WORLD IN BRIEF : PHILIPPINES : Rebel Band Kills American Rancher

Communist rebels killed an elderly American rancher on the central Philippine island of Masbate after he refused to pay “revolutionary taxes,” officials said. The victim, Stewart Frank Raab, was the second American killed by Filipino rebels in a month and the fifth in the past year. Raab, 76, was seized Tuesday by about 30 New People’s Army guerrillas at his ranch near Milagros, 240 miles southeast of Manila, a military spokesman said by telephone from Masbate. Raab, who was born in the Philippines when it was still an American colony, had been paying “revolutionary taxes”--or protection money--until the rebels increased the fee to $34,000 a year.