Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

Latrun, Israel - Weeks before her scheduled conscription into the Israeli army, at a time when most other 18-year-olds were gearing up for mandatory service, Saar Vardi was in the forest – talking about pacifism.

Washington - Presidential candidates, take note. In recent days the US has seen what it's like to deal with an increasingly assertive Iraqi government a key foreign policy problem with which the next occupant of the Oval Office will likely have to deal.

Chicago has no peers in hosting political conventionsThis week's Democratic National Convention marks the first time either major political party has held its showcase event in Denver.

New York - From the perspective of their pocketbook, Americans had a good solid year last year.

For the federal government, the concept of poverty is simple. If a typical family of four earns less than $21,100 a year, they're poor. If a single working woman makes less than $10,787, she's in poverty.

Diepsloot, South Africa - The coach's whistle bleats, and the two young players, both 8 years old, square off and run full speed toward each other. One boy carries the oblong ball, juking to the left to avoid the inevitable crunch of a rugby tackle. When the defender brings down his man, a field of young enthusiasts cheer.

Paris - Russia thirsts to once again be a great power – a lesson the West is learning in Georgia. On Monday, Russia's parliament voted unanimously to recognize the independence of Georgian rebel regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia – the flashpoints of recent fighting. Also, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired a warning shot about another frozen ethnic conflict in Moldova.

Washington - In an effort to lay to rest some of the controversy surrounding its Afghanistan detention program, the US is building a new detention facility there designed to be on par with one in Iraq that came to be seen by many as a model program.

The sale of existing homes rose 3.1 percent in July, double the rate some economists forecast, as buyers snapped up deeply discounted properties in areas hit hardest by the housing bust, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Still, home sales were 13.2 percent lower than a year ago.

• Tea, Then Briefing: Today's story about British forces in Basra gave staff writer Tom Peter his first opportunity to work with the British military. Having worked extensively with US forces in Iraq, he was curious to gauge style differences.

Iran's supreme leader praised President Mahmoud Ahma-dinejad for "standing up" to the West in a dispute over the country's nuclear program, state TV reported Sunday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Ahmadinejad's government has helped "revive" the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution that transformed Iran into a strict theocracy.

Washington - Drug cartels have turned to a new and effective vehicle to smuggle their goods, using small, homemade "semi-submersibles" that are hard to detect and yet effective at carrying millions of dollars worth of cocaine and other illicit drugs that end up in the United States.

San Francisco - Like many Americans, Tara Collins hadn't bicycled much since middle school. That changed this year when she started paying $50 to fill up her gas tank.

From five miles away, the Nevada Solar One power plant seems a mirage, a silver lake amid waves of 110 degree F. desert heat. Driving nearer, the rippling image morphs into a sea of mirrors angled to the sun.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe underwent an information revolution unprecedented in the history of mankind.

With "The Rocker," Rainn Wilson joins the select company of Jack Black in "School of Rock." He plays Robert "Fish" Fishman, a beaten-down insurance company employee who, for a brief time in the 1980s, was the drummer for a group called Vesuvius, which, soon after they kicked him out, scaled the heights of hard-rock stardom. He's never gotten over it.

Remember those documentaries you had to sit through in high school about the basic food groups, or the origins of the Bill of Rights? "I.O.U.S.A." isn't in that company exactly, but, like most movies about matters economic, it has a high MEGO quotient. (MEGO was coined by William Safire and stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over.") Having said this, I would be remiss if I didn't also point out that the film's subject – the monstrous national debt, $9.5 trillion and counting – is of the gravest concern. It's this year's "An Inconvenient Truth." Grade: B (Rated PG for some thematic elements.)

Steve Coogan is a marvelous comic actor whose funniest work, for those who don't live in England, is tantalizingly out of reach. On British TV or in live performance he has played, for starters, an airhead talk show host, a sleazy Portuguese singer, and a drugged-out ex-roadie who now works as an exterminator.

Beijing - The Beijing Games have established a new Olympic order. To win these games, China made a massive investment in its sports system. If it continues, the dominance could continue for years to come.

Paris - Two weeks into the Georgia crisis, Russia maintains leverage, adroitly playing a great game of obfuscation and tit-for-tat – both militarily and diplomatically – with a disunited West struggling to determine whether this is a new cold war.

With real incomes declining, the US unemployment rate at a four-year high, and inflation running at its fastest clip in 17 years, managers across the country are running up against a pressing challenge – how to stoke workplace morale while addressing their organization's own economic needs.

Cairo - A string of suicide bombings in Algeria this week has intensified concerns that the country's Islamist militancy is rising, guided by insurgents who have been trained in Iraq and are now waging their fight in North Africa.

Point Mackenzie, Alaska - After years of mounting losses, a venerable Alaska agricultural institution was formally dismantled this spring. At the bankrupt Matanuska Maid Dairy, a business that dates back to the 1930s, everything from delivery trucks to cardboard boxes has been auctioned off.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Khalid al-Hubayshi's career as an Islamic warrior came to an end with the siege of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Ordered to retreat, he walked through snow for six days. He was captured by Pakistani forces, delivered to the Americans, and relocated to a cage in Cuba.

Miami - Banged out in secret meetings, a $1.75 billion taxpayer-funded plan to buy 187,000 acres of US Sugar's cane fields in the Lake Okeechobee basin marks one of the largest conservation buyouts of a major industry in the US, promising to break a major chokehold on the slowly dying Everglades.

Washington - President Bush has long prided himself on his close personal relationships with foreign leaders. But over the last several weeks some of those relationships appear to have gone disastrously awry.

New York - This fall, as customers shop for imported olive oil and pungent French cheeses at Fairway Market's stores in Manhattan, they will be in for a pleasant surprise: Their prices are coming down.

Lahore, Pakistan - The United States lost a stalwart ally in its war on terror Monday when Pervez Musharraf resigned as president to avoid a looming impeachment battle.