waterloo, said leon, as you estimate is reporting that supreme court justice stephen breyer will retire at the end of his current term rose, one of 3 remaining liberal justices in the conservative majority court is 83 years old. there's retirement will give you as president joe biden, his 1st chance to nominate a new liberal judge to the country's highest judicial body for face pressure to retire. while democrats control both houses of congress, the court will continue to have a $63.00 conservative majority, even if another liberal replaces brow. ah, this is all 0, these are the top stories, rushes foreign minister says appropriate measures will be taken. if the u. s. fails to respond to security demands. moscow ones guarantees that ukraine will not join nato and that the military alliance will not expand further into former soviet republics. the ukrainian foreign minister admits the number of russian troops,

a mast at the border is a direct threat. but says it's insufficient for a full scale attack. roche has been holding military drills to ensure the army is combat ready dosage. a body has more from moscow. the foreign minister was speaking, it's a lower house of parliament known as the do my here on wednesday and t highlighted where things are at. and he said that to the russian government, it will not accept any kind of delays by the government of the united states. in getting a written response from them, they expect to have that response on the security guarantees that the russians wanted from the us about nato. and it's ambitious to expand further. that is something that they cannot accept. the russian for. mr. also said that a kiev is being pushed to provoke and moscow, and that is a cause of concern. the u. k. prime minister has continued to resist calls by m p 's to resign, borrows johnson refused to comment on an investigation into whether his government

held parties during lockdown. the findings are expected to be published soon. you, the saudi coalition fighting in yemen has lost airstrikes and the capitals and not the targets included hootie military sites, as well as a national tv and radio tower. that's up to who the rebels who control the capital, fired more missiles towards abu dhabi in the united arab emirates on monday, the u. e says it intercepted and destroyed them, cut his forces in northern assyria, say they've regained control of a prison falling a week long assault by isolate fighters. around 200 inmates and 27 kurdish fighters were killed in idols, attempt to free comrades. the battle forced 45000 people from their homes in the city of ha soccer. to save the children, charity, he said, some of the 700 boys detained in the prison were used as human shields. those are the headlines coming up next is inside story. good by ah,

who should police social media, twitter reports, it's received a record number of government request to remove content. is this a way to maintain a safe and open internet for all? or is it censorship? this isn't i sort. ah, look, it's a program i'm american. most social media firms have made the same promise to provide a free and open platform for uses to express themselves. but they're coming under increasing pressure to remove content deemed offensive or illegal. twitter says

it's received a record number of government request to remove tweets in the 1st 6 months of last year. just 5 countries made 95 percent of the demands japan, russia, turkey, india, and south korea. in 54 percent of cases, twitter withheld content or asked uses to remove post. but the firm says the request revealed a deeply worrying trend against freedom of expression. the social media giant has had a rocky relationship with some governments to, to impose restrictions and warning labels ahead of the u. s. election in 2020 uses . received a prompt pointing them to credible information before they could retweet content labeled as misleading following the capitol hill. right slash air, twitter permanently banned format u. s. president donald trump, after he expressed support for the rises. and in february 2021, india demanded the removal of content saying it was promoting violence. the height of the form is protest against agricultural reform laws. to to also deleted

hundreds of tweets, but refuse to deactivate the accounts of media outlets. the indian government responded by threatening twitter employees with up to 7 years in jail. last june, nigeria suspended the social media firm after i deleted a tweet by president bama bihari, in which he promised to punish local groups, he blamed violence to said that violated its policy on abusive behavior. and 2 weeks ago twitter agreed to register nigeria and pay local taxes to in this month ban. ah, let's bring in our guests in london quinn, mchugh, executive director, article 19 human rights organization defending freedom of expression and information in maastricht. the glenda busy assistant professor of european lo, maastricht university and a fellow at yale law school and also in london. melody pa, 3 advocacy direct access. now a non profit organization defending the digital rights of uses around the world.

