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National Prayer Breakfast:

• Bush lauds Americans' steadfastness in crisis | The CIA director's appearance at an event normally reserved for members of Congress, foreign guests and various evangelical Christians from around the country was precedent-setting, according to one evangelical leader (The Washington Times)
  
  
• Bush urges prayer during 'testing time' | Each opening with a prayer, American leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast spoke to feelings of uncertainty and anxiety in America just five days after the Columbia tragedy and one day after Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the U.S. case against Saddam Hussein. (Associated Press)

• Gate-crasher hands Bush 'message from God' | The Rev. Richard "Rich" Weaver, nicknamed "Handshake Man" because of his knack for getting up close and personal with the high and mighty, struck again yesterday morning (The Washington Post)

War with Iraq:

• U.S. envoy suggests Iraq crisis requires new interpretation of 'just war' | "The question is whether the threat is so great that it morally justifies taking preemptive action to interrupt it before you become a victim of it," says U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican James Nicholson (Religion News Service)
  
  
• A war unjustly labeled , Part 2 | The impression that the leaders of the religious left are gaining the upper hand may be misleading (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI)
  
  
• Earlier: A war unjustly labeled, Part 1 (UPI)
  
  
• Peace activists frustrated by Bush over Iraq | Among white evangelical Christians, Bush has 70 percent support, says Zogby survey (Reuters)
  
  
• Bush's messiah complex | While there's nothing wrong with a President trying to make the world a better place, when the man in the Oval Office feels divinely inspired to reshape the world through violent means, that's a scary prospect (The Progressive)
  
  
• Jesus a pacifist? | Fleischer on anti-war comments by bishop of Bush's denomination (WorldNetDaily.com)
  
  
• Presidents often at odds with their clergy | It's hard to find a 20th century president who didn't butt heads with some in his faith (Associated Press)
  
  
• U.N. agency helps Iraq protect cultural treasures | UNESCO is confident that U.S., Britain won't target historical sites (Reuters)

Persecution and violence:

• Sheikh charged and convicted of 'fomenting sectarianism' | Military court links motives for December murder in army barracks to Islamic fundamentalism (Daily Star, Lebanon)
  
  
• Jerusalem's Anglican bishop threatens to sue Israelis over church bombing | Religious leader says church was 'targeted' by military (Ecumenical News International)
  
  
• Briton held over death of priest in Vietnam | Officials said Doan Christopher Thanh, 27, a British passport holder of Vietnamese origin, was assisting police with inquiries but had not been charged with any offence (The Independent, London)
  
  
• Israel nabs lone Christian Palestinian militant | Israeli forces arrested on Thursday the sole Christian member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Muslim group spearheading a Palestinian uprising, Palestinian sources and the Israeli army said (Reuters)
  
  
• Tension mounts on Athos as extremist monks defy eviction | The battle to remove rebel monks from a monastery on Mount Athos spilled outside the all-male republic yesterday when thousands of Orthodox faithful took to the streets to protest at an unprecedented land-and-sea blockade of the sanctuary (The Observer, London)
  
  
• Judge puts brakes on sectarian trial |Coptic church expresses surprise at continued delay of murder case, but human rights organizations say there is no foul play (Middle East Times)

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47