China's April inflation rises to 8.5 percent

Consumer prices in April were up 8.5 percent compared with the same month last year, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported. That was up from March's 8.3 percent rate and just short of February's 8.7 percent, the highest inflation in 12 years.

Consumer prices have risen rapidly since mid-2007, driven by rises in food costs that exceeded 20 percent in February and March. The government has been trying to increase supplies of pork, grain and other scarce food items and has imposed price controls on basic goods.

Soaring food prices are especially worrisome to Beijing because they hit China's poor majority hardest. Bouts of high inflation in the 1980s and '90s set off protests -an embarrassment that communist leaders want to avoid ahead of August's Beijing Olympics. The government hopes the games will showcase China as a prosperous, stable society.