welcome all to the program. let's begin in london with quinn. mchugh, twitter says this is a deeply worrying trend against freedom of expression. but the government, the saying that just clamping down on a legal activity his right i thank you very much for having me today. i think the truth lies more on the side of twitter, on this one we've seen around the world, the number of governments who are passing incredibly day laws that are designed. so the purpose of allowing them to restrict online content, one about the way that they can share content in office space or in the regular media. so we've seen an alarming trend of legislation being passed that allows countries to go back to twitter and say, look, you're in violation of law. you have to take this content down which is completely legal and appropriate under international expression standards of the par 3. also

in london is alarming trend. the government during the indian government threatened to employees with 7 years in jail, we've seen shorter being forced to pay taxes in nigeria and register locally there . is that an attack on the medium generally, or just on twitter? i think there's an attack on the medium. i mean, you talked about a 9 area. twitter was banned during 9 months in the country. and when we talk about threats, physical threats, actually against teacher employees in india, who faced similar threats, who will employees in russia just a couple of months ago. so we definitely are seeing government's attempts at taking control over the information that is being circulating on the internet and taking lots of different measures whether they're legislations or other attempts at taking control in august of the glands obasi the legal side of this seems to be down to

either the social media joins policing themselves and having a policy in place allows them to be the all because of what is freedom of speech and what is an all government's individually cracking down? is that a tenable situation? yeah, thank you for your question. and while i agree with the previous speakers, and indeed we're seeing both big lots by government whose interest is more to or rather constrain speech more so than potentially legitimate legal interest of the lawfulness. or let's say content against minors, or tra other important interests or the fact that if you look at the data, the twitter has published, specific individual, specific journalists or sometimes targeted or their accounts are requested to be shut down at the same time. the reason why this is such a challenging issue of content, moderation, l overall. a question of how do we regulate these kinds of platforms? and what we've seen as someone with expertise, both in us and european law, and seeing this from both sides of the pond. the challenge that we continuously see

is also the disagreement around what is the primary value that we want to safeguard is really a speech or limiting speech. or we said guarding privacy. for example, a concern has been consistent in the case of europe, ian union. and oftentimes, obviously a lot of the governments cannot come to agreement with themselves. so, for example, in the us to, if we're taking privacy as a matter, there's so many discrepancies between, let's say, what happens in california with what happens in other states. and even so at the global level, and as we've often say, and when we talk about from a legal side of things that we can really speak of one internet, we speak of many internet platforms because there are so many, it's a patchwork and it's a bits and pieces of regulation that is making it difficult was increasingly also hard as some of the traditional challenges that we're seeing. whether that's from the side of lobbying in terms of the kind of regulation that should be in place. whether that comes down from lack of consistency and when it's in administrations

and priorities and understanding the kind of technology that's a state. so in this sense, we're seeing their opinion taking, trying to take some bolder steps. whether that was in the case of content, moderation or privacy protect since, but indeed, as a coming to an overall one global model, i would say that's extremely unlikely. taken into account that so many of the big countries actually have more of an interest to leave things vague and under their discretion, more so than to come to a more global agreement in terms of what kind of rules can we agree across the board? what would be generally con, to regulation, protecting legitimate interests, and what is actually purely an attack on freedom of speech or media, or other protections that are legitimate in a democratic society. couldn't re key in order to protect individual's rights in order to protect the freedom of speech. one of the things that has been discussed for a very long time is almost a united nations charter of digital human rights. something that actually codifies

and suggests that this is, was a defendable, and this is what is protectable and given criminal elements, that is something that governments can then deal with but all guessed in maastricht . to said that's going to be incredibly difficult to do. do you think it's going to be difficult to do, and is it a good idea frankly? very easy to see all the reasons that are listed, it will be really difficult to do. i think one of the things we also should cita is that under the universal declaration of human rights and the international coverage and civil political rights as well as some of these more soft law decorations that have come from human rights council on the internet. there is a fairly robust structure out there that protects these rights, and these structures do not necessarily discriminate between an offline right and on one of the things we've consistently call for it as an organization. is that the recognition of the race that are available to people in an offline standing with

