Federal Independent Agencies
Here's a look at documents from federal independent agencies
Featured Stories
SBA Orders All 8(a) Participants to Provide Financial Records
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 -- The Small Business Administration posted the following news release on Dec. 5, 2025:
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SBA Orders All 8(a) Participants to Provide Financial Records
Today, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued letters to all contractors within the 8(a) Business Development Program, requiring them to produce financial records as part of a comprehensive effort to protect taxpayers and legitimate small businesses by rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse. All 4,300 8(a) participants are mandated to provide financial documents for the last three fiscal years, including bank
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 -- The Small Business Administration posted the following news release on Dec. 5, 2025:
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SBA Orders All 8(a) Participants to Provide Financial Records
Today, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued letters to all contractors within the 8(a) Business Development Program, requiring them to produce financial records as part of a comprehensive effort to protect taxpayers and legitimate small businesses by rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse. All 4,300 8(a) participants are mandated to provide financial documents for the last three fiscal years, including bankstatements, financial statements, general ledgers, payroll registers, contracting and subcontracting agreements, and employment records. Firms that fail to comply by January 5, 2025 may lose their eligibility to participate in the 8(a) Program and could face further investigative or remedial actions.
"There is mounting evidence that the 8(a) Program designed for 'socially and economically disadvantaged' businesses went from being a targeted program to a pass-through vehicle for rampant abuse and fraud - especially during the Biden Administration, which aggressively prioritized DEI over merit in federal contracting," said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler. "Today, as part of the SBA's effort to protect taxpayer dollars and restore program integrity, we're requiring all 8(a) firms to provide basic financial documentation for SBA review. As our previously-announced government-wide audit continues, we're committed to thoroughly reviewing every federal contract, contracting officer, and contractor - while working alongside federal law enforcement and other agencies to deliver accountability for taxpayers."
The request comes as recent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations and media reports have exposed a growing body of evidence of misconduct within the 8(a) Program, adding to years of credible concerns and whistleblower reports indicating that the program is a vehicle for institutionalized abuse.
Administrator Loeffler ordered a full-scale audit of the 8(a) Program earlier this year after a DOJ investigation uncovered a $550 million fraud and bribery scheme involving a former federal contracting officer and two 8(a) contractors. The audit, which is ongoing, focuses on examining high-dollar and limited-competition contracts going back over a period of fifteen years in collaboration with various federal agencies that award contracts to 8(a) participants. Last month, SBA took immediate action to suspend Link is external numerous executives and contractors following allegations of fraud involving more than $253 million in previously issued contract awards.
The U.S. Department of Treasury also recently launched Link is external its own audit of all contracts and task orders awarded under preference-based contracting, totaling approximately $9 billion in contract value across Treasury and its bureaus.
About the 8(a) Business Development Program
The SBA certifies small businesses considered to be socially and economically disadvantaged under its nine-year 8(a) Business Development Program. The 8(a) program helps these firms develop and grow their businesses through one-to-one counseling, training workshops and management and technical guidance. It also provides access to government contracting opportunities, allowing them to become solid competitors in the federal marketplace.
About the U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration helps power the American dream of entrepreneurship. As the leading voice for small businesses within the federal government, the SBA empowers job creators with the resources and support they need to start, grow, and expand their businesses or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov.
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Original text here: https://www.sba.gov/article/2025/12/05/sba-orders-all-8a-participants-provide-financial-records
Invention Challenge Brings Student Engineers to NASA JPL
PASADENA, California, Dec. 6 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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Invention Challenge Brings Student Engineers to NASA JPL
Now in its 26th year, the event brings teams of middle and high school students to the lab to compete with home-built contraptions.
Teenagers wielding power tools and plywood demonstrated their engineering prowess at the annual Invention Challenge at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Friday. Also in evidence: lots of small motors, 3D-printed gears, PVC pipe, and duct tape.
First held at JPL in 1998, the event
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PASADENA, California, Dec. 6 (TNSres) -- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued the following news:
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Invention Challenge Brings Student Engineers to NASA JPL
Now in its 26th year, the event brings teams of middle and high school students to the lab to compete with home-built contraptions.
Teenagers wielding power tools and plywood demonstrated their engineering prowess at the annual Invention Challenge at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Friday. Also in evidence: lots of small motors, 3D-printed gears, PVC pipe, and duct tape.
