>> president obama delivers his seventh and final keynote address at the annual congressional black caucus foundation dinner tomorrow night hillary clinton will also be there and received the trailblazer award in recognition of being the first woman presidential nominee of the major party in the u.s.. live coverage on c-span at 7:30 p.m. eastern. >> at today's pentagon ceremony for prisoners of war and those missing in action retired captain jerry coffee who was held for seven years in vietnam at the infamous hanoi hilton,.

he and other p.o.w.s used to communicate. every night they tapped out goodnight and god bless america from their cells to each other. >> when you knew the man in the cell next to you was down and hurting his feet locked and ankle cuffs at the foot of the concrete slab come his hands cuffed tightly behind him, he had been like that for a week or a month, you get up to your wall frequently and you tapped to him gb and he knew that meant god bless. he knew that it also meant to be tough, hang in there. i am praying for you. and then in a week or a month or whenever he'd be up on his wall to encourage you in the same way for example on the p.o.w. flag,

never forget, never forget. never forget. we all came out of that prison experience as stronger men. in some ways it was like cramming a doctorate degree into those years in prison. i would like to leave you this morning with a p.o.w. message. at the end of every day we would sign off and say goodnight. g anne for goodnight.

gba. god bless america. every single night. the united kingdom independence party has elected diane james has its first female leader. this is the party faces a struggle for relevance after the brexit vote to leave the european union and the departure of outgoing leader nigel farage. coming up here at c-span2 we will hear from nigel farage in his final address at the uk ip annual conference and later the

party's leader diane james. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause] >> wow. thank you, thank you, thank you. thank you. ladies and gentlemen, thank you. what a fantastic welcome. we did it, we got our country back. [applause] and we would not have done it without you, the people of the uk and i am very very proud of every single one of you. thank you. [applause] the events of june the 23rd at

3:30 in the morning we realize we were going to win. it felt to me like a fairytale frankly that had come true because this has been a very long journey indeed. 25 years ago i joined the anti-federalist league. not many people can say that. because there weren't many of us and then in 1993 it became ukip and i said to myself, it doesn't matter if all my friends and family and business colleagues think i have gone mad. it doesn't matter to me that it's impossible to get a new critical party off the ground in this country. to me, it was very simple all those years ago. it was a matter of principle. i believe we should govern our own country. [applause]

six weeks after the party had been formed the conservative member of parliament died overnight and there was a by election and i thought i would volunteer night was the first ever adopted candidate of the uk independence party. and i went out there and i campaigned and i did my best and i can tell you the night of the results by a crushing clear margin of 164 votes i beat the late great -- [applause] it was rather difficult to get more than 1% in a by election in those days but things change in 1999 with the advent of proportional representation for the european election. no one thought we had a chance.

i always did and i will never forget that night when three of us were elected and ukip was just beginning to get on in real terms on the political map. i will never forget that feeling. it's an amazing feeling and i was interviewed, my first-ever live interview. i had no media training or anything like that and it was 1:00 in the morning. they say congratulations nigel nigel. you said you were going to do it, you have. but next week he said he will be off to the european parliament and you will find a never-ending round of invitations to lunches, dinners, champagne receptions. do you hear me you think you will be corrupted by the lifestyle and i replied live on air, no i have always lived like that. [applause] [laughter]

at least he was true. we went on year after year being part of ukip. it felt like a big dipper right, successes and dramatic failures. all the things that happened in any political party but we really got onto the political big-time early and 2013. early in 2013 when suddenly the british public realized that what we have to say about the taboo subjects, the subjects that you were not supposed to suggest in polite company, the subjects the new labour made even raising it that somehow you are committing a criminal offense. we were right to talk honestly and openly about the need for sensible immigration into this country. and we talked about it.

[applause] and we talked about it and it rapidly was becoming the number one issue in british politics. nobody else would even touch the subject. they couldn't touch the subject because they were all committed to membership of the european union which meant the free movement of up to 500 million people. and a by election make a big score and then we went into the county elections of that year and i remember i was number four milbank were all the broadcasters were. i was doing there about 9:00 to do interviews about ukip overnight getting 23% of the national vote. 100 yards away from the entrance i saw a big throng of cameramen and photographers and i thought cranky, something. big must have happened. [laughter] and i was quite oblivious to what we had done.

we won the european election in 2014. [applause] the first was not labour oratory to win a national election since 1986. without us there would have been no referendum. [applause] without you, without you in the people's army there would have been no ground campaign and together we have changed the course of british history. [applause] and we have brought down a prime minister. [applause] and we have gotten rid of the

chancellor. [applause] i forget what i call them now. and we have gotten rid of the european commissioner. [applause] i said four years ago i predicted that ukip would cause an earthquake in british politics. well, we have. we have. [applause] so the question is what now? we have a new prime minister who has said that wrecks it means to brexit. a new prime minister who when she started looked to be very surefooted but i have a feeling things are beginning to change. when i saw her at the g20 making her speech afterwards she said the british people who hosted in

the referendum for some control of immigration from the european union. no prime minister, we voted to take back control of our borders [applause] and we have cabinet ministers like the home secretary still fighting the referendum suggesting last weekend that it might cost us to get a visa. half of this cabinet did not only fail on the winning side of the referendum but it seems to me they want to do their utmost to be part of the single market. there is going to be a great political battle ahead and my concern would. this. with labor in the mess that it's an envoy is in a mess, isn't it?

i leadership election going on and yet there's no conversation with a half of labour voters or more to focus on brexit but with labour in trouble and the conservatives perhaps heading towards 2020 and a very comfortable in a very easy position, the temptation on the prime minister will be to go for a soft brexit as opposed to a hard brexit. we can be very proud of the fact that we won the war but we now must win the peace and the only mechanism to put pressure on the government to keep the debate live and to make sure that 17.4 million people get that they voted for is for ukip to be healthy and for ukip to be strong. [applause]

we will find out who our new leader is and i wish them, i think it's going to be a herb that we will see. i wish them the very best of luck in my job is not to try to influence that my job will be if that leader wants any advice and make no mistake about it i am foursquare behind this party and its aims. [applause] steve crowley who is to decide me for six years as chairman of the party and leader, if you think it's difficult you ought to be trying -- you ought to try to be chairman of ukip and i have to say if at some point in time for ukip does get

recognized for their contribution to british political life and bearing in mind the liberal democrats have over 100 light-years in the house of lords, if anything like that was to come our way then that i think stevie really have to be at the top of our list for everything you have done for this party. [applause] steve talked about reform. he talked about change. remember this, ukip was a grassroots political party. ukip didn't have in the 1990s and a well-known national figures. it didn't even have them until 1999 any representatives. it was a grassroots party and we chose to manage ourselves through national executive committee of willing volunteers and that was fine then, but we have moved on, haven't we?

we are now the third biggest political party in this country. we have to change our management structure and we have to guard because one of the problems is that it rings people into the party who perhaps go to it without touristic games for his country or its people but perhaps are more motivated by their own professional careers in politics. [applause] there are things that need to change but in essence, in essence i know from that referendum campaign and sense, i know this party is united. i know this party is strong. you only have to look at the bi-election to see that since the referendum ukip is winning in their millions of people out there who now identify as ukip

voters. they believe in us. they trust us, they think we are speaking up for them. the fact that we have changed the center of gravity in british politics, the fact that many of the things that we have campaigned on whether its grammar schools or foreign aid or whatever it may be, the fact that the others are talking about it doesn't mean they are going to deliver it and it's us that has to keep pushing all of those agendas. not only are there millions of people out there who feel loyal to us, but i don't think the hardest of votes, that we could potentially get from the labour party has really even started yet. [applause] in many ways, in many ways jerry corbin is a very decent and principled man but he doesn't believe in britain. he doesn't even want to sing the national anthem.

he flubbed it, didn't he when it came to the referendum and i think we have got fantastic potential in wales and the midland and the north and elsewhere in picking up labour votes. believe me, if brexit doesn't mean brexit then i think we are a very large number of conservatives who will say there's only one party to weaken the force. i think they will judge whether brexit means of brexit. to me, it's very very simple measures. when the time of the general election comes along will we have backed our territorial fishing waters around the coast of the united kingdom? [applause] will we be outside the single market so that 90% of our businesses that don't trade with

europe don't get regulated by europe. and above all the only time we will really know that wrecks it means brexit is when that has been put in the name and we get back our british counsel. [applause] and i have a feeling they are not going to deliver all of that and i'm certain they won't deliver it in less you fight hard and every single constituency in this country. and i say we have won the war. we must now win the peace. for my part, the chapter on what

has been a. extraordinary few years, i honestly looking back had never dreamt we would have achieved that we have. i have put absolutely all of me into this. [applause] i literally could not have worked any harder for couldn't have been more determined in a sense i guess it's been my life's work to try to help get this party to this point. i frankly don't think i could do anymore. i think folks i have done my bit [applause]

but i'm not giving up on politics. as i say i will support the new leader. i'm going to continue to lead a group in the european parliament. [applause] sitting next to mr. yunker and making my constructive contributions. [applause] and i intend this also, to travel around the other european capitals to try to help independents and democracy movement of those countries soon. [applause] and who knows i may even go back to the united states of america at some point between now. so i'm going to be a come i'm

going to be engaged in political life without leaving a political party and it's going to leave me for your. it's going to leave me less than strained. from now on, i'm really going to speak my mind. [applause] i said as i toured the country on that wonderful trip i met thousands of you out there. i said i want my country back and now folks, i want my life back and i think everybody for the massive contribution for so many thousands of you have made in helping me do this job in helping us change the course of british history. thank you. [applause]