their comes freedom of the media, freedom of speech, right, to privacy, he respected in the online context. that means there is some translation that needs to happen in terms of moving right from one place to the other. but we want a whole sill trying to create a new right framework. what actually the rates frameworks that already exists would provide robust protections of the sites. would you agree middle of the pottery that there are already. busy systems in place that doesn't need to be codified centrally . yeah, i would say that there are lots of protections and lots of stamps. safeguards, establishing international law that do guarantee those rights where the challenge comes is in the implementation of the these from them into rights to exist. but also in holding companies accountable. because as much as governments have an obligation to support and to enforce fundamental rights. companies have somehow

escaped and half of them ex escapes scrutiny and accountability when it comes to, to implementing some of the regulations or even just and, and enforcing some of human rights in the digital world. and it's been really difficult to find a comprehensive regulation worldwide, specifically applying to social media companies for example. but we know that a lot more mechanisms are possible for them to be more transparent for them to really be accountable to be more responsive. so there are definitely mechanisms that can be put in place. and besides, what would be like a global regulatory framework while it was some of these global rigate, regulatory framers are necessary. we've seen the success in europe, for example, of the protection to the p. r. and, and we can think of other similar initiatives that has been an,

an advance for, for human rights and for the protection of human rights on 9 of the glen. so often we've looked at social media companies as conglomerates as businesses, as corporations, which means they've escaped the kind of scrutiny that say public broadcasters come under like, for example, you have off come in the u. k, you have regulatory laws in the u. s. and in the u. k, the govern will can go an air will, can be printed, et cetera, because we view them as being corporations. now, is it, is there a need to change the definition of what a social media company is? yes, so that's an interesting question. actually very well with what i was going to reply and since it would already be with fact, let's say for the g b r, i would just like to take a moment to go back to that point because ah, watching out his id is 1744 g m t, we're taking you to the state department in the u. s. where the secretary of state entity blanket is making a statement about the situation between ukraine,

nato and russia. let's listen him, master sullivan delivered our written response in moscow. all told it sets out a serious diplomatic crat. ford. should russia choose it? the document we've delivered includes concerns of the united states and our allies and partners about russia's actions that undermine security. a principled and pragmatic evaluation of the concerns that russia has raised. and our own proposals for areas where we may be able to find common ground. we make clear that there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend including ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances. we've addressed the possibility of reciprocal transparency measures regarding force, posture and ukraine, as well as measures to increase competence regarding military exercises and maneuvers in europe. ah, and we address other areas where we see potential for progress, including arms control related to missiles in europe. our interest in

a follow on agreement to the new start treaty that covers all nuclear weapons and waste increased transparency, instability. we put these ideas forward because they have the potential, if negotiated in good faith, to enhance our security in that of our allies and partners. while also addressing brushes, stated concerns through reciprocal commitments. our response to russia reflects what i said in keith, berlin, and geneva last week. we're open to dialogue. we prefer diplomacy, and we're prepared to move forward, where there is the possibility of communication cooperation. if russia deescalate its aggression toward ukraine, stop the inflammatory rhetoric and approaches, discussions about the future security in europe. in a spirit of reciprocity, our responses were fully coordinated with ukraine and our european allies and partners with whom we've been consulting continuously for weeks. we sought their input and incorporated it into the file version delivered to moscow. additionally,

nato developed and will deliver to moscow its own paper with ideas and concerns about collective security in europe. and that paper fully reinforces ours and vice versa. there's no daylight among the united states and our allies and partners on these matters. we shared our response paper with congress, and i'll be briefing congressional leaders on this later today, and consulting with them on our approach. as you know, their strong bipartisan interest and deep expertise on the hill when it comes to ukraine in russia. and we very much appreciate having congress as a partner as we move forward. we're not releasing the document publicly. because we think that diplomacy has the best chance to succeed. if we provide space for confidential talks, we hope and expect that russia will have the same view. and we'll take our proposal seriously. i expect to speak to foreign minister lever off in the coming days after the moscow has had a chance to read the paper and is ready to discuss next steps. there should be no

