"Food security in China will always be based on grain self-sufficiency. The Chinese people should never put their 'rice bowls' in the hands of others."

Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture, in a recent interview with the People's Daily Overseas Edition

"Technically, it is highly possible that we will complete the manned lunar landing mission around 2025."

Long Lehao, Deputy Chief Designer of China's lunar probe project, in a lecture on July 10

"China's military budget and spending are strictly monitored. There is no hidden expenditure."

A press officer with China's Ministry of Defense, quoted by Xinhua News Agency, in response to recent Japanese media reports saying China's military spending would total 788 billion yuan ($116 billion) this year, about 1.5 times higher than the budget unveiled earlier this year

"The spy scandal was throwing a huge shadow on the philosophy of the resetting of U.S.-Russian relations and both sides badly wanted to finish it at all costs. Any deal would suit both Moscow and Washington."

Andrei Piontkovsky, a senior researcher at the Moscow-based System Analysis Institute, on the July 9 spy swap in Austria's capital between the United States and Russia

"When governments are cutting budgets and people suffer reduced services and support, we cannot accept a banking culture that puts pay and perks above sustaining capital and credit for Europe's economic recovery."

Arlene McCarthy, member of the European Parliament, after the European legislature imposed caps on bankers' bonuses on July 7

"We're in a situation like nothing we've ever lived through before."

Juan Gallardo, Director of School Safety in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, one of the areas where schools are teaching students to dive to the floor and cover their heads as a result of increasing urban gunfights between drug gangs