First held at JPL in 1998, the eventpits middle and high school teams against each other as they try to get handmade devices to accomplish a task that changes annually. For this year's challenge, dubbed the "Bucket Brigade Contest," teams needed to create devices capable of moving about 2 gallons (8 liters) of water from a holding reservoir into a bucket about 16 feet (5 meters) away in 60 seconds while satisfying a long list of rules.
In all, 18 teams of students from middle and high schools across Los Angeles and Orange counties competed. First place went to Arcadia High School's Team Still Water, which completed the task in just 6.45 seconds. Mission Viejo High's Team Senior Citizens was close behind, finishing in 6.71 seconds. The Samo Seals of Santa Monica High came in third, at 9.18 seconds.
Five teams from outside the area -- four from schools in Colorado and Massachusetts and one involving professional engineers -- were invited to compete as well. Of those, the team led by retired JPL engineer Alan DeVault's Team "Trial and Error Engineering" came in first (a repeat from last year). And "Team 6" from Pioneer Charter School of Science in the Boston area took second place (also a repeat performance from 2024). No team qualified for third place.
Judges named Team Clankers from Mission Viejo High most artistic, Team 6 from Pioneer Charter School of Science most unusual, and Team Winning Engineering Team (WET) from Temple City High most creative.
The event was supported by dozens of volunteers from JPL staff. JPL Fire Chief Dave Dollarhide, familiar with a bucket brigade, was a guest judge.
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Original text here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/invention-challenge-brings-student-engineers-to-nasa-jpl/
Uruguay to Boost Investments and Exports With IDB Support
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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Uruguay to Boost Investments and Exports with IDB Support
The Board of Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $20 million loan to boost Uruguay's exports and investments and increase business productivity through greater integration into global markets.
The program is the second operation under the Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects (CCLIP) "Program for Productive Development of Uruguay through Internationalization, Innovation, and Talent."
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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Uruguay to Boost Investments and Exports with IDB Support
The Board of Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a $20 million loan to boost Uruguay's exports and investments and increase business productivity through greater integration into global markets.
The program is the second operation under the Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects (CCLIP) "Program for Productive Development of Uruguay through Internationalization, Innovation, and Talent."The goal of this credit line is to simplify and streamline procedures for exporting and investing, and to strengthen the effectiveness of export and investment promotion instruments, ensuring their complementarity with other business support services.
The program, which will be implemented by Uruguay XXI, will modernize and simplify processes for the Foreign Trade Single Window (VUCE) and the Investment Single Window (VUI), reducing time and costs for companies. It will also strengthen export and investment promotion tools, with a special focus on sectors such as life sciences, global services, audiovisual industries, and renewable energy.
Additionally, the program will create a monitoring and evaluation unit, develop digital platforms for institutional interoperability, and incorporate predictive technologies and artificial intelligence. It will also promote the adoption of a green taxonomy to facilitate access to markets that require sustainability standards.
The program will benefit exporting companies and MSMEs, as well as investors and public agencies, by reducing time and costs for export and investment procedures and providing integrated tools to facilitate internationalization.
This plan aligns with the South Connection program by addressing bottlenecks that limit global integration and the competitiveness of Uruguay's productive sector, strengthening its integration into regional value chains and its insertion into global markets.
The loan has a repayment term of 22.5 years, an eight-year grace period, and an interest rate based on SOFR. Financing will be complemented by a local counterpart of $2.6 million, for a total of $22.6 million.
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About the IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a member of the IDB Group, is devoted to improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1959, the Bank works with the region's public sector to design and enable impactful, innovative solutions for sustainable and inclusive development. Leveraging financing, technical expertise, and knowledge, it promotes growth and well-being in 26 countries. Visit our website: https://www.iadb.org/en.
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Original text here: https://www.iadb.org/en/news/uruguay-boost-investments-and-exports-idb-support
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Fact Sheet: Prison Mistreatment and FoRB
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following fact sheet:
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Prison Mistreatment and FoRB
Introduction
Governments continue to target religious prisoners on the basis of religion or belief even after their incarceration. While certain types of mistreatment are systematic and affect all prisoners, many specifically target religious dissidents. This mistreatment may range from harassment or discriminatory comments to outright torture.
Government imprisonment on the basis of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is often both coercive and violent.
