That is the goal of the congressional act that founded the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998. The commission investigates conditions in what it calls “hot spots,” where religious freedom is endangered. Its job is to recommend U.S. government policies to improve conditions.

It is a “small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security and international religious freedom standards,” the report said. “Regrettably that small point seems to shrink year-after-year for the White House and he State Department.”

This year’s list of 13 “countries of particular concern” included all eight named last year – Myanmar, also known as Burma; China; Eritrea; Iran; North Korea; Saudi Arabia; Sudan; and Uzbekistan – plus Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

U.S. actions currently in force against the original eight include embargoes, often on top of existing sanctions, and denial of military or financial aid. Sanctions have been waived indefinitely for Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan has a waiver of 180 days which remains in force.

President Barack Obama’s administration has not officially accepted the 2009 findings or named the specified countries as violators of religious rights. Neither did the administration of President George W. Bush between November 2006 and January 2009.

In addition to the 13 designated the worst violators, the report identified 12 countries on a watch list: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela.

Thursday’s report described violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia as “systematic, egregious and ongoing” despite limited reforms implemented by King Abdullah.

“In China, the government continues to engage in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief,” the report said. It alleged “a marked deterioration in the past year, particularly in Tibetan Buddhist and Uighur Muslim areas.”

It had similar observations for the other countries listed. In Iran, it noted “prolonged detention, torture and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused.” It said the Tehran government’s record deteriorated after contentious elections in June.

The commission’s chairman, Leonard Leo, said in a statement that visits to the “hot spots” had found situations “where freedom of religion is obstructed and related human rights are trampled.”

He said the report offers important foreign policy solutions that should be implemented. “The report’s conclusion is clear,” Leo said: “the administration must do more.”

South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers Friday that cyber attacks that caused a wave of Web site outages in the U.S. and South Korea used 86 IP addresses in 16 countries, amid suspicions North Korea was behind the effort. According to AP, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told reporters that the countries include South Korea, the United States, Japan and Guatemala.
He spoke after being briefed by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), on preliminary investigations of the IP addresses – the Internet equivalent of a street address or phone number.
The assaults on Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea have been described as so-called denial of service attacks in which floods of computers try to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the server.

South Korea was on high alert Thursday for more cyber attacks amid suspicions that North Korea was behind a recent wave of Web site outages in the South and in the United States. The South Korea warned that computer networks of key infrastructure could be targeted. According to AP, the National Intelligence Service said in a statement that it was strengthening cyber security measures for government computer networks, citing a possible new wave of attacks which could target national infrastructure operators like energy, telecommunications and media companies.

Earlier Thursday, the country’s leading computer security company also warned that another wave of attacks was expected in South Korea later in the day.

The Palestinian Hamas Resistance movement on Wednesday said the fate of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was known only to those holding him, one day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the soldier was “fine.”
Osama al-Muzaini, a senior Hamas official responsible for talks over the soldier’s release, said Mubarak’s remarks were “wishful thinking,” in a statement published by the Safa agency, a news service close to Hamas.

“No one knows if (Gilad) Shalit is alive or dead after the war except for the closed circle responsible for him,” Muzaini said, referring to the devastating Israeli offensive on Gaza at the turn of the year.

On Tuesday Mubarak told journalists in Cairo after he met Israeli President Shimon Peres that the Israeli conscript was in good health more than three years after his capture.

Police fired tear gas Tuesday to try to restore order as hundreds of Han Chinese armed with clubs marched through the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, smashing shops and knocking over food stalls. According to AP, the city, where rioting and ethnic clashes killed 156 people two days ago, was extremely tense, with security officials breaking up a separate protest by the train station. Also, women faced off with armed Chinese police, wailing for the release of their sons and husbands detained after the riots.

Police used loudspeakers to appeal to the Han Chinese crowd to stop, but a group of about 300 protesters were joined by two other columns of marchers on Jiefang Nan Road.