[applause] [applause] [applause] ♪ [applause] [applause] knew it incoming independents

party leader diane james addresses the parliament for the first time in bournemouth england. she is the first female leader to run the party. this is a half-hour. >> ladies and gentlemen good afternoon. ladies and gentlemen, what a morning we have had. a fortnight ago i asked everybody to provide a sendoff for nigel depicting a man who would change the course of british history. an conference you did just that but just to be sure that he got the message, let's have one final cheer for nigel farage. [cheers and applause]

[applause] [applause] >> in just a few minutes, we will know who has been elected to take our party to the future. but first let us just spend a few final moments to reflect on what has passed. now i well remember what things were like a year ago. we got 4 million votes but only one mp. the election that pushed us to the verge of financial ruin and nigel had just resigned. at times over these last few months they seemed like the good old days.

that said, it didn't look good at the time but through the tenacity, dedication and passion of ukip members we put our best foot forward. we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and set towards doing what ukip members do best, we campaign. we knocked on doors and delivered the arguments for the country needed to hear. one of the things that frustrates me the most over these last few months has been listing to one media outlet after another tell us that it was -- responsible for winning brexit. does anyone here believe it was? who in here thinks it was ukip? [applause] i am pleased and proud that we worked with all and came together at the right time but be under no illusion as much is

the establishment not only would there not have been a referendum without nigel and without ukip but without our party it would not have been won. [applause] and ladies and gentlemen that is exactly what we did, we won. we connected with 17 million kid did spirit -- kindred spirit and now they're just waiting. don't let anybody tell you otherwise, we are still here and we are still relevant. we have seen it raring example of that just enough last week with the announcement from theresa may that she is now in favor of grammar schools. an interesting policy that we could not have written better ourselves. in fact i think we did.

no tax on the minimum wage, a referendum on the eu and now grammar schools. i can't wait to see what policy ideas the conservatives will claim to come up with next. it just goes to show you you can be more than a pressure group. you can be a one issue party and demonstrate how we drive the agenda. in the near future our new leader will meet with the mp to a point there on chairman and i will go back to being happy. [laughter] but it really has been one of my greatest honors to serve as nigel's last chairman and will hand the role to someone else over the next month. i will give all the help and assistance i am able to ever picks up the baton. it's really a time for our party to unite and come together and to support our new leader. when we work together we have proven we have the ability to

move mountains and now under our new leader we have to look at which mountains we are going to move next. so i'm incredibly proud now to announce the results of our leadership contest. this contest has been overseen by the electoral reform services who received 17,00090070 votes. in fifth place with 1203 votes is elizabeth jones. [applause] in fourth place, with 1545 votes , phillip broughton. [applause] in third place with 2052 votes

it's phil etheredge. [applause] in second place with 4591 votes, it's lisa duffy. [applause] .. [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause]

>> you did it, ladies and gentlemen. yt just done it and i am so pleased. [applause] >> thank you for that. going to take me a little while to come back down to earth i can assure you but thank you for your good wishes and such a wonderful reception. thank you to everybody who voted and took part in the contest. my goodness, you handed over a mantle. so there we go. it is one that i am deeply honored and i do mean deeply

honored to take on from nigel. i haven't quite come to grips with it. i am still pinching my fl. i am immensely grateful for what you have done and bestowed on me. just remember where we have and where you asked me to take off. i was part of that european election winning team. i was in brussels for two years. i may not have contested a seat but i supported a number of candidates and remember, we were the third political force in that general election. we really did move mountains in that political landscape. we might well have been

handicapped and i thank the postal sims. [applause] >> but absolutely nobody can take away from the united kingdom independence party the disruption we have caused. can i just mark one particular word should we say or one particular sentence? that is the days of fear tactics have had their day. they had their day, everyone. and we proved why they have had their day and we will ensure they never, ever, rise from the political ashes ever again. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, let's also thank the media for ming here. [laughter]

[applause] >> why are they here? we are the political change movement in the united kingdom. there is more interest in you and this party than i am sure others would dream of. so thank you, media. thank you very much indeed. we welcome you. let me go back to people like you out there in the audience. maybe also u.k. members following what is going on in terms of the parliament challenges even pickup things on their mobile phone. the individuals i have met in my meet diane i owe you a thank you

for making me aware of the talent and enthusiasm we have out tr from those that want to see the u.k. deliver further change. you are the grassroots. that is what you are referred to. you have the absolute pivotal base of this party. on behalf of everyone who is so far spoken today may i echo my thanks for everything you do. now there are counters out there. the district unity wherever you want. for them they face a huge challenge in 2017. i can give you this commitment: i will be behind you, i will make sure that you get the support you need, and you, wherever you in this country, in the united kingdom, you will have the backing of the united kingdom independence party

winning machine. winning machine. [applause] we cannot take our eye off that important elephant in the room; can we? we have won a heat. i am not even going it talk about battles and wars. i am going to talk about heats and races and getting over the winning line. we have only just won a heat. a heat in a 28-member state to lead the european union. i am very, very grateful and i appreciate all of the other coaches that are now looking to britain and hoping to immolate what we have done here in their own countries. but and here is the but the u.k. signature ink is not yet dry on that document. and until it is dry on that

document every single romania who talks tuesday -- [laughter] [applause] >> just remind them until we get a signature, until that ink is dry we are still in. they still tell us what to do. we have to obey everything that the european union, various levels of what they report as government and democratic process. just bear that in mind if you would not mind on my behalf. during my series of events i outlined my hundred day priorities. and not least is the absolute

focus on this party's policies and making sure we are battle-ready, race-ready, for the next general election whenever that might come. we will wisely applaud it for the quality of our manifesto in 2014. rightly so. it stood up to the scrutiny from our political opponents and word is it was the best on the street and voiced all over the country. we have to do that again, everyone. i am going to be asking all of you to make a contribution to that. make sure that your views are captured, counted, and included in the policies that we will take forward and put to the united kingdom population to make them aware that we truly are a political force, that the we will act on their behalf, and we will deliver on their behalf

what is necessary for this country. [applause] >> bmagpie may, you don't have anything on the defense spending. you have to remember, whau try and bury, when you throw everything at it, when you try to undermine it, demoralalize -- demoralize it. remember where they came from and in all likelihood where they will come from again in the future. [applause]

>> now i will pay my next tribute to my fellow mep colleagues. their contribution to that successful general election manifested in 2015 i think sometimes goes unremarked. the work ethic those individuals have and the commitment they to europe is sometimes undermined and ignored. can i say to each and everyone of you, thank you for everything you do on behalf of this party. i want you to continue what you are doing. i want you continue being the thorn in their side and bed mattress. and most importantly, i want

nigel give them grief as much as he can. [applause] >> just remember that key message we developed. this party, the united kingdom independence party developed for the referendum campaign. it is one that other organizations have tried against. the one that again you must constantly remind people and that message remember, take back control. take back control. [applause] >> you know are the academics are working hand and glove with the institution. they want to ignore what people voted for. what 17.4 million people voted

for. they voted to reach out to the world. to reach out out to the commonwealth and the rest of the world with bilateral trade deals. they voted for an outward look and globally successful, enterprise building that can thrive and survive and really build on the strengths that this country has in its legacy power. they voted to return political control to westminster and they voted to control our borders. if any of that is going to be signed away under brexit light, associated brexit membership or any other concoction the conservatives would like to put forward may i mind you again this is what the people army exists for. it is what we fight for and what we will continue fighting for.

my third, let's call it tribute, is to an individual who spoke just before lunch. somebody who has given up dec e decades, sacrificed huge amounts, who handed a mantle to me and wants to be beside me as your next leader. who will be a proponent of brexit and making sure it is delivered. ladies and gentlemen, i am going to ask you with me to thank nigel once more. [applause] [applause] [applause]