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following fact sheet:
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Prison Mistreatment and FoRB
Introduction
Governments continue to target religious prisoners on the basis of religion or belief even after their incarceration. While certain types of mistreatment are systematic and affect all prisoners, many specifically target religious dissidents. This mistreatment may range from harassment or discriminatory comments to outright torture.
Government imprisonment on the basis of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is often both coercive and violent.FoRB prisoners are detained, placed into confinement, and disconnected from their families and religious communities because of their beliefs. Governments deliberately use mistreatment as a strategy to demoralize and disavow religious dissidents of their beliefs or the expression of these beliefs. Reports of mistreatment in prison have a chilling effect on disfavored religious communities outside of prisons as well. These groups often fear that like these mistreated prisoners, their lawful exercise of FoRB will make them the target of government repression.
This factsheet provides illustrative examples of prisons in which religious dissidents and those arrested on the basis of their religious identity face targeted mistreatment.
It also provides examples from the Frank R. Wolf Victims List of specific people governments have mistreated in these prisons.
Mai Serwa prison is an isolated facility located to the north of the Eritrean capital, Asmara. Most prisoners reside in metal shipping containers and have access to only 20 bathroom facilities. In the past, prisoners were forced to relieve themselves in open fields. Due to their rudimentary construction, metal shipping containers used as cells at the facility reach extreme hot and cold temperatures. Prisoners are packed tightly into the containers and there is a lack of adequate space. The prison complex reportedly contains underground cells as well. Medical care is inadequate and there is an insufficient supply of food and water. Scores of prisoners, including those detained on the basis of religion, have died at Mai Serwa. Former inmates and doctors report torture by Mai Serwa prison staff. Since inmates are rarely charged or sentenced, imprisonment at Mai Serwa is often a de facto life sentence.
Eritrea's government mistreats Christians at Mai Serwa on the basis of their religious identity. Former inmates report prison guards using torture to attempt to force Christians to renounce their faith. One recounts being pressured to sign a document saying she "would neither preach, praise, sing, nor spread the gospel." As of early 2025, 15 members of the Christian Mahalian praise group remain at the prison. In April 2023, authorities arrested more than 100 members of the group for an "illegal church gathering" after they recorded religious songs and attempted to post them online. Most were eventually released, but the 15 remain imprisoned for expressing their faith.
Scores of Jehovah's Witnesses have been arrested and sent to Mai Serwa Prison. Eritrea's government often accuses Witnesses of holding "illegal" religious gatherings and arrests them for their religious objection to military service but sometimes does not issue formal charges at all. In the past year, Eritrean authorities have arrested scores of Jehovah's Witnesses and sent them to Mai Serwa, including a pregnant woman. These prisoners also include four teenagers who declined to contribute to a political fund over a religious belief in political neutrality. While some of these prisoners were released between December 2024 and February 2025, all spent time in Mai Serwa on account of their religious beliefs. Other Witnesses, including Henok Ghebru, remain imprisoned at Mai Serwa for conscientious objection. Eritrean authorities arrested Ghebru in 2005 and he has been denied medical treatment during his incarceration. In February 2025, former Mai Serwa inmate and Jehovah's Witness Negede Teklemariam spoke at a USCIRF event about his time at the prison from 2017 to 2020, the end of his 25-year sentence for conscientious objection.
Iran - Evin Prison
Intended Capacity: 15,000
Approximate Inmate Population: Unconfirmed, reports of overcrowding (2024)
Evin Prison is located in the northern Evin neighborhood of Tehran. Built in 1971, the prison holds political dissidents, including religious minorities imprisoned on the basis of their faith. The facility has also held lawyers and activists who have advocated peacefully for FoRB.
Following an Israeli airstrike that damaged parts of the facility on June 23, 2025, several religious prisoners of conscience were transferred to other prisons. The government began returning some of these relocated detainees to the prison in August 2025.
Members of Iran's Baha'i leadership (the Yaran-e Iran) have been incarcerated at Evin Prison, including Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet. Kamalabadi was arrested in July 2022. In August 2022, an interrogator told her that "all Baha'is who remained in Iran [after 1979] ... should be arrested and imprisoned." In 2023, Sabet reported physical abuse, threats, and slander during solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison. In December 2024, after being denied adequate medical care for a lung condition at Evin, she was taken to a hospital for open-heart surgery and was recovering at home as of late 2025.
