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Soundbites

“We have now put up for bid the construction of two more nuclear plants and we hope to fulfil this project through international contracts.â€

Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, on the consequences of a new law obliging the Iranian government to acquire nuclear power for peaceful purposes (CNN online, 11 September)

“All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys – which don’t do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001.â€

Hugh Kaufman of the US Environmental Protection Agency, on his country’s response to hurricane Katrina (The Independent, London, 11 September)

“It’s chief internet evangelist, which suggests I should go from three-piece suits to some sort of ecclesiastical robes.â€

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf talks about his new job at Google (BBC news online, 9 September)

“It’s scary to acknowledge climate change happening at such a fast pace – not over a long time span, but within the couple of decades since I’ve grown up.â€

Kristin Ingvarsdottir, director of the Nordic Pavilion at the Aichi World Expo in Japan, on the number of ski resorts closing in Iceland (The Daily Yomiuri, Japan, 7 September)

“Mobile storage devices like CDs and hard discs will gradually disappear over the next two or three years, and flash memory will dominate the information age.â€

Hwang Chang-gyu, CEO of Samsung Electronics, on the launch of a 16-gigabit flash memory chip (Digital Chosun, South Korea, 12 September)