Election winners are generally rewarded by honor and power, but Wu Poh-hsiung can't take that for granted. The newly elected chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang, who was sworn in on April 11, is facing a tough task ahead. He will lead the largest opposition party in Taiwan in an attempt to wrestle power from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party next year after his colleagues had lost two successive "presidential" elections in 2000 and 2004.

Wu, former Vice Chairman of the Kuomintang, swept to victory in the party chairmanship by-election on April 6, taking 86.97 percent of the total votes. After winning the self-proclaimed last battle in his political career, the 67-year-old veteran pledged to push for inner-Kuomintang unity to ensure the party's election campaign a success.

"I'll spare no efforts to push for party unity and present the best candidates to win the legislative and 'presidential' elections," the Taipei Times quoted Wu as saying.

In February, former Kuomintang Chairman Ma Ying-jeou resigned from his post shortly after being accused of misusing a government allowance when he served as Taipei mayor. Though he is on trial and, according to local legal experts, is very likely to be sentenced to 10 years in prison, Ma, currently the most popular politician on the island, is adamant that he wants to run.

A proponent of his predecessor, Wu has proposed that Ma team up with his strongest Kuomintang rival, speaker of Taiwan's legislature Wang Jin-pyng, to participate in the campaign. The mediation is ongoing.

Another of Wu's tasks is to promote ties between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland through the already existing dialogue mechanism between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC). In a message to CPC Central Committee General Secretary Hu Jintao on April 8, Wu promised that he will work to promote peace and development across the Taiwan Strait.

According to Kuan Chung, another Vice Chairman of the Kuomintang, Wu is "extremely likely" to visit the mainland in late April and hopes to hold "substantive talks" with CPC leaders.

"From a political perspective, it's more important to have [3,000 centrifuges] in place than to have them run properly."

Michael Levi, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, speaking to Associated Press after Iran announced on April 9 that it had begun operating 3,000 centrifuges-nearly 10 times the previously known number

"Bringing the issues to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is against the mutual understanding reached between the two governments to promote bilateral trade and to appropriately address trade issues."

Wang Xinpei, Spokesman at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, blaming the United States' April 10 complaints to WTO against alleged copyright violations in China for severely damaging bilateral trade relations

"I am thinking of the scourge of hunger, of incurable diseases, of terrorism and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion..."

Pope Benedict XVI, speaking on April 8 from the loggia of St Peter's Basilica to a crowd of tens of thousands, as millions across the globe marked the Easter religious festival

"At least in OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), you know what the price of the crude oil is and you know the quotas. With regards to gas, nobody knows the prices and nobody is declaring the price of their exports."

Egyptian Energy Minister Sameh Fahmi, commenting on the decision made by the world's top gas producers at a meeting in Qatar on April 9 to put aside the formation of a gas cartel along the lines of OPEC

"The United States needs to get its own economic house in order by shrinking deficits, raising savings rates, reducing consumption, strengthening primary and secondary education and investing in technological innovation."

Report of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations published on April 10, urging Washington to educate Americans to compete in a globalized economy