>> the european union and the referendum means the united kingdom is embarking on a new era and same for our part aechlt i am not nigel-like. i am not even nigel lite. i will never, ever pretend to be so. what i will be doing is stepping into his leadership shoes but i will be doing everything to achieve the political success he is handing over to me and to

you. now it is a very different scenario than what i am used to in terms of leading companies and the public and private sector. what i do appreciate is i can be leader in name but if i'm not leader with you people behind me that title is meaningless. i can give you this, though, everyone. an absolute reassurance i believe in values of liberty, commonsense, democracy and pragmatic approaches to the challenges this country faces. my language might be a little different. i am not going to be retiring. so unlike nigel i may not be able to be as frank as i want to be. but i tell you one thing you will always get honesty from me

on any question. i will support the beliefs and values this party has and let nobody suggest otherwise. [applause] professionalism will be top of my agenda. if we are going to reach and exceed the goals this party is still capable of achieving then change is going to have to happen. it is not going to be change for change sake. it is not going to be change because i think i ought to change it and i can't justify it. it is going to be because change is necessary and justified. and the caveat and what is behind that will be to provide

and make sure we have a winning political machine under my leadership and it something coming to you which you know delivers all of your objectives and makes sure you are part of the winning machine. [applause] >> let me answer some of the questions i have put to me. some of the issues they would like to undermiep mine us. the threats to the referendum outcome are increasing by the day. but i can tell you this. here is answers. no to a european union associate membership, no to brexit light, no to single market controls and no to unrestricted or uncontrolled freedom of movement

into this country for 450 or 500 million, whatever the european union looks like at the time, i believe, we believe leave. if they come in they come in on a fair bases. but here is what i want you to believe in and work with me on. yes, to a true hundred percent european union exit. can i by know -- anymore clearer? [applause] >> yes, to a sovereign independent united kingdom. [applause] >> yes, to a united kingdom free to make trade deals with whoever and whenever we want.

[applause] >> yes to an immigration policy that allows entry regardless of origin to those with the skills and the expertise and social values that this country wants. [applause] >> and may i say 17.4 million people signed up for that. those issues. that declaration. 17.4 million people voted to leave the european union. that is what independence means and that is what independence in the united kingdom party name means. so don't ignore it. [applause]

>> you are now looking and if you are watching, miss may, you will be watching the opposition party in waiting. [applause] [applause]

>> and miss may, from one grammar school girl to another, get on with it! [applause] >> and give the u.k. the best christmas present it could ever have. 2016, 25th of december. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. thank you from the bottom of my heart. under my leadership my message is we will confound our critics, we are going to outwit our opponents and build on our

success and do more. we are the opposition party in waiting so watch out. but all of you, whenever you are in the united kingdom at the moment, i ask you, support me, work with me, win with me, and make u.k. the winning machine it will become. thank you, everyone. [applause] [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, the new leader, diane james. >> president obama delivers his 7th and final keynote address at the annual black caucus dinner. hillary clinton will be there and receive the trailblazer award in reck recognition of

being the first woman candidate of a major party in the united states. >> booktv brings you 48 hours of authors and books. saturday, booktv talks with the new librarian of congress. the first woman and african-american to hold the position. then after wards, new york times president and ceo mark thompson looks at what he calls the erosion of public language in his book enough said, what has gone wrong with the change in polit politics? he is interviewed by founder of the huffington post. >> politics has changed in many ways. the shape of politics based on

class and clear ideology has become more disrupted. all over the western world you can feel the big traditional political parties under pressure. >> sunday at 10 a.m. eastern, booktv is live from the brooklyn book festival. the festival is the largest free literary event int new york city featuring national and international stars and emerging authors. featured topics include a discussion on economics with mark hill, politics with sarah jafy, fred caplin on digital privacy. ralph nadir looks at political parties and elections. military and war with molly crabapple. and ed young takes a look at viruses. go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> next, an analysis of russia under president vladimer putin including the consequences of

new anti-terrorism measures which talks about the yarovaya law. >> thank you for joining us today early on a friday. i am the deputy director of the eurasia center. those watching online be sure to follow us. it is my pleasure to moderate this distinguished panel today on a really important set of laws and facts in russia that unfortunately we haven't heard

much about in the american or western media. the atlantic council patience has been very if gauged to highlight the increasingly repressive regime under putin and russia going from the corner of the civic space, the media space and increasing pressure on human rights under putin. today we hosted approximately 20 events to highlight these issues on russia. the atlantic council worked closely with what is considered the emerging or consistent russian opposition in russia tod today. we are really proud of this work and this is part of highlighting some of these works and trends first of all societies, religious groups, and internet freedom in russia.

so i would like to introduce our panel. the senior director for russia and eurasia is to my left. he has a ph.d from boston university and developed a civil society state for many years and thank you for being here. next to him we have -- this event is co-hosted and co-sponsored by the national religious freedom association. kathy is part of the staff on international religious freedom as a senior policy analyst in 2003. she has been an expert on not just the administration but the soviet era and she has lived in

many places across western and eastern europe doing during the tough times in the 1990's and before even. and then last about not least we have an our colleague who is a research study. she has been spending a lot of time in ukraine. she is a peace core volunteer there. she has done a lot of research on mr. putin himself as a personality and political leader. hannah, starting with you. you have done a great deal of work on this. ...

>> anti- extremism and antiterrorism, can we go down to civil society. another form of free expression. my question to you, is this recent by the russian federation that extreme in the russian contacts? is it just another incremental set of laws that really goes in line with what we have been seen and we unfortunately expect from the kremlin today? >> first my thanks to you and to the u.s. commission on international freedom for convening the seminar today. it is very nice to see that these issues are actually being

done here in washington. i think over the last couple of years of the events that have been occurring in both western and eastern europe have sort of shifted our attention away from some of the really unsavory kind of things in russia. i'm glad we have a time to sit down and focus on the religious aspect as well as internet freedom and civil society. to get to your question, it is in a way very incremental. what we are have seen since 2001, sorry 2011 and 2012 at 12 the last time we have parliamentary elections in russia, you saw a large amount of people take to the street protesting what they consider to be a stolen election. protesting the idea that vladimir putin had simply gotten onstage and set i'm going to return as your

president and you will essentially have very little choice in the matter. so you saw hundreds of thousands of people protested on the streets and in small places like st. petersburg. ever since that point you really seem latin american pollutants kremlin become concern about losing control of the prickle situation in the country. i think that your has been exacerbated by what happened in ukraine a year or two later. they saw that there really is this kind of potential for people power for people who are extremely upset and disgruntled with the way that their leaders are handling the country and leaders who are pushing the bounds to far. they thought that that would be a possibility. that is really, you can see a trend in the past couple of years. it has really push them in the wrong direction. you have a full set of these kind of movements, and a full set of these laws and those were named for the parliamentarian

arena, who was the one who really push them to the parliament and was the initial sponsor of the bill. these are just another in a long laundry list you could go through of events and decisions and laws that have been pushed through over the past two or four years that have slowly been eroding the civil rights and civil liberties of russians. i think it is also very important through tension that many of these laws are in some ways targeted toward folks in the in crimea. it doesn't get as much attention as it should. over the last two years you have seen it with these anti- terror laws as they announced are in a way targeting against people like particularly crimean's who are living in crimea who are not

very keen on the russian annexations. they're willing to go out and protested willing to say something about the way they are being treated. so you have a situation in which the anti-terror laws can terror laws can really be used to stymie political protest, to put people that the kremlin regime just does not like. people they considered to be potential troublemakers. to put them in jail, to silence them, and so you are seen a trend toward that direction. unfortunately it is starting to take in other people in its trap. i think kathy is going to talk about what is happening now with the liberties of certain groups of religion. certain different concessions that are not russian orthodox. better jehovah's witness, mormons, all being caught up in

this essentially say that we, the kremlin have a better idea of what it means to be a russian. if you do not fall within those ramifications then you are out. >> so you're really describing the centralization of control over society not just in politics and the economy which we come to expect from the kremlin for quite some time. but this trend now on centralizing control over religious institution and also specific states. and it is something that we need to see more attention to. it's like the next step overall in the system of control that we have established. you also talk about crimea and this idea of the revolution and it causing a great fear of the regime. i will go back to that because as most of you probably know russia will be holding its next election in a couple of days,

the sunday and it is the first time they're held in crimea as well. i think we should come back to this. so i like to kinda take this over to you for a moment. you work for the national for democracy which specializes in the development of civil society. already we are starting to say civil society and rushes under pressure. increasingly hostile increasingly hostile laws such as the foreign asian law, a law which really is about the trend of oppression. and this information campaign to humiliate publicly on television and even suffer physical threats and reprisal. yet many many russian domestic organizations continue their work in russia. could you tell us a bit more about the challenges the civic groups that are so working in russia despite the many challenges continue to face? >> thank you. that. that is a great way of introducing the topic.

