Military Expert's Security Concern

Major General Luo Yuan, former deputy head of a research institute with the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS), ruled out the possibility of a global war sparked by the financial crisis in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency.

Although the two previous world wars were both ignited by a financial crisis, Luo said, today the world is no longer divided into two confrontational political-military blocs, which was a key factor behind the outbreak of the wars.

Luo also noted that the advancement of China's defense capabilities should be consistent with its growing world status, as well as a positive defense strategy. But he emphasized that China will stick to the principle of peaceful development.

Chinese Duo Have Global Influence

Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma and pianist Lang Lang are among the world's 100 most influential people, according to Time magazine.

Ma, 44, is founder and chief executive officer of Alibaba.com, the world's most-visited B2B online marketplace, which was incorporated in 1999. He also runs a major consumer-auction website on the Chinese mainland, Taobao.com, which has 8 million frequent users and saw revenues grow 39 percent to $440 million last year. In October 2005, Alibaba acquired Yahoo China.

Lang, 26, was born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, and began playing the piano at 3 years old. By age 14 he had become a featured soloist, performing with the China National Symphony Orchestra. Lang has performed with most of the world's major orchestras and is widely famed for his inspiring performances. In 2008 Lang was named the Grammy Cultural Ambassador to China by the Recording Academy in the United States. That same year he launched his own music foundation to support young pianists.

New Soccer Chief Named

Former international striker Gao Hongbo was named head coach of the men's soccer team by the Chinese Football Association on May 4, filling the coaching position that has been vacant since the Beijing Olympics.

Gao's predecessor, Serbian Ratomir Dujkovic, was dismissed after China was eliminated from the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup and failed to advance to the final rounds during the Beijing Olympics. Gao, 43, is the seventh coach to take the helm since 2000, and is also the youngest man to hold the position in 30 years.

Gao, a native of Beijing, was the top scorer in China's top-level soccer league in 1988 and 1992. He played for the national team from 1991 to 1997 before retiring in 1998.

"It's really up to each country and should be in accordance with their own regulations and legislation on public health and protection of the population."

Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization's representative in China, saying on May 4 that China's decision to quarantine people who had traveled to the country aboard the same flight that carried a Mexican man with influenza A (H1N1) is proper and does not violate current regulations

"It's definitely a step in the right direction for Asia to wean itself from dependence on the West."

Kirby Daley, senior strategist at Newedge Group in Hong Kong, after 13 East and Southeast Asian countries agreed on May 3 to set up a $120-billion emergency fund for use in an economic downturn, the first independent move by Asia to shield itself from the financial crisis

"My government is not going to fall when one mountain is taken by one group or the other."

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, in an interview with CNN on May 5 before White House talks with Afghanistan on fighting a Taliban insurgency raging in the two countries

"In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world."

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, calling on the U.S. Government to privatize the global Internet governance body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

"We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, predicting the imminent recovery of the U.S. economy at a congressional hearing on May 5