American missionary murdered in Uganda
"Last Friday, gunmen in Mbale raided the home of an American missionary, Micheal Stachofsky, and shot him dead," reports The Monitor, a newspaper in Kampala, Uganda. "Shocking as it is, there is nothing unusual about this because many Ugandans are killed in a similar way all the time. But what Ugandans will find sad is the fact that, like other Ugandans that have been murdered in cold blood, Stachofsky could not be rescued or his killers apprehended in time for the simple reason that police lacked means of transport to get to the scene!" The only local police car, the paper says, doesn't work.

Nevertheless, police roadblocks did turn up a suspect: Santos Odongo, a soldier in the Ugandan People's Defense Forces. African news reports are only identifying Stachofsky and his wife, Patti Sue, as American missionaries who had worked on a water project in the town of Mbale, but they don't identify any religious background or missionary agency. (A quick Web search didn't turn up anything either.) According to one report, Patti Sue Stachofsky told police "the intruders had demanded money from her husband but he had refused and tried to force them out of the house when they shot him and fled."

Congressman in Philippines: let the U.S. military help free Burnhams U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) is in the Philippines meeting with President Gloria Arroyo on freeing New Tribes missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. The Philippine media are reporting that he's satisfied with the Philippine military's rescue efforts, but American and international media emphasize that he wants greater openness in allowing U.S. troops to give it a shot. "Joint training exercises would help keep peace and order," ...