Evin holds about 60 percent of Christians detained in Iran. Former Christian prisoners report prison guards making harassing comments about their religion during interrogations. Others have been pressured to "confess" to participation in religious activities. An Armenian Christian woman reported that in 2022, an interrogator at Evin sexually assaulted and disparaged her for not wearing hijab on account of her non-Muslim religious identity.
In April 2025, a convert to Christianity who was recently released from Evin reported that in late 2023 or early 2024, an interrogator at Evin tried to pressure him to sign a legal commitment to cease his religious activities.
Nicaragua - Establecimiento Penitenciario Integral de Mujeres (La Esperanza)
Intended Capacity: 120
Approximate Inmate Population: 500 (2021)
Establecimiento Penitenciario Integral de Mujeres (EPIM), also known as "La Esperanza," opened in December 1987. In recent years, the prison has offered vocational training, education and literacy programs, and a maternity ward. It has permitted some religious celebrations as well. However, following antigovernment protests in 2018, former inmates increasingly report torture, denial of adequate medical care, rodent and insect infestations, inadequate protection from other inmates, and sexual assault at La Esperanza and other Nicaraguan prisons.
Inmates at La Esperanza have included FoRB prisoners.
In December 2023, Nicaragua's government arrested 11 leaders of the Mountain Gateway church along with two of their lawyers. The government charged them spuriously with money laundering and organized crime. They spent nine months in La Esperanza and La Modelo Prisons and were denied access to Bibles and adequate medication before being deported to Guatemala. Other inmates at La Esperanza are likely affiliated with the Catholic Church, which became the target of crackdowns starting in 2018 after it offered shelter and first aid to participants in protests against the government. Carmen Maria Saenz Martinez and Lesbia Gutierrez, both affiliated with the Catholic Church, are likely at La Esperanza but have been detained incommunicado without proof of life and denied access to lawyers. In January 2025, officials at La Esperanza Prison severely restricted outdoor access for inmates who prayed out loud. The inmates had been beaten during interrogations and denied access to Bibles.
Saudi Arabia - Dhahban Prison
Intended Capacity: 7,500
Approximate Inmate Population: 4,000 (2021)
Dhahban Prison opened in December 2015 as a maximum security facility. The prison has hosted programs to support rehabilitation. Reports from recent years, however, indicate mistreatment--including torture resulting in death-- of inmates at Dhahban Prison on the basis of their religious beliefs. Prison officials at Dhahban have warned inmates not to disclose this torture to their families. During Raif Badawi's imprisonment for insulting Islam, officials at Dhahban Prison subjected him to ongoing mistreatment. In December 2019, he conducted a hunger strike in protest of this mistreatment, which included denial of access to crucial medicine. While Badawi was released in 2022 (and remains under a travel ban), his lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, remains in prison.
Officials at Dhahban Prison placed al-Khair in solitary confinement, denied him contact with his family, and subjected him to torture.
In 2018, Saudi officials violently targeted several activists detained at Dhahban for peacefully protesting the religious male guardianship system. The women were taken to an unofficial site known as the "hotel" where they were sexually assaulted and tortured. During these encounters, officials subjected them to taunts, including "where is your Lord to protect you?" While the women were eventually released, several of them, including Loujain al-Hathloul, remain under a travel ban.
Turkmenistan - Ovadan-Depe Prison
Intended Capacity: 150 Approximate Inmate Population: 360 (2009) Construction of Ovadan-Depe prison began in 2002 northwest of the capital, Ashgabat. Former inmates report egregious conditions, including lack of sufficient food, mass beatings, and other forms of torture. Temperature fluctuations between -4 degrees F and 104 degrees F and mosquito infestations further exacerbate this poor treatment.
Inmates also report "hunchback cells," which are only five feet tall and prevent prisoners from standing upright in them. Solitary confinement cells at the prison (kartsers) are 10-foot-high, well-shaped rooms into which prisoners are placed at the bottom with only a small window at the top.