i want to start also with the protest of 2011 and 2012. which suppressing future protest like that is the theme of the various repressive laws that have been passed. among the first of them was the foreign agents law which was passed in 2012. you can, in a way compare the legislation that just came into port in july is a one of the theories of worsening pieces of legislation. so what did the kremlin want to clampdown on? it wanted to clampdown on public assembly. so much efforts at this point, even individual pickets can be seen as mass disturbances. people can get jail time. law and extremism, a law on extremism has now been applied

to online so there are four or five you new cases in the last year people going to jail for liking something on facebook or reposting something on other sites. usually the content is pro-ukrainian and this is a way it might be. there is a case where a young lad went to gel for three years for reposting pro- ukrainian content to 12 people. so there is a kremlin sense from 2011 and 11 in 2012 that protest can break out anywhere. not just from organizers but from falling to volunteer groups the internet needs to be controlled and it is increasingly control. kathy will talk about the religious fear but -- went to

jail for last for me essentially. it was like like a witch trial and three young people went to jail for blasphemy. the foreign agents law, there is a character in the hemingway novel who lost his money first gradually and then all at once. that is kind of think limitation of these laws. first gradually for a few organizations. initially the foreign agent was written so you had to go and voluntarily put yourself on the list. of course no one did,. no one put them on the foreign agents list. so it was rewritten so that the m bd and justice industry puts you on the list. another is is 157 organizations, organizations are finding it in court. among the most recent to the foreign agents law, so the

russian contact said you find yourself as a foreign agent is to simply say i take money from abroad, i am a spy in the 1930s the stalin's set millions of people to their death basically of a charge of be in a agent. so for russian organizations to themselves as a foreign agent is reminiscent of that. so so among the most recent additions to the foreign agents registry is the -- center. that is independent pollster, that found that united russia has declined in support in the most recent poll they found that united russia, putin's a party has 31 percent. very quickly after that they were declared the foreign agents and put on this list. effectively shutting them down a couple of weeksbefore the parliamentary elections.

the last was a wonderful metaphor of what is going on, any kind of violent tear is on volunteerism so the summer there's forest fires and two environmental volunteer groups organized volunteer firefighters to go fight for spires. so they were stopped by forcefully stop by the emergencies in ministry. you have the russian state stopping volunteers who are trying to fight forest fires and then declaring environmental watching caucus a foreign agent. you have civil society trying to do something helpful and beneficial, you have the state doing everything they can to suppress it because god for bid anybody does anything independently. in the meantime you still have the forest fire. so it's a wonderful metaphor for

what's going on in russia right now. >> i think to import things that i want to emphasize of what you said to get people to understand what the situation for russia and russia is today. one, in in the u.s. context it is impossible for us to imagine that if you like a friends post on facebook that this could actually have legal, criminal consequences. this is really extreme and the profound sense of that word. on on the other hand, the recent development particularly with the bravado center being put on the agents list is worrisome. it shows how closely the kremlin is watching the civic groups. when there is something that is is just even a small bit against what the current government sees as what needs to be done, what should be done, organizations are not holding their party line

so there be a basically immediately shut down. this was happening almost immediately. so i wanted to kind of dig a little deeper on the civil society question. so these specific laws are focusing now, how are are they really going to further affect the work of civic groups in russia today? >> the foreign agents of targeted organizations, they target everybody. it has some shocking provisions. one of which which is an obligation, legal obligation to inform an advance of potential criminal acts. again it's in the 1930s type of legal standard how that is supposed to function and what that means.

it's legal obligation to to become an apartment. in that piece of it is not discussed very much at all. the other piece that is astonishing are the internet provisions. the application by internet providers are loosely defined anyone who is in that sphere to collect and store all data, photos or anything that looks at the internet and russia has to be stored, it's contact has to be stored for six months, government has access to without any it without any warrants. it's a system of total surveillance. metadata has to be stored for three years. the idea is that this, in addition to that, all encryption company must provide encryption keys to the government again,

without any warrants, anonymous accounts are impossible if a provider or provider is obligated to terminate an account of a person cannot be identified through the account. and nullifies privacy completely. so it just goes for the population instead of organized informal groups. but the implication of that set of provisions is is huge. it also, one of the things that we think about is that when one country adopts a set of rules you can expect others to as well. in the sphere of internet the idea that some companies may start providing backdoors or somehow breaking encryption, what i should say about it is

also the technical requirements are kind of ridiculous. there is not a lot. if it's end-to-end encryption it's probably not impossible to break. but the direction of this is very dangerous because if it is accepted in one place they can become accepted in another. the way the internet works if it's compromised here can be compromised elsewhere. these pieces, although what i've said about the other law it wasn't traditionally enforced but it is now very much in force. so the other will be tweaked a little bit and enforced maybe not such a ridiculous form but in a some kind of equally dangerous form not too long from now. so just the fact that the law is written so broadly and it covers so much that today it's not enforced the law does not mean,

it's just too early yet, for the potential employer mentation is extremely troubling. >> let's go back closer to the ends to talk about these broader ramifications. not just for the domestic society but for other potential diffusion across a regime specifically, and i do want to talk a little more about more on the underreported consequence of the law which you mentioned is the application to become a servant in your peers which goes back to some of the dark. of the soviet union. another aspect i think it has been underreported that i would like kathy to talk about is the consequences of these laws of various religious groups that function in russia today. so could you tell us a bit more, hannah started talking about it. how the new laws or these

religious groups in which religious groups are being affected and are most likely to be affected in the future? >> before doing that i wanted to mention one other aspect of the law that i consider particularly mind blowing i suppose. and that is that it lowers the age of criminal responsibility to 14. for numerous an actual supposedly terrorist crime. so so that in addition to making a crime to fail to report a possible crime, in other words to inform on your neighbors, stall and style, now children as young as 14 can be held liable for crimes. also i wanted to mention that the internet provisions, there is a lot of complaints from the community, the technical companies that are involved in all of this because it's just

enormously is expensive to do with the law requires. so even they, or they were even granted an extension. so that those requirements do not go into effect for another year. so we'll see what happens. >> is pointed out as far as religious aspect is concerned there are many ways in which religious community may, and are ready are being affected by the law. one is again, this applies not just to religious community there are enhanced penalties under russian extremism law. and they affect all kinds of people in civil society, crimean -- and of course religious believers. there is one aspect of the extremism law that gets not much reporting but we do report it in the chapter from our annual report which is available in print and of course online.

also in russian by the way our chapter from our annual report and that is that there are now 3800 items on russia's officially banned books, materials, internet sites. many of them are religious material, majority of them are muslim. which do not add or pay for violence in any way. there is in fact a major scandal, i believe a year ago when they tried to ban a translation of the koran which has been with very popular with translating by very popular scholar into russian. and that was overturned. so works that are on the extremism list can be overturned with extreme difficulty. also, i won't go into detail,

it's mind-boggling, the limitations of this aspect of the extremism law which affects not just religious believers of course and it does include some materials which are generally hateful for example it took them several years but mein kampf is on the list. this only applies to a specific addition. so that would just give you of flavor of how mind-boggling and complex that aspect of the law is as well. the extremism law has been used also against religious community. two particular aspects, if a community has been ruled by court to be allegedly extremist then any person who is active in this legally legally liquidated community is liable for criminal

prosecution. so which groups are the most affected by that? a pacifist group, jehovah's witnesses, and the other, those to read the works of a well-known turkish, kurdish -- why we would see this on the list of officially banned material? probably because russians feel funny about the fact that an estimated 20 million of the population are muslim and are turks or at least tartare's who are turkish. and you know enough to know that the caucus means language mountain and indeed it is. and then the the majority then of course are muslim as well. so the potential is huge. but to get back to the other, as

usual when dealing with russia at all seems to be interlocking directorate which is very complex to disentangle. i should mention a prelude to the other bylaws would be religion and that is the 2012 law defending religious sentiment. it has amended the criminal and administrative codes and i want to briefly mention two very vivid examples of the way in which that law has been used or is being used. one is an atheist was on trial, or at least his trial started in march of this year, he went online being extremely skeptical about religion in general. but he is on trial for offending religious sensibilities, particularly the russian orthodox community.