North Korea Sunday hailed the strength of its military after it launched a salvo of ballistic missiles in a show of firepower that earned international criticism. “Thanks to the army-first policy of our party, our defense industry… laid a firm foundation to produce any kind of (weapons) needed for modern warfare freely,” the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary.
The army-first policy of the communist country has given the military the capacity to hit enemies with a “merciless” strike, it added.

The comments from North Korea came a day after it test-fired seven ballistic missiles in an act of defiance apparently timed for the US Independence Day holiday.

The launches further fuelled regional tensions after Pyongyang’s nuclear test in May. Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul’s Dongguk University said the launches were designed to demonstrate the country’s improved missile capacity. “The weekend sabre-rattling, apparently designed to demonstrate the country’s improved missile capacity and military firepower, produced its intended effect,” he said.

It also sent a strong warning to the United States that North Korean missiles could pose a serious challenge to regional peace, he said. Washington’s relatively mild reaction showed US officials do not want “a catastrophic confrontation with North Korea or heightened regional tensions,” he added.

Saturday’s tests brought a new round of verbal condemnation from diplomats and politicians in neighboring countries, the U.S., France, Israel and Australia. China, North Korea’s closest ally and chief economic benefactor, urged “calm and restraint,” the lesser of the two types of criticisms its foreign ministry usually issues after North Korean provocations. The U.S. State Department urged North Korea to “refrain from actions that aggravate tensions and return to denuclearization talks.”

Defense analysts in several countries, including the U.S. and South Korea, will take several weeks to determine whether Saturday’s tests showed that North Korea is advancing its ability to carry nuclear warheads on those missiles.

Military and intelligence analysts in the U.S. and elsewhere several weeks ago tracked movement of long-range missiles to launchpads in North Korea and, for a time, prepared for the prospect that it would launch such a missile on July 4 or 5, as it did in 2006. Over the past two weeks, however, they detected no signs of further preparations for such a launch.

Zionist regime’s army murdered a 17-year old young woman with a tank shell in Gaza. He rbrother was wounded in the brutal raid. Palestinian Medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported Thursday that a 17-year-old girl was martyred, and her 24-year-old brother was injured when the army fired an artillery shell at an area close to Juhr Ed Deek in Central Gaza. The martyred young woman was identified as Hiyam Abu Ayish, 17, and her brother was identified as Husam, 24. The sources added that the shell directly hit the house of Abu Ayish. According to Dr. Muawiya Hassanen, an official at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 3-yeard-old child, and three other relatives of Abu Ayish were also wounded.

India on Wednesday officially conveyed to Pakistan its disappointment over the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafeez Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. The views were put forth by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon when Pakistan’s High Commissioner Shahid Malik met him here.

Soon after Saeed’s release at the directive of Lahore High Court, India had said it demonstrated Pakistan’s lack of seriousness to fight terror and raised serious doubts about its commitment to probe the Mumbai attacks.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna had termed regrettable the release of Saeed who has been part of terror outfits in Pakistan.

He had noted that Saeed had connections with Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organization which has been declared terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram on Tuesday while slamming Pakistan over the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed, said, “It is a commentary on the commitment of Pakistan to investigate the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack.”

Chidambaram further said, “We are unhappy that Pakistan does not show the degree of seriousness and commitment that it should to bring to justice perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack.”

He, however, underlined that the development will not cause any setback to India’s investigations into the attack.

Expressing ‘disappointment’ over the release of the chief of JuD, Lashkae-e-Taiba’s front organization, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said, “It is regrettable that notwithstanding this background and the international obligations it entails on Pakistan, he has been released.”

He said Saeed’s release ‘raises serious doubts over Pakistan’s sincerity in acting with determination against terrorist groups and individuals operating from its territory’.

Saeed was put under house arrest on December 11 last year after the UN Security Council banned JuD, declaring it a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is blamed by India for the November 26 Mumbai attacks.