doubt about our seriousness of purpose when it comes to diplomacy and were acting with equal focus and force to bolster you traced offenses and prepare a swift united response to further russian aggression. 3 deliveries of u. s. defensive military assistance, thrive and key this week, carrying additional javelin missiles and other anti arm assistance. $283.00 tons of ammunition and non lethal equipment essential to ukraine's frontline defenders. more delivery is expected in the days to come. we provided more defensive security assistance to ukraine in the past year than in any previous here. last week i authorized us allies, including estonia, latvia and lithuania, to provide you its origin, military equipment from their inventories for use by ukraine. also last week, we notified congress of our intent to deliver to ukraine. the am i 17 helicopters currently held in defense department inventories 5. additionally,

the secretary of defense announced on monday that 8500 u. s. service members currently stationed in europe and the united states had been placed in heightened readiness, a heightened redness to deploy, to ensure that we're able to support the nato response for swiftly if it's activated by the north atlantic council to harden the allies eastern flight. other nato allies have also announced steps that they're prepared to take, and we expect more in the coming days. we've taken the step out of prudence. we, all those forces don't have to be activated for deployment. but if they are, we will be ready. we're also continuing to coordinate with our european allies and partners on severe economic sanctions to hold moscow accountable for its actions. we developed a high impact, quick action response that would inflict significant costs on the russian economy and financial system. as part of our response, we're also prepared to impose export controls that will have a longer term effect,

denying russia products that it needs to fulfill its cheating ambitions. on top of all of that, our allies and partners are also stepping up to provide assistance to ukraine in various and mutually reinforcing ways. as we've done many times before, the alliance, an individual allies are coming together to support our partners and to defend what should be inviolable, principles that have help provide unprecedented security, stability and prosperity for decades in europe and around the world. finally, we're looking to support our allies and partners in dealing with the secondary negative consequences of russia's destabilizing x. for example, we know that ukraine's economy and financial position is being affected by this crisis. and just as we're bolstering ukraine security. so to are we looking for how we can support its economy beyond the significant assistance we're already provided . our european allies and partners are doing so as well. and that's another matter that'll have an opportunity to discuss with congress later this afternoon. as we

are taking steps to ensure that the global energy supply isn't disrupted, ah, that too is an important focus. should russia choose to weaponized natural gas by cutting supply to europe even more than it's already done? we're in discussions with governments and major producers around the world about searching their capacity. we're engaged in detail conversations with our allies and partners about coordinating our response, including how best to deploy their existing energy stockpiles. all this effort is aimed at mitigating price shocks and ensuring that people in the united states, europe, and around the world have the energy they need no matter what russia decides to do . all told our actions over the past week have sharpened the choice, facing russia. now, we've laid out a diplomatic path. we've lined up steep consequences. should russia choose for the regression? we stepped forward with more support for ukraine, security, and economy. and we and our allies and partners are united across the board. now

we'll continue to press forward and prepare. it remains up to russia to decide how to respond. we're ready either way. one final note before i take some questions regarding american citizen ukraine. as you know, earlier this week, i authorized the voluntary departure of a limited number of u. s. employees and ordered the departure of many family members of embassy personnel from ukraine. this was a decision based on one factor only. the safety and security of our colleagues in their families and given the continued massive build up a russian forces on ukraine's borders, which has many indications of preparations for an invasion. these steps were the prudent wants to take. i want to be clear that our embassy and heave will remain open and we continue to maintain a robust presence to provide diplomatic, economic and security support to you. great. the state department is also issued an

updated travel advisory due to the potential for security conditions to deter it rapidly. and without warning, if russia invades or commits other destabilizing actions inside ukraine, our message now for any americans, ukraine, is to strongly consider leaving, using commercial or other privately available transportation options. these options remain readily available. and the embassy may extend loans to those who can't afford the cost of a commercial ticket. while the state department will always seek to provide consular services wherever possible, russian military action with severely impact our ability to perform that work and of russia, invades civilians including american stone, ukraine could be caught in a conflict zone between combat and forces. the u. s. government may not be in a position to aid individuals in these circumstances. this has long been the case in conflicts owns around the world. so, what we don't know whether russia will continue its aggression toward ukraine.

