Sun Haiping, Liu's coach who accompanied the former world record holder in men's 110-meter hurdles during the consultancy trip, said that U.S. doctors, after successfully localizing the calcification in Liu's tendon, had suggested surgery as a permanent cure. "We will make the final decision after consulting with Liu's doctors at home," Sun said.

The 25-year-old Liu was China's biggest gold medal hope in the Beijing Olympic Games in August. However, the recurrence of chronic inflammation in his right Achilles tendon forced him to withdraw from the competition. The injury reportedly has plagued Liu for more than six years.

"It's probably a realistic number in terms of what needs to be done to tackle climate change. It's a good thing for the Chinese Government to say that."

Miranda Schreurs, Director of the Environmental Policy Research Center at the Free University of Berlin, in response to a suggestion in China's recently released white paper on climate change that developed countries spend at least 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product on helping developing nations address climate change

"Whatever view one takes of China's growing economic involvement [in Africa], there is one area in which China clearly differs from other powers, especially the United States and France. Apart from its participation in UN peacekeeping operations, it has no military presence on the continent, or any naval presence around its coasts."

Stephen Marks, coordinator of the Fahamu China in Africa project, in his article "Africa: China's Mythical Military Menace" that was posted on allafrica.com on October 31

"As president-elect, he [Barack Obama] faces three immediate challenges: confronting the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, determining the next steps in two lingering wars, and leading his Democrats, including liberals expecting that the change he promises will come instantly. It won't."

Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti, in her November 4 analysis "Next Up After Obama Win, Governing"

"We have seen horrendous large-scale arbitrary executions, rapes, disappearances, torture, harassment, unlawful arrest and arbitrary detention, not to mention wave after wave of mass displacement."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, calling for intensified international peacekeeping efforts in eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 250,000 locals have been uprooted from their homes since August as a result of the fighting between government and rebel forces