[And nobody notices]
Financial Times -- WORLD NEWS DIGEST -- May 30, 2002
US offers $5m for news on hostages
The US yesterday offered a reward of up to $5m for information leading to the capture of the five leaders of a Muslim separtist group that has been holding an American couple hostage in the couthern Philippines for more than a year.
The offer came after local military generals admitted they had been unable to free the Americans and a Filipina nurse from the Abu Sayyaf group. About 1,000 US soldiers are also in the southern Philippines to train local troops to fight the hostage takers.
The hostage problem "is not easy to solve," Lieutenant-General Dionisio Santiago, the Philippine army chief, said this week as the hostages began their second year in captivity.
Roel Landingin, Manila