either way, we have a responsibility to provide this notice to americans there. and with that, happy to take some questions. i thank you mr. secretary, i, i, i realize that you don't want to get into the specifics of what, what, what is actually in this document and a, although i'm sure i and my colleagues will continue to try to get them. but can you say more broadly, when you say that there are core principles that you're committed to in a, to uphold and defend? does that mean that in this document you told the russians point blank in writing? that no is the answer to their demands for a formal bar on the expansion of nato, the permanent exclusion of ukraine, and the, the, the withdrawal of certain forces and equipment from eastern europe. is that what

this says can, is there anything different in this document than what we have heard publicly over the course a lot for the week? ah, again, without going to the specifics of the document, i can tell you that it reread what we said. probably for many weeks and in a sense, for many, many years that we will uphold the principle of nato saw open door. ah. and that so as i have said repeatedly in recent weeks, a commitment that that were bound to and so, ah, the document as i, as i said, makes very clear some of the basic principles that we are standing by committed to and will uphold, ah, much of which shaw has been stated in public, including by me in recent days and weeks, and that goes to nato's open door policy with zachary, there are no. this isn't about concession. well, what there,

there is no change in the, in the year their data position. in this document, the 31st of all, there is, there is, of, there is no change, there will be no change. second, we reiterate the that principle. ah, of course, it is for nato, not the united states unilaterally. to um, discuss the, the open door, the open door policy, these are decisions that natal mesa's, an alliance, not the united states. you unilaterally. but from our perspective, i can't be more clear. ah, nato's door is open remains open. ah, and that is our commitment. or if you have any reason leave then that the document that was submitted will in any way less than the chance of rushing action or was this just kid to show you tried

margaret? what um, what we do, ah, in this document, besides laying out our court principles, besides sharing our concerts, concerns of allies and partners about odd things that russia is doing that we believe undermined security instability. ah, we also do layout areas where we believe that together we could actually advance security for everyone, including for russia based on some of the state of concerns as well, of course, as for us and for our allies and partners. and so there are a number of various, again, based on what brush has said, ah, that, i think would make a difference if done on a reciprocal paces and approach in good faith. so for example, who said that the placement effect of vol, offensive missile systems in ukraine, military exercises and maneuvers in europe are potential arms control measures of greater transparency of various measures to reduce risks. all of these things would

address. i think mutual concerns including concerns stated by russia and advanced collective security. so i think there is there, there are important things to work with if russia is serious about working with them. and that is, up to, up to president putin. we'll see how they respond. but there's not, there's no doubt in my mind that if russia were to approach this seriously, and in a spirit of reciprocity with a determination to enhance collective security for all of us, there are of great positive things in this, of, in this document that, that should be pursued, we can't make that decision for president putin ali can make it, as we've said, ah, throughout. and we of course started this process with the, the, the conversations that took place in our strategic stability dialogue with russia

between russian united states about 10 days ago. at the nato, russia council, at the organization for corporation, security in europe. ah, that again we, we understand russia has stated concerns about security. we have our own very clear concerns about security in the actions that russians taking that undermine it. and we are prepared to discuss and if appropriate of actually negotiate ah steps to enhance everyone security. and i've laid out some of the areas where we think we could do that. but right now, this is about the, the areas and ideas that we could pursue. and we'll see how i rush a response from just buying time to later to place to invade ukraine, making you jump through hoops like hand delivering written responses. the questions that you haven't said time and time again in the past. and meanwhile,

that he stabilizing ukraine from within the economy's crumbling, you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars showing them up. a lot point. you stop playing rushes, game and take prem did action now. so then 1st we're as you know, not, not standing still. and we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and that's very much what we've been doing. so we've been cleared to russia, that there are 2 paths for diplomatic one, but also a passive defense and deterrence. and if russia chooses aggression a path that will lead to massive consequences. and so even as we've been in gauging the diplomacy, which is my job and responsibility, we have been very resolutely preparing for russia to take the other path, the path of aggression. and as i laid out the work that we've done over the past couple of months in bringing allies and partners together around massive consequences for russia should it renew its aggression and the very detailed work that's been done on that.