1.   Villagers stole cattle for beef, for a ransom payment, or in some cases for ploughing or local sale.

2.   A parliamentary hearing on whether army officers shared in a ransom payment to the Abu Sayyaf last year failed to issue a final report.

3.   After all, dozens of hostage negotiations in Latin America had ended with greatly reduced ransom payments and no bloodshed.

4.   But the toll goes far beyond ransom payments.

5.   He and the commander sat down and worked out a ransom payment, a minuscule fraction of the initial demand.

6.   Not long ago, a senator and a priest in Basilan alleged that elements in the military received a chunk of recent ransom payments.

7.   Some of them confessed that the rebel group bought its weapons and equipment with ransom payments from kidnappings and cash from armed robberies, Nunez said.

8.   The authorities in Rio attribute their success to a strengthening of a multidepartmental anti-kidnapping division and a strict policy against ransom payments.

9.   The United States has generally opposed ransom payments, maintaining that they encourage kidnappings.

10.   They kidnapped well-off ranchers and business people, demanding ransom payments.