Several inmates at Ovadan-Depe are imprisoned on charges of being "Wahhabi," a movement of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia and based on the teachings of Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Membership in a Wahhabi group can carry a six-year prison sentence in Turkmenistan. However, the charge is often used against people regardless of their actual beliefs or activity, including a Protestant Christian in 2024. At Ovadan- Depe, those accused of being part of a Wahhabi group are guarded in a special unit overseen by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Others accused of "Islamic extremism" have been imprisoned at Ovadan-Depe. Turkmenistan has also imprisoned at Ovadan-Depe members of the Nurist movement, including Myratdurdy Shamyradow, Meret Owezow, Ahmet Mammetdurdyyew, and Begejik Begejikow.
Conclusion
Prisons abroad, including the small sample in this factsheet, are a site of FoRB restrictions that are often systematic and egregious. State perpetration of these restrictions often takes the form of violent coercion, harassment, and denial without justification of religious freedom. Pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (as amended) heads of U.S. government agencies should raise cases involving individuals imprisoned because of their religion with foreign counterparts. Additionally, and to better spotlight FoRB mistreatment in prisons, U.S. diplomats should seek to meet with imprisoned religious leaders.
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Original text here: https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/2025%20Factsheet%20Prison%20Mistreatment%20and%20FoRB%20v2.pdf
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Fact Sheet: Degrading Freedom of Religion or Belief Conditions in North Korea
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following fact sheet:
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Degrading Freedom of Religion or Belief Conditions in North Korea
Introduction
In 2025, there have been no substantive indications that the government of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) has ceased to be one of the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief in the world. To the contrary, recent reports suggest that North Korea remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for individuals from all religious backgrounds, and particularly for
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued the following fact sheet:
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Degrading Freedom of Religion or Belief Conditions in North Korea
Introduction
In 2025, there have been no substantive indications that the government of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) has ceased to be one of the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief in the world. To the contrary, recent reports suggest that North Korea remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for individuals from all religious backgrounds, and particularly forChristians, with even more draconian punitive measures being state-directed against traditional Korean shamanistic practices since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This report highlights religious freedom conditions in North Korea. USCIRF conducted a delegation to South Korea in 2024 to learn about religious freedom conditions in North Korea. The information obtained during the delegation confirmed that religious freedom remains virtually nonexistent in North Korea.
North Korean Law and International Obligations
The Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea states that "[c]itizens have freedom of religious belief. This right is granted by approving the construction of religious buildings and holding of religious ceremonies. Religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State and social order." Witnesses report that religion is in fact treated as an anti-state crime and that individuals found to have engaged in and with religious activities face severe punishment. Religious proselytizers and practitioners are treated as a "hostile class" under North Korea's songbun social classification system, which is designed solely based on perceived loyalty to the Kim family regime. The North Korean state ideology, juche, places the Kim family at the center of all aspects of life, leaving no room for religious freedom.
North Korea is a party to international treaties in which freedom of religion or belief is protected, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. North Korea continues to not be a party to--among others--the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and to the International Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Racial Discrimination despite committing to do so in response to recommendations from previous cycles of United Nations (UN) universal periodic reviews.
In September 2025, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the "Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," which states that "[o]ver the past 10 years, the Government continued to exercise total control over the population and severely restrict the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms," that "[r]estrictions on religious activities have not softened over the past decade," and that "despite the isolated steps taken, the human rights situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has not improved overall since 2014 and, in many instances, has degraded." The report from the OHCHR was in response to UN Human Rights Council Resolution 55/21 (2024), which called for an update to the landmark UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (2014) and "condemned in the strongest terms the long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations and other human rights abuses committed" in North Korea, including the "denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
Demographics of Religious Belief in North Korea
Estimates of the number of religious adherents in North Korea vary widely due to the severely limited access to reliable information on North Korea. By one estimate, there were up to 400,000 underground Christians in North Korea, including approximately 30,000 Christians estimated to be held in political prison camps. Among those imprisoned in North Korea for over a decade are three South Korean missionaries--Kim Jung-wook, Choi Chun-gil, and Kim Kook-kie. Based on its interviews over the past two decades with approximately 15,000 North Korean escapees resettled in Seoul, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) reports that 99.6 percent of respondents confirm that religious activities are not tolerated in North Korea.
North Korean escapees have been the primary source of information on freedom of religion or belief conditions within North Korea. Documenting those conditions in North Korea has become more difficult since North Korea's COVID-19 lockdown and tightened security measures along the North Korea- China border. Though the number of North Korean escapees has increased from its lowest point during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is still dramatically lower than the annual numbers of escapees before the pandemic. Civil society and escapees report that most North Koreans escape for economic reasons, and many of those most recent escapees reportedly do not have a basic understanding of religion or freedom of religion or belief.
