Quotations of the day

"This is not easy for him nor for us. We call on the people to pray and hold vigil for the health of the president." — Pro-Chavez militant Enrique Barroso upon the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's health has taken a turn for the worse.

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"The mood in the neighborhood is very heavy. We all hoped the baby would survive." — Oscar Sabel, a retired printer who lives near the scene of a hit-and-run accident in Brooklyn, N.Y., that killed a pregnant woman and her husband.

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"There are good reasons for North Korea to fear the United States. There's a sense of crisis that persists among North Koreans toward Washington, which deploys satellites around the clock to keep a watch on Pyongyang." — Cheong Seong-chang, a South Korean analyst at the private Sejong Institute think tank, on how a Cold War still rages in Pyongyang.