Pray/Praise: California College Approves Attack on Pro-America Kuwaiti Student—A Kuwaiti Arab Muslim student is speaking out after his community college in California’s Silicon Valley approved an article indirectly comparing him to Adolph Hitler. Last semester, Foothill College political science professor Joseph Woolcock flunked Ahmad Al Qloushi and ordered him to get psychological treatment because he wrote a pro-American essay as his take-home final exam. Standing his ground on the essay, Al Qloushi explained that if it were not for U.S. intervention in Kuwait when he was younger, he would not have had the opportunity for furthering his education. Woolcock filed a school grievance against Al Qloushi, charging him with intimidation and harassment for mentioning his name to the media. Now comes word that the Foothill College Student Activities Office has approved an article that labels Al Qloushi “irrational” and accuses him of endangering Woolcock.

Jim Brown for Agape Press, via Religion Today Summaries

Pray: Persecution Worsens in Eritrea—Another 31 Eritrean Christians have been jailed recently, making a total of 187 arrests for “illegal” Christian activities since the beginning of the year. Fourteen members of the Kale Hiwot Church in Adi-Tekelzan were apprehended Feb. 4 during a Bible study at the home of their pastor. The previous day, Professor Senere Zaid of the agriculture faculty at Eritrea University was put under arrest in Asmara. Compass also documented the arrest of a physician identified as Dr. Segid in Keren during the last week of January. On Feb. 12, 15 Christian women were jailed at the police station in Keren. Local authorities reportedly described the evangelical believers as “a threat to national security.” However, “all the sisters exposed to imprisonment and insult by the authorities in Keren were gathered merely for the purpose of prayer, not any political purpose,” one of their colleagues confirmed.

Compass Direct
via Religion Today Summaries

Praise: British Baby Survives 2-Day Abortion Procedure—A baby boy who survived repeated efforts to kill him while he was in the womb is doing well as a 2-year-old, according to a report in a British medical journal. Physicians at Salford’s Hope Hospital, where the infant was treated after his birth 24 weeks into his mother’s pregnancy, believe he is the most prematurely-born baby to survive abortion long term. The infant’s travails began when his mother, 24, learned she was pregnant at 22 weeks, according to a Feb. 14 online article of the Manchester News. She chose to have an abortion and was given four different drugs during a two-day span for the purpose of taking her child’s life.

The clinic informed the woman the baby was dead and she should return in four days for the body to be removed, according to the report. On a train ride home, however, she felt her child move and quickly changed her mind about the abortion. She went into labor the same day and gave birth four days later. The boy, born in November, 2002, weighed only a pound and a half. Though he was on a ventilator for more than seven weeks and had to overcome blood infections and chronic lung problems, the infant left the hospital at seven months of age. He had only a mild development delay by 10 months. “It has defeated all the odds,” said Paul Clarke, a former doctor at the hospital and one of four physicians who wrote on the case for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Baptist Press

Pray: Enraged Muslim Chops Off Pakistani Christian’s Arm—An angry Muslim customer chopped off the arm of a young Christian shopkeeper in Pakistan’s Punjab province in revenge for an alleged “insult” last November. Shahbaz Masih, 22, was approached by a customer wanting to rent a television set from his video shop in Talwandi, Faisalabad District. When Masih declined the request, the customer, 26-year-old butcher Ahmed Ali, became furious. He returned shortly afterwards, armed with a butcher’s ax. Forcing his way into Masih’s house, Ali attacked him and chopped off his left arm near the elbow. As Ali left, he threatened the victim and his widowed mother with even more “dire consequences” for the alleged insult he had endured. Following his discharge from the hospital four days later, Masih was forced to close his shop and leave the village with his mother and go into hiding. Ali was arrested after church officials pressed the case, and faces criminal charges. However, local sources say police are being pressured to establish his innocence.

Compass via MissionNet