China's Complicity in North Korean Religious Persecution
China plays a major role in the maintenance of the North Korean regime's repression of religion. China has ramped up security measures, including using facial, gait, and voice recognition technologies to identify North Korean defectors within China's borders who are attempting to flee through China to other countries, particularly to South Korea. China continues to repatriate North Korean refugees despite the risk of "arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance and sexual and gender-based violence." Due to the decades-long severity of religious persecution within North Korea, escape through China is, in more recent years, the first time that North Koreans encounter religious organizations and Christian missionaries.
North Korean escapees report that after North Koreans are repatriated from China to North Korea, one of the first questions they are asked by North Korean authorities is whether they met with a missionary during their time in China. Escapees who admit to or are found to have met with a missionary, particularly Christian missionaries, are subjected to the harshest forms of torture and imprisonment in North Korean political prison camps.
The OHCHR states: " Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status."
While other countries, including Vietnam, Laos, and Mongolia, have breached this principle by also repatriating North Korean escapees, no country has been more complicit than China, particularly for North Koreans encountering religious groups, especially Christians, while escaping North Korea through China. Chinese authorities are reported to be using their enhanced surveillance tools to map networks within China supporting North Korean refugees, which includes religious organizations, and to inform North Korean authorities of repatriated escapees' encounters with religious groups and contacts.
Persecution of Religious Belief in North Korea
The North Korean regime treats Christians as "counterrevolutionaries" and "traitors," as it considers Christianity an especially dangerous foreign-linked influence with Western values. Such values present political and ideological challenges to Kim family control that the regime believes have the potential to inspire resistance. Those engaging in Christian practices, even possessing a Bible, face harsh punishments, including torture, forced labor, imprisonment, or execution by firing squad.
The North Korean regime implements a guilt-byassociation (yeon-jwa-je) punitive system in which up to three generations of family members face punishment and political imprisonment for the alleged crimes of one family member, such as for practicing religion or participating in religious acts. Fear of repercussions for multiple generations of family members has led to North Korean families discontinuing religious practices, including hiding the fact that family members had been Christians.
While Christians face the harshest punishments, other religious practices are repressed in a similar manner across generations. A recent North Korean escapee described how family members had been punished for the grandmother's Buddhist beliefs and forced to move from Pyongyang to a remote coastal area.
As a result of this systematic, egregious, ongoing assault on religious freedom by the Kim regime in North Korea, organized religions, such as Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, and Buddhism, have almost disappeared from North Korea. Yet increasingly bleak economic conditions in North Korea have reportedly driven North Koreans to seek out shamans and fortune-tellers, whose practices are deeply rooted in Korean cultural traditions.
Whereas "religion" is protected on paper by North Korean law, traditional indigenous religious practices were considered "superstitious activity" and criminalized as "unsocialist behaviors." Shamanist practices had previously resulted in less harsh punishments in North Korea than for those caught practicing or encountering organized religion, particularly Christianity.
North Korea has since enacted new laws, such as the Reactionary Ideology and Cultural Rejection Act in 2020, to inflict harsher punishments on--among others-- shamanistic practices, which are considered in opposition to, or separate from, the authority of the Kim regime. The September 2025 OHCHR report includes a 2018 instance of a man sentenced to life imprisonment for carrying out the shamanistic practice of identifying a burial site for religious purposes.
There have been indications that the Kim regime's ideological controls may be weakening within North Korea. However, the COVID-19 pandemic provided the North Korean government the opportunity to close its borders and to enact more draconian laws and punishments in attempts to reassert control over the North Korean population. There are reports of a rise in public executions within the last few years, and North Korean youth have increasingly been the targets of the new laws and punishments.
Conclusion
The government of North Korea continues to be among the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief in the world. All forms of religious practice, and particularly Christianity, risk punishments by the North Korean regime that UN bodies describe as "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations" and "crimes against humanity." Decades of religious repression by the Kim regime have led to the near elimination of organized religion in North Korea.