a more recent case in september is, well it speaks for itself shall we say. a russian video blogger, he is now under house arrest. he was transferred from prison because he posted a video of himself playing pokémon in a russian orthodox cathedral. so i think those example show you how shall i say the flower early excesses of all of this. i won't go into great detail about the numerous provisions except to say that basically this is one major step toward requiring that religious

communities, in order to be able to function, to fully function as religious schools it is one step toward requirement that they be registered which is not currently registered with the state which is not currently required. because the only people who can legitimately engage, again limited but still missionary activity are those who are either clergy or on the board of registered religious communities, or who have written permission from a general meeting of a red stirred religious community. it even they can only engage in missionary activity mainly in place in building or land owned by religious communities. so, as many of you know

protestants, especially evangelical protestants are often denied permission to build churches in russia and many of them choose not to register or refuse registration because it goes against their religious beliefs. to register with the state. so they are then not going to be allowed to hold in formal religious services in their homes. because if there is a one single nonofficial member of their religious community present in that apartment or house, or whatever, then they will be engaging in missionary activity. and the russian courts have already gone to town against several individuals in various parts of russia for engaging in russian missionary activity. one and a american baptist,

mormon missionaries have been denied permission to come because they allegedly do not have the proper kind of documentation. the first was tried and acquitted is the only one that was acquitted. but anyway, with that restless, hopefully not too confusing overview of the situation, i close. >> thank you. in the interest of time i want to go back to some things i want to have plenty of time for audience questions. one of the things that we talked about, all all of you have pointed to the internet, and i want to get your thoughts on that. in 2014 they also passed a bloggers law which allowed the government to shut down the blog the size of very well-known leaders in the space in russia today is where what were discussing and perhaps one of the last spaces for public open

discussion. now what what were seen as the bad result of closing, some of the things that you described as part of the new law to provide in a store information on users and provide open access to the government that information. to provide encryption. many say these are too expensive to enforce and that it is not going to be possible for the private firm to provide the service to do this. it requires a great deal of service capacity. . . the t

... >> russians have gotten used to having the ability to go on websites from around the world, talk to friends on facebook and russian twitter is reasonably active. they are quite used to these things and the thought of it ba being taken away is alarming to them. creating and implementing and enforcing these laws would have all of the data that is being sent out by russian citizens come back to the russian government for analysis.

forcing these telecommunication companies to keep metadata from three years and text messages and pictures people send over their cellphones. that is the thing you can see that might be useful if they are attempting to say prosecute people involved in major protest actions. we saw this after the protest in 2012 when the kremlin went to the then-owner of essentially the russian version of facebook and said we want this information. we want to be able to access what these users have written. to their credit, the creator and owner said absolutely not and he had the entire company taken away from him and it was put in the hands of the pro-kremlin

business men and he finds himself in the same situation. he has a new company. telegraph which is an encrypted app you can use for messaging your friends. with the orders about giving up encryption keys he said absolutely not. what happens to companies that refuse? what happens and there have been attempts into the past to make companies like google and g-mail keep the information of russian users physically on russian soil rather than say in california or new york. will the russian government have to ban these apps? will they bhauk block them? that is an opening question. will they take away these programs like g-mail and

facebook and what will that mean for the way that russians chose to interact with the world. >> i think that is an ex tremely interesting -- extremely interesting question. given where we are if one company is forced to shutdown many others come to replace it. and it is a constant chase. we should consider this is an inkrcredible amount of metadata they seek access to me and it isn't clear the government has the capability and capacity to use it and analyze it in perhaps the way it seeks. we have to ask ourselves is this about giving the population the sense they are being surveyed. >> i think another piece of this

is to take a look at the behavior of large western-american companies. we find china companies buckle. you can see people taking a stand and the jury is out on how western companies will behave. facebook moderation practices where accounts of different critics, regime critics, dissidence have been shutdown and arbitrarily controlled or government agents complain in a very targeted way against famous commentators and they get taken down. arbitrarily there has been a whole petition with a couple hundred prominent russian asking

them to revise the way they handle moderation and the questions about accounts because it is clear the russian government is manipulating it. when you have these major figures signing a petition to facebook saying please take a look at how you are handling russian akoupts that is something. for us, the way companies behave in one space can transfer to other spaces as well. >> he belongs to an alternative russian orthodox church and he has faced all kinds of difficulties basically no longer

lives in russia and those -- and the alternative russian orthodox church which he is affiliated has had all kinds of -- including earlier this month call-in by the security services. one relic of theirs was removed and video of the court bailiff has been reported as well. these go across the board. >> the question i want to ask you are the further ramifications of this not just for russia but also for the u.s. we are in washington, d.c.

why should americans care about this? >> lots of evangelical protestants do care. there was one good lengthy letter signed by, i believe, a hundred represents of religious organizations from all over the united states. i should mention the search of scientology has provided space and logistical efforts for this. as have many other churches. holding a summit in support of

persecuted christians and has decided not to hold the summit in may in moscow but we will hold it in washington. a hundred religious leaders from all over the -- i should say religious leaders from a hundred countries are scheduled to take part in this meeting. and franklin graham has said he is doing this specifically or rather not doing this in moscow because of the bylaws. so it affects a lot of american people and especially the evangelical movement and religious freedom doesn't get attention as a foreign policy question as many other issues do. and environmental issues. i am glad you pointed out this coincidence. >> hannah, same question to you.

>> i want to add to what kathy was saying and eco what was said earlier about the laws and the closing space for different religious groups has a tendency to trickle down to other soviet countries. i think you particularly see that in places where the clear paths where russia implements one law and several months later you will see another country do something similar. there is certainly a trend in which countries who are interested in clamping down on their populations they tend to take their page from what the russians do. you see many, many instances in which if russia can get away with it, if no one cares about

what russia does, all of these other countries feel they can get away it. they don't want to be the first but they are happy to be the second one. >> add kyrgyzstan to the list. they are reordering their struck that deals with religion. >> i think the mimicking of the laws is true but it hits closer to home than that. there is an editorial in the "washington post" today about the need to take seriously russian hacking and m of the u.s. elections, russian

hack of the dnc and that material leaking to wikileaks, trying to influence u.s.' elections. so the whole question of russian abuses in cyberspace are a major u.s.-domestic issue at this point. you don't need to go very far to see the relevance in these issues. >> absolutely. i would like to open it up to audience questions. we should have the mike going around. introduce yourself, give us your name and state your comment in the form of a question. gentlemen in the back in the blue. yes. yes. yes. >> my name is al murphy. thank you for mentioning the "washington post" article. it leads into what i am talking about.

we are aware with the hacks on the dnc and collin powell. what interference do you thing this has to do with tit for tat over the domestic opposition groups and over overt support for ukraine. >> no, i don't think that this is an anyway a tit-for-tat. i think russia has clearly chosen sides in the u.s. election and they are trying to manipulate. we have seen similar operations in other places. we saw this in germany for instance with the scandals or allegations of a rape last year that were false and manufactured

by the russians to stop the entrance from syria. there are instances where russia m manipulates internal politics of other countries and that is what they are doing here. it is not a tit-for-tat for any u.s. politics. [inaudible question] >> the united states does not support -- does not hack and then release documents of united russia for instance. there is no -- there is no parallel between the behavior of these two fwments.

-- governments. the u.s. doesn't hack russia's servers. >> the argument we are engaging in goes to the heart of the campai campaigns and what they have become over the last ten years. undermining trust in democratic institutions and making the argument that the u.s. and western european countries did the same thing and that is not true. that is the kremlin line put out there and i think what we are experiencing here in the united states right now countries across russia, ukraine, georgia, have been experiencing many

elections but right now it is incredibly brazen of the russian federation and hackers to reach out and use their cyber capabilities. this isn't new but it a broader trend in how russia tendency to m manipulate politics around the globe. i will do the next question now. yes? >> hi, i have a masters in security study from the university of college london. you expressed tern about the legislation that makes it illegal to not report on certain types of crimes. we have had several instances of

terror attacks in the united states that intelligence would never have picked up but people close to the perpetrates knew about. is mandatory a reporting of terror tactic or something morally unacceptable for governments to force their citizens to do. in the extremism law, there is not even a necessity to use or advocate violence. this is opening the window very wide to allowing citizens to report on neighbors they don't li like. given the vagary of the judicial

system unfortunately i think it is written and conceived of in a too wide and vague of way. >> i agree with cathy. context is everything year. i understand where you are coming from but the way these laws are applied is a completely different context is what this is saying. >> curt rose. the events of the past week and what i learned here have stimula stimulated some of what is going on in russia and two words come to mind. one is metadata as mentioned here and the other is irony.

during the last week for those who read a hard copy of the newspaper, the "washington post," for example, there was an ad that was sponsored in part at least by the aclu requesting that snowden be pardoned for this activities. it seems ironic now that what is going on in russia has been the revelation that metadata has been used to find out what is going on on the internet. what i am wondering is is -- and i don't think this is too harsh

but has any portion of the russian public been horrified by what they learned about the use of the metadata? >> i am jump in on this. i think there is a couple of interesting things here. one is snowden himself came out strongly against this law. he himself said he is horrified at the way these provisions could be implemented against the russian people. there was in the initial stages of the drafting of the law and a stipulation that i believe people convicted under this law could have their russian citizenship stripped of them and that provision raised the feathers of the russian republic. it was quickly removed from the law but there is still the kind of feeling in the air that that

could be potentially be added back in later on once people are acclimated to what is in the current law. there have been protests and groups of people who are extremely upset about this reality. the difference here is that essentially the russian press is largely controlled by the government. so you are not going to see the same kinds of aclu ads in large papers in moscow and the newspapers are not reporting it in such a way that some of the u.s. media has reported what happened a couple years ago here. i think it is a different picture and unfortunately while there have been protests they are not going to be on the same scale of people being horrified. because the way the laws have been slowly implemented they have gotten used to the government being in their

business. if you lived through the soviet era it is not that strange. >> they want to shutdown the internet because that is the interesting space where people can speak out and actually among young people there was a poll recently 22-42-year-old urban used their attention more often than they do the television. there is about 5,000 signatures against the law. in the context where you can go to jail for a protest? 5,000 people showing up to protest. it was a big deal. individual tickets, smaller protests in other parts of the country. i wouldn't say that -- is it massive?

