The United States consumer prices rose by 5.6 percent in 2008 through July, the fastest inflation rate for almost two decades figures show. US Labor Department reported consumer prices rose 0.8 percent last month after jumping 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in June. The July number was double what economists had predicted.

Soaring prices heavily weighed on the Vietnamese economy and challenged the nation in May and the past five months.

While the rate of people fleeing their homes in Iraq has decreased during the first half of 2008, daily life for the thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in tent camps remains grim.

South African President Thabo Mbeki said here on Sunday that the talks between the Zimbabwe ruling and the opposition will continue.

Israel confirmed Sunday the release of more than 150 Palestinian prisoners, but said nothing about an eventual withdrawal from the occupied territories.

Every time someone complains about ideas that fall outside an arbitrary and narrow circle called “common sense” (also known in English as “horse sense”), they do so by brandishing two classic arguments: 1) the philosophers live in another world, surrounded by books and eccentric ideas and 2) we know what reality is because we live in it.

Charging multinational retail giant Wal-Mart with illegally pressuring employees to vote for Republicans and John McCain in the the November 4th elections, the labor movement and community organizations filed a formal complaint this week with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

With a switch to energy efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs already in full swing in the U.S. and elsewhere—Australia has banned incandescents, Britain will soon, and the U.S. begins a phase-out of incandescents in 2012—more and more complaints have arisen about the new bulbs causing headaches.

For those in the war torn Caucasus this has been a week of unfathomable turmoil. It has been a week filled with images of displaced peoples, and the instruments of modern warfare doing what they do best, dispensing death.

Yet more haunting images of blindfolded, stripped down Palestinian men being contemptuously dragged by soldiers in uniform from one place to another. Yet more footage of bloodied men lying on hospital beds describing their ordeals to television reporters who have heard this story all too often.

On taxes, major media outlets again took McCain to task for misleading the public about Obama's plan to cut taxes for working families. In his TV spots, McCain claimed that Obama wants to "raise your taxes" and falsely stated the tax burden would fall on middle-income families.

Social Security turned 73 yesterday, Aug. 14th. That's two years older than John McCain, a beneficiary of Social Security who receives close to $2,000 per month from the program, despite recently describing it as "an absolute disgrace."

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the official response of the Israeli military Advocate-General to the death of a Reuters cameraman and three other civilians, including two children.

With some 30 to 50 million Americans suffering from various degrees of lactose intolerance, and an estimated three million of us now eating animal-free (vegan) diets for humane, environmental and/or health reasons, the production of alternatives to dairy products has started to become big business.

U.S. corporate media frequently evoked the Cold War as a key to understanding the conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. This was certainly true of the media themselves, which generally placed black hats or white hats on the actors involved.

In just under 350 pages and beginning with her birth in 1979, Halima Bashir describes her journey from a remote tribal village in Sudan, through adolescence to university and to qualification as a doctor of medicine specializing in gynecology and obstetrics.

President Dmitri Medvedev said Russia will respect whatever status the autonomous South Ossetia and Abkhazia Republics may choose and guarantee its global acceptance.

The truth about John McCain is not very pretty. You can start with the Iraq War, when he made the flippant comment that “as far as I’m concerned, we could be in there for 100 years.” The peace movement has been fighting for a timeline.

Most Americans understand that the 2000 presidential election was decided by five Republican Supreme Court Justices rather than voters. Many are suspicious that something fishy happened in Ohio in 2004 under the auspices of former Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Tens of thousands of people are facing food scarcity in the areas of Baringo and East Pokot in Kenya's north Rift, a humanitarian official said.