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Original text here: https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/2025%20North%20Korea%20Country%20Update%20%28003%29.pdf
National Archives to Loan Historic Documents to Presidential Libraries Across the Country, to Support America's 250th Birthday Exhibitions
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The National Archives and Records Administration issued the following news release:
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National Archives to loan historic documents to Presidential Libraries across the country, to support America's 250th birthday exhibitions
The National Archives and Records Administration announced that it will temporarily move over 30 remarkable documents, records and artifacts from storage vaults in Washington, DC and loan them to support exhibitions at America's Presidential Libraries that celebrate the Semiquincentennial in 2026.
This effort takes the National Archives' ongoing
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The National Archives and Records Administration issued the following news release:
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National Archives to loan historic documents to Presidential Libraries across the country, to support America's 250th birthday exhibitions
The National Archives and Records Administration announced that it will temporarily move over 30 remarkable documents, records and artifacts from storage vaults in Washington, DC and loan them to support exhibitions at America's Presidential Libraries that celebrate the Semiquincentennial in 2026.
This effort takes the National Archives' ongoingexhibition series "Opening the Vault " to a national audience, and will provide Presidential Library visitors with special and exceptionally rare opportunities to get up close to important records that have shaped our nation.
The documents going on display will differ at each Presidential Library, offering visitors distinct and different experiences at each museum exhibition. Documents were selected by the National Archives' Office of Presidential Libraries in partnership with nonprofit Presidential Foundations.
Featured documents that will cross the country for display include:
* Thomas Edison's Patent Application for the Light Bulb, 1880
* Statue of Liberty's Deed of Gift from the People of France, 1884
* 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that ended slavery, 1865
* FDR's handwritten "date which will live in infamy" speech draft, 1941
* Document officializing the surrender of Germany in World War II, 1945
* Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958
The following Presidential Libraries are hosting exhibitions to celebrate America250 that will include many of these historic documents in 2026. The Presidential Libraries are:
* Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri
* Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas
* John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts
* Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas
* Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California
* Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan
* Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California
* George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas
* William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas
* George W. Bush Library and George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas
More information about each Presidential Library's exhibition --including opening dates and lists of documents that will be featured for display-- will be announced shortly at archives.gov .
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Original text here: https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2025/nr25-14
Ecuador Strengthens Its Growth Agenda With IDB Support
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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Ecuador Strengthens Its Growth Agenda with IDB Support
Ecuador will implement economic policies to boost economic growth and strengthen the business environment by stimulating private investment in strategic sectors such as energy and tourism, supported by financing of $200 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The economic policy reforms will improve the efficiency of the tax system, collection, compliance, and reduce tax evasion. These policy actions aim to expand the use
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 -- The Inter-American Development Bank issued the following news release:
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Ecuador Strengthens Its Growth Agenda with IDB Support
Ecuador will implement economic policies to boost economic growth and strengthen the business environment by stimulating private investment in strategic sectors such as energy and tourism, supported by financing of $200 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The economic policy reforms will improve the efficiency of the tax system, collection, compliance, and reduce tax evasion. These policy actions aim to expand the useof electronic means for tax payments and partial debit.
The program supports laying the groundwork for promoting more efficient public spending through changes focused on implementing quality spending tools to strengthen the public budget, such as thematic classifiers for gender, equality, and climate change; implementing results-based management in the chronic child malnutrition program, expenditure reviews, and defining prioritization criteria for public investment.
The program's financing also backs measures to strengthen strategic planning, coordination, and alignment of efforts between the public and private sectors through a national growth agenda. In addition, it will promote greater private investment in strategic sectors such as energy and tourism. The use of the Tourism Development Fund will be expanded, providing greater predictability in the budget for implementing promotion programs and stimulating private investment, thereby contributing to greater job creation.
This credit constitutes the first of two technically related but financially independent operations under the Programmatic Policy-Based Loan (PBP) modality, approved by the IDB's Executive Board. The loan has a 20-year amortization period, a 5.5-year grace period, and a rate based on SOFR.
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About the IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a member of the IDB Group, is devoted to improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1959, the Bank works with the region's public sector to design and enable impactful, innovative solutions for sustainable and inclusive development. Leveraging financing, technical expertise, and knowledge, it promotes grow and well-being in 26 countries. Visit our website: https://www.iadb.org/en
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Original text here: https://www.iadb.org/en/news/ecuador-strengthens-its-growth-agenda-idb-support
