VOM, Turkey:

The Protestant Church in Smyrna is requesting Christians to pray for the families of the three believers killed on April 18, 2007, in Malatya, Turkey. According to a press release, the church urged Christians to pray that someday the perpetrators of the gruesome murders would receive Christ and for God to use the testimonies of the martyred brothers to draw others in the knowledge of Him.

The harsh realities of military chaplaincy. This is the work that killed Oswald Chambers.

Exposing North Korea's hushed and ignored policies of mass starvation. (PJM)

In 1999, while children were starving, Mr. Kim's government treated itself to 40 MiG-21 warplanes purchased from Kazakhstan.

Wikipedia has some skeletal information. Reading between the lines, it looks like the floods simultaneously accentuated and provided cover for gross Government mismanagement.

KP of The Christian Mind quotes Luther and N.T. Wright on Death and Resurrection.

Luther's remedy for this [...] temptation is to contemplate death all the more, but to do so at the right time—which is not the time of death. Instead, he exhorts us to "invite death into our presence when it is still at a distance and not on the move"—that is, in our daily lives long before death threatens us. Conversely, Luther counsels Christians to banish thoughts of death at the final hour and to use that time to meditate on life.

Instapundit has a roundup on the Virginia Tech shooting. And Pajamas Media (with a roundup of their own) links to some cell-phone footage from a student.

I'm scratching my head regarding why the crackdown didn't occur at 7:15, when the first call came in.

UPDATE: VA Tech not the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history after all.

UPDATE II: PJM keeps rounding it up. More here.

The latest dispatch from Michael Yon, while somewhat graphic, skillfully documents some dramatic events. The human perspective Yon provides on the war is invaluable.

Keep praying.

Baghdad: Mortar explodes at girl's school; five dead.

It seems the extremists have been targeting the education system in a mindless slaughter of the innocents. Lord, how long?

The ultimate price for peace: neutral Muslim cleric shot and killed in Gaza Strip. (PM)

Gerald Ford has died at 93: one of only four presidents to live beyond 90. It's a tough job.

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MercatorNet comments on the death of Augusto Pinochet, and offers a crash course in 20th century Chilean history. (The current president is a woman: it seems we're seeing this more and more.)

UPDATE:
Looks as if most of the world is not sure what to think. I suppose it is somewhat difficult to reconcile economic/ideological success with political/dictatorial brutality.

Castro may be going to sleep; Cuba may be waking up.

More bombs in Baghdad - this one reminds me of the Tower of Siloam.

Mercator on Milton Friedman, finally.