today, Iraq has become a sovereign and independent country."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a televised speech on August 31 when U.S. forces ended seven years of combat operations in the country

"There should be a review of the strategy in the fight against terrorism, because the experience of the last eight years showed the fight in the villages of Afghanistan has been ineffective apart from causing civilian casualties."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, criticizing coalition strategy in fighting Afghanistan's stubborn insurgency when meeting with visiting German Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert on August 29

"Every year thousands of people, mainly women and children, are exploited by criminals who use them for forced labor or the sex trade. No country is immune. Almost all play a part, either as a source of trafficked people, transit point or destination."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, at a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly to launch the Global Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons on August 31