no. but there are certainly russians who are opposed and companies themselves, the russian internet providers would be bankrupt by this. their unions and kind of advocacy organizations are a flaw. so i took it as a kind of -- and it slowed it down. so the success at this point is there has been an acknowledgment that you cannot implement this any time soon. so if it is possible to slow it down it is possible to make more changes. >> jus quickly. there have been many, many protests from religious leaders, mainly evangelical and some

muslims. there are oddities on the way the law was put together. it was the defense committee that had total control over the wording. the first russian region that introduced this law which was overturned and one of the odd things is that on the national level, russian

dewell -- well the state department issued a statement that only occurred on the u.s. delegation to the oscd. it has, as far as i know, not appeared on the u.s.-embassy in

moscow. i would say it wasn't the finest wording. >> hannah? >> i think there is certainly more that could be done but it not happening now. one thing that concerns me a little bit is because these laws are put out there under the name anti-terrorism and we do this current administration sees russia as an ally in fighting terrorism. russia has a history of terrorism that we are not paying as much attention to as we should. >> i think that is a good point, hannah.

these laws are really focused on the national security at large and part of the national security package. russia has been passing repressive laws. the label of anti-terrorism is security, which of course the u.s., has no -- i will not intervene on various versions of russia's own national security laws. the language of human rights and anti-terrorism are being used to pass what is the opposite of those values. do you have a comment? >> there are all sorts of international standards and laws and storms that we can refer to more frequently.

we should call a spade a spade. russia's behavior internationally and behavior at home contributing all kinds of international standards and we could be saying this more cleary on some occasions. >> what else can we do? we can be clear in our approaches. >> these particular laws are not tied to the actions and i think this should make policymakers feel more, i guess, confidant that the regime is something that should be maintained because russia domestically isn't moving in the right direction. of course, there is foreign policy. >> patrick tucker.

i really appreciate this panel. so the fsb, the russian intelligence service, has been getting a lot of press recently in the united states from one of the groups suspected of breaking into the dnc, stealing data and using that to influence the u.s. election by releasing to it wikileaks leaks and other proxy services. i wanted if you can talk about the fsb and if that method something you that you see in play in terms of dealing with presence in russia? and how do russians perceive the fsb in their activities? thanks. >> who wants to take that one?

>> sure. there have been instances -- you have different tactics in different situations. but the obvious outrageous case was putting sex tapes on the screen and discrediting the party by clearly hidden video of two people who are -- why was that done? because at that point, the clear leader of the united opposition of several parties. his private life was taped and put on tv. it is reported to be these people i should say. it is not completely clear. and their conversations are

private and insulting to other members of that coalition. so this tape was used to make sure russian n parties wouldn't enter into the election period together. the sort of thing that is so dirty yet becomes a basic element of controlling the political context in russia. >> i can give a much more simpler example. about ten years ago i was told a russian opposition politician who was studying music in london was told his son would have his fingers broken unless the politicians mended his way.

the forces were manipulated and meant to instill fear and discreted whole categories of people. occasionally they are done periodically and different scapegoats are identified and a light is shined on them. >> i think an important point is that the random selective nature of how these laws are used i think is an incredibly effective for creating anxiety.

they are at the deposal of the government agencies to use when they feel like targeting an individual or organization. you never know when you are the target and that is part of the process. and to go back to to questions of how do the russians think about the fsb and i don't think we will know that. we have lost access to the only main independent polling in russia. i think the information we are going to get from russia going forward is going to increasingly painted by the government perspective. >> can i just add something? the kbg which then turned into the fsb has a long history of collecting what they call co compromising material. it is the setting up of these situations whether it is a honey

trap, video cameras, hacks. it is all about gathering information that can be used maybe not today, or next year even, but can be used in the future it make political gains and earn political points. the hacking is really important to mention. hacking of political parties and systems isn't new. there was a famous hacking in histonia that took most of the country offline. just a few days before the election ezthe entire system was taken offline. it is certainly not something that is outside of the norm of what the fsb would do.

to me, it fits very much into the same patterns. you have seen them go further taking part of the ukrainian electrical grid offline. >> my question is that don't you think that institutionalized persecution of political opponents started much earlier

with the inclusion of the famous article 282. social, ethnic and other rhetoric. liber liberal -- [inaudible question] >> thank you. >> you want to take that? >> i think it is without question that the rush n -- russians are masters are restrictive laws. i only recently sort of some to understand the russian court system is organized or disorganized in such a way there is no precedent. a court in one place can rule

one way and then a court in another region ruled the other way. because the other court ruled one way doesn't influence how that other court rules. some of you who may be lawyers can get a better explanation. there are many restrictive laws and unfortunately here this is another one to add to the arsenal. >> may name is karen. i have history in this area and questions. but to the point about lack of precede precedent, all systems don't have a common-law system. having said that it is not supposed to be completely random and what is called a post co

codery. -- code lottery. my question is about how technology is a game-changer or not. everyone made reference to the fact that everything old is new again. all of this gives a restrictive legislation, selective prosecution, using the tool of social control is not an invention of the putin regime. it has been going on for hundreds of years and it swung depending on where you picked in russian history from total repressive control to sort of incompetent attempts to control. i remember the tape in the 1980's that nobody had to time to listen to. the question is how this new technology, the internet, is a collection of metadata and everything else that is tech that i don't understand is on either side.

the russian government attempt to control social organizations and society. and how it actually works on behalf of the other side which is the side seeking to maintain op openness contact and activism. >> i am happy to start with the question. i think it is a very important one. when the internet first became a thing there was a lot of expectations that the internet is going to change the way that people are able to connect and that the internet is going to be a great tool that civil party activists can use and this might change things to the better. i think unfortunately it has been proven to be correct because we have seen with every step and progress that is made in the technological theory you create telegraph, for instance.

while they may not be able to gain control of the proprietary information of the software that runs telegraph and that is one of the fears by gaining some of the encryption codes thal be able to gain access to the information as well as backdoors into other systems. it is just about the same speed as is the creation of new technology. where you see civil society folks and the action on their side is when the law was passed last year that log bloggers were

put under the control of the same kinds of centers that helped run the russian media. a lot of blockers who were affected by that decided to do something different. they would have a sign-up list on their website and you would get an e-mail only to one person the blog contained inside. they have been able to circumnavigate the information but it is getting a lot harder. what miriam was saying earlier is when we don't take notice of this happening.

let's try to make sure governments and large organizations are not just cooperating with governments. you may end up in a situation where our worst fears of internet control can come true. >> i thought it was a great question. it gets at the theme of what is it that we expect of the internet? there was this phrase liberation control. social media remains and i would say in russia it is the main vector and that is where content can be shared, that is where people can neatly discuss still. it has for a long time been open. i would say it just reflects our moods about the internet reflect larger forces in the world. so as things were liberalizing

globally, the internet was flourishing. as there is a greater clamp down, more authoritarians are using internet for surveillance and so forth. it is part of a broader global trend. that is an important question and i am not sure how exactly to get at that. it is both things. it is simultaneously the best avenue for free speech in many places that are repressive and at the same time place that is closing and contains the potential for greater and greater reforms of surveillance.

>> i think we should not underestimate the creativity of the russian people to get around these restrictive measures. in the soviet years i don't think we are there yet but it seems like we are moving closer and closer in that direction. we had a self-publication of literature, music, and it was passed on to person to person informally. and we can use encrypted networks and services to pass around the information. new forms, i think of technology is an enabler as miriam and hannah were saying. and i think they have been savvy at using to undermine the

regime. >> the russian state has gone further back than the soviet country. the orthodox church is not only an attempt to specifically -- this plays an important role not only inside russian society increasingly but also in the foreign policy. but that is another discussion. >> absolutely. >> i am from the muslim public affairs council.

it seems that the things you spoke about exist in many countries where there is regimes trying to maintain control and mask human' rights violations under terrorism or security or those kinds of things. when you talk about the russian orthodox church in muslim countries it is the mosque, is the religious community -- and islam and if you violate that you are speaking to the prophet or whatever. they use these laws to cross any forms of descent against governments that have sectarian and not democratic. how much do you think about making a significant spot when we created the terrorism. thing like arresting tens of

thousands of people or brought people into guantanamo bay and some of them didn't belong there. then how much do you think we have sort of lost the moral high ground in saying you can't use terrorism in these broad brushed strobes? i feel like some of them may be using our playbook. if not now but in the near future of using terrorists to do a lot of things that were publically not appropriate. >> i will quickly respond first first international law does not allow restricting religion in the name of anti-terrorism or policy. that is a high standard which many countries violate. we should remember what russia has done in various wars.

i don't think russia has looked to us to learn a lot of these techniques. i would say the same thing. when if comes to using the idea of security as an excuse russia learned that in the early 1990s when it was fighting these wars and dealing with the ideas of separate states and in the early 1990's there was a movement for more of these religiously or ethnic differences in the country and break away as a whole. that was one of the tooutilized the time. >> we have time for one more question. the lady in the magenta.

>> hi, i know you expect an anti-russian question here. but this is the last question so i want to see if you will venture and answer. how many more questions of westernizing and repression do we have to live through in russia to get them to be a western democracy? as a transatlantic of russian background i think of russians as europeans and feel terrible for russian democrats. it is a lonely place to be. >> anybody want to take a stab?

>> russia is eurasia so it will also be in a -- >> thank you. it is split between the two. i don't think any of us have a crystal ball to say what is going to happen. when you go to the larger cities

>> it was year after the killing in moscow and it was decided that no one should speak because

we shouldn't be politicized. there was a small group of people and an exhibit of photographs and it was starting to rain and we said we are not going to politicize. there is the rain starting and people are standing around awkwardly. it was mostly people that worked with her and her friends. at one point there is an older gentlemen with an umbrella and a younger man is helping him. he takes off his raincoat and he is wearing a vest and he starts to pray. and he turned around to us and said what is this faith that you are supposed to have? what is it? and it is [speaking in native tongue] that good will triumph even here in russia. >> i think that is a perfect note to close on.

thank you all for joining us today. thank you to the panel. thank you, again. the united states commission on religious freedom. if you have time to maybe -- if you have time after the session for questions but we should really close at this point. thank you for joining us and for theys really fascinating discussion. thank you. [applause] >> president obama will give his seventh final keynote address at the black caucus foundation dinner tomorrow. hillary clinton will be there receiving the trailblazer award in recognition of being the first presidential nominee of a major party in the u.s. live

coverage on c-span at 7:30 p.m. eastern. >> c-span's video app makes it easy to follow the 2016. it is free to download from the apple store. get up to date coverage, pod cast times for our poplar public affairs, books and history programs. stay up to date. c-span's radio app means you always have c-span on the go. >> now former joint chief of staff chair mike mullein and sam young speak about the impact on the u.s. and allies if north korea keeps trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

>> good morning, everyone. i am here judy woodriff with the pbs newshour. i am happy to be here. i want to welcome you to today's launch of the council on foreign relations sponsored independent task force report. it is entitled a sharper choice on north korea engaging china for a stable northeast asia. we are pleased to be joined by the task force cochairs. we recognize both of them. admiral mike mullein who is of course the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. and on my right, former senator sam nun who is the chief executive officer of the nuclear threat initiative. joining us is adam mount who is the project director for this endeavor. we will ask them to start out

talking about the report, we will spend 30 minutes discussing it and open it up to questions from the members. i want to extend thanks to the task force members here. i will ask you to raise your hand or stand up. we would like to see who you are. if you played any role in this task force. don't be shy. hands up. right here in the middle. welcome. >> mike and i want to clap for you. >> i want to welcome all of the council members who are joining us from new york and anywhere else. let's get started by talking about this.

i want to start by asking admiral mullein the two of you have a lot going on in your lives. why did you care enough about what is going on in north korea? why was his urgent for you? >> thank you, judy. i, too, would like to thank the task force members and in particular if you haven't had a chance to look at the report it is dedicated to steven bos worth who was going to originally co-chair this with me but unfortunately passed away. the dedication really is to him who dedicated so much of his life trying to solve this challenge diplomatically and we are mindful of that and his contributions have been enormous over the decades. i haven't done many of these reports. this is really the first one. when i retired in 2011 i felt then and i will now that the korean peninsula is as plosive

of a place that exists in the world and it can explode rapidly and dangerously and needs to be addressed. when richard haas asked me to do this not having done much in termsz of these kinds of reports or task force since retiring i agreed to do it because it is an an enormously complex issue that many administrations tried to address. ...

>> we could be on a much more dangerous path than a peaceful resolution here. i thought it was that important and agreed to cochair. >> let's lunch into the report. senator, let's talk about, lay out for us in brief, how is this a departure, if it is and we know it is in some regard from current policy? what to you are the principal points here that you want the membership and the rest of the policy world to pays attention to this part of the world to take away from this report? >> i recall winston churchill once said that no matter how beautiful the strategy, occasionally you have to look at the result. looking at the result we face a grave and i think, increasing

danger. when i say we come i mean japan, south korea, american personnel in korea as well as that region of the world. yes, i mean china also. china also. china is a very important part of that region. so how does it differ? the first thing i would say is that a couple of other members of the task force are very helpful, gary in particular a bob in helping clarify exactly what the u.s. policy is right now. i think we should say up front that we have deterred major war and that is an accomplishment. that is something that has been done. but we haven't done is change the north korean calculus to continue to defy, not the united states, but the united nations. they are defined the united nations security council resolution. both on the nuclear program and on the missile programs. that intensifies. so what has changed? i think the main thing that i would emphasize here, we have four major steps and a lot of

other steps in the comprehensive and adam did a terrific job of bringing them together. but what we emphasize in the op-ed this morning that mike and i had in the washington post is that the steps have to be taken in parallel. this is not sequential. we cannot wait until the sanctions completely work and then basically go to talks. we have got to try to get talks going now. we have to increase the benefits to north korea if they basically sit down and talk in a sincere way, move towards getting rid of their nuclear weapons. stopping the missile and so far. we have to also talk to china in a very frank way. it is in china's interest in our interest. we need to take into account china's interest because china has got to be a part of this. without china it without china it is going to be very difficult to solve this

peacefully. the third point i would make is that we have to enforce the un resolution 2270. that is a powerful new resolution that the obama administration should get credit for pushing this and getting it through the un security council. it should be noted that china and russia both voted for it. it gives that the mandate, not just the right of all nations to inspect cargo coming in and out. in and out of ports, airports, ships, sore ships, sore fourth. that is an enormously important to if it is implemented. china has to be part of that. we recommended and we have a multi national effort led by the united states to equip our allies and friends throughout the region to enforce the un resolution. that can make a big difference. the poor thing i would point out is the need to increase the deterrence and defense while we are doing all of this other. mike can speak to that but there are in a of steps we are recommending that our defense

department under kate undertake with south korea and japan. these have to move together. it is not just one or the other. it is all. >> adam, as a project director let me go to write to one of the specifics and that is, that what you recommended along with the sanctions that the senators outline is in effect a lower set of conditions. north korea korea would no longer have to completely free this nuclear program before the united states would be willing to sit down and talk about the future. why was the task force recommended that? >> the task force does have a recommendation on negotiations. it's recommendation number two. the reason is that a long-term solution to the north korean problem will require a negotiated solution. unfortunately there is no way around that. the only way to denuclearization of the queen peninsula is through talk. so negotiations play a critical role.

all of the other recommendation cape two quarters north korea about the talk. the structure of the talk is important. on the one hand the task force believed very strongly that the united states should clarify the negotiating position and offered real -- to north korea to reengage in talks and come back to the table and to seek a lasting solution to the nuclear problem. we believe that a freeze on the north korean nuclear program and we outline several steps in the report that would require for it to be in place will, should be on the first item of the agenda for the talks. but on the the other hand we do believe that there are other issues that we can include in talks that are beneficial to all parties, including china china and all of the parties that were engaged in talks. this involved regional arms control and eventually

discussions on how to and the korean war. a peace agreement that will finally end the war. so all of these pieces should be part of negotiation. but what is important to recognize is the united states and the allies will never accept a nuclear north korea and it shouldn't. each step of the weight north korea does have to demonstrate that they are taking steps on denuclearization. >> you have all stress the fact that this all has to happen in tandem, and theoretically it has to be moving forward at the same time. what has to happen first? >> in addition to the simultaneous of all the steps we also try to lay out what we thought was a sequence of events. in particular it has been mentioned that it is really important for the u.s. and china to take the lead to solve this crisis.

in my own personal experience, historically involved in previous crisis on the peninsula , china has basically said that they have limits on what they can do, what they can actually get done in north korea and how much they can control the leadership there. we. we just think it is imperative that they lead in this to open the door for a peaceful solution. to me that is a relatively early test of at least the strategy that we talk about. it has got to go through china and it has to go through china as quickly as possible. while all of these other things are occurring and specifically sam talked a little about the deterrence piece, strengthening the trilateral relationship between the u.s., south koreans and the japanese, getting to a .. and one of the things report

calls for is to look at the possibility and the attack on one as an attack on all. that is much easier said than done. these are relationships that have also had their ups and downs. they're both incredibly important allies to the united states. strengthening that, looking at conventional capabilities, whether it be antisubmarine welfare, cyber commerce special operations, strengthening strengthening that relationship between the three countries as well. in addition a very strong recommendation to deploy this missile defense system which the united states and south korea have agreed to as rapidly as possible. to get to a point that should, should the north get to a point where they are actually about to cross the threshold of a being able target and nuclear ice, miniaturizing nuclear as a warhead that they could hit the

united states with, we cannot let them get to that point. so that any missile capability which support that we could actually shoot that down with the systems like this with fad being one to prevent that capability from becoming real. really, in the sense that that is a self-defense capability as opposed to something that would be an attack capability. >> is sticking with it china, what is the incentive for the chinese to be cooperative, to want to make this work when we have not seen that from them up until now? they have made it clear that they are not interested in seeing a unified korea which is part of the long range wish of the united states. it is really what you talk about

here. and frankly with the missile defense system which is something the chinese cannot find attractive. what makes you think the chinese are ready to jump on board and do something that is helpful now? >> personal, we make it very clear we are not advocating that the united states or our allies try to induce the collapse of north korea. in my own personal view if north korea does collapse at some point in the future it will be because of their internal problems. their abuse of their own citizens, the human rights problem, the economic mismanagement. that is north korea's problem in the path out of that for north korea and its citizens is the path of cooperation. in terms of china, first of all china's interest in the region is huge. stability of the korean peninsula for china is very important.

china, i think it does realize but we make it clear that they have to realize what mike just said, the united states and our allies cannot afford to see this threat continue to grow. particularly against the united states. china has to know that, as well know that, as well as our allies in japan and south korea. the third thing is, we are making it very clear that we ought to have a new dialogue with china. of course china has to be willing to do it. were not sure they will. we have to talk about what is in china's interest? what are they worried about on their borders? how can we talk about them informally about the refugee problem that might occur if there is a collapse of north korea. whether it is by any military action they take, and north koreans take, or internal. the chinese have to be worried about that. border control per they have to be worried about border control. and i think we need to sit down with china and have that dialogue about all of these issues. they have to take into account our interest and we have

to take into account their interests. the bottom line is we have to have cooperation. china china has to recognize that has their leader said, he does not intend to have chaos and war on the korean peninsula. it is going to take all of us toward that goal, that's the right goal. it's going to take operation. all of that is in my view fundamental in china's interest. it will take a new conversation. >> adam, what would you add to that? what is it that makes the members of the task force believe that china will find it in its interest to work with the united states on this? >> in some ways this is the very hard and i commend senator for bringing a start the star tension. each of the recommendation not only sharpens the choice for north korea also provides incentive for china to

transition how things about north korea, to me from seeing it as a buffer against against u.s. power in the region to see in it as a major problem for security and stability in the region. each of these steps demonstrates and the united states and menstruation should be clear about this, that until the north korea problem is resolved. the us, china relationship which is one of the most important in the world cannot progress. it will restrain the relationship. it will. it will cause tension and strain. also each of these steps demonstrate the steps that we have to take necessarily, the united states and its allies to secure themselves against north korea will strain china's interest in the region. all of them are meant to convey and help encourage china to transition how abusive north korea and to get on the right side of this issue. without a resolution of the north korea problem, as we say

very prominently, stable, prosperous northeast, prosperous northeast asia is unlikely to emerge. >> in that connection and another connections the report includes the mention of revising the number of u.s. troops on the korean peninsula. clearly a a very sensitive subject. under what circumstances could that number come down? >> we try to address that issue in all of us and how sensitive that is in terms of a tremendous amount of progress in stabilizing the region, denuclearize in the peninsula and virtually eliminated the threat so that at some point in time an aspirational point in time down the road, the possibility of looking at whether those forces would remain at that level would be part of the discussion. that gets back to what senator was talking about, which is that we try to look at how do you incentivize all of the parties

here? another way i try to look at somebody like china is how do you see this problem set from their perspective, not just our perspective. often times we try to generate solutions just from our perspective. that is just not want to work. so recognizing work. so recognizing the sensitivity with troop levels, we try to characterize in the report and characterize it that way, it is certainly a long way off but down the road that is something we should address. >> i will echo and say exactly what mike said. i will add one other feature. we make it clear in the report that the troop discussion in the position of american forces would be something the united states and south korea, and japan would discuss and agree on together as we put it forward on the table. this is not simply the united states, this is also the south koreans in japanese. >> in the category and if you

look at this among other things as terrorist and sticks. one of the sticks is recommending a role for the united nations and moving to suspend north korea's credentials at the un if it doesn't demonstrate real progress on human rights. why do you think this a be effective? >> this is unusual and i'll call in our military man here to talk about human rights because he feels very strong about this and mary beth played a huge role in this. and mike played a huge role in this. let me kick that question to mike. >> roberta is here who also had a huge impact on this aspect of it. i effort, for too long have been involved in executing policy where the discussion about human rights was put on the back row if you will. yes, we need to represent that it is a value for a country and one of

the things i felt very strongly about in this report was that we are not going to do this. and we weren't going to do it in any way, shape, or form. so the contributions of those who spent their life doing this in understanding in particular roberto who has particular expertise in north korea was hugely important. i just don't think is a country the united states can try to resolve the military aspect of this without directly approaching it on time progress to human rights in north korea because he is so appalling. and because the stuff that he and his regime and predecessors and his dad and granddad have done it's just unconscionable. we cannot look in our good conscious at this issue without making it a major part of the report and recommendation to

include the recommendation to take away the credentials from this country if they don't make progress. that is a pretty simple statement, but it is a very controversial recommendation and execution. to the degree to the degree that north korea is incentivized again and at least we have seen them sometimes react to the international perspective, not always but to the degree that that might create some kind of leverage and impact and human rights. that is why we recommended what we did. >> would and that serve to further isolate the north koreans which has been part of the problem here? >> the hope is that they'll begin to talk about human rights. the hope the hope is that they will sit down and have a discussion. the hope is they will begin to work with the united nations on human rights. that is the hope. this this business of going to the un and credentials is if nothing else works.

if they don't come in good faith and if we don't make progress. so so the report makes it very clear. we hope to make progress. if they don't, i think at some point with the family of nations the un should take action. suspension is not the same thing as termination of membership. suspension of certain rights but it is a very strong and powerful step. strangely enough the north koreans have indicated they have some sensitivity to some of these possible outcomes by the family of nations. >> if i could just add, and you ask this question before we came out here is how is our intelligence with respect to north korea. all of this is done against a backdrop of how little we understand about north korea in general and the personalities and certainly this new young leader specifically.

it has been, we are smarter than we used to be, we know more than we use to but there is still a lot we do not know. so we can speak to this what sam said is right, it is in hope because we just do not know how either he or the leadership in north korea is going to react to these kind of recommendations or possibilities. that said, without the reaction that we sort of would hope for, the recommendations really focus on increasing the pressure in the human rights area and clearly in the nuclear area to try to generate a much better outcome for the region. >> one other point that adam made was that we believe that talks are essential here. you you do not know what the north koreans are going to do until you sit down and talk to them. sometimes even then you do not know what they're going to do. but you have to have communication. we make it clear and this is

also the administration's position, i was not was not aware of that when we started this effort. but we make it clear that informal discussions between the united states and north korea can take place right now. we make it clear that there are no preconditions or to that kind of informal. when you get to the more formal talks we do think all parties need to sign up to the 2005 agreement. there are a couple of conditions, not preconditions. but getting tax going. but getting talks going is important. when jimmy carter went to north korea many years ago, i happen to read a remarkable diary diary he wrote about his conversation with the grandfather. some of the things that were discuss their were amazing in terms of the vision that carter set forth which, in many respects it was agreed to. now it did not happen, you have to be skeptical, you have to have verification all the way through this.

but nevertheless, you do not know what is on other people's mind if you never communicate with them. you have to have talks. >> in formal, and i think there is a little bit of a lack of clarity on what is the policy now. is it that informal talks could proceed without any conditions? or it has been my understanding that north korea had to to freeze its nuclear program before there could be talks. this is a change from that. >> as respect it does represent an adjustment from that but we agree that u.s. policy has not been good on this front so i went to the next administration takes office they should do a top to bottom review of the u.s. policy toward north korea. that should include preconditions for negotiation. it should be very clear with the north koreans, the chinese and other parties. precisely what we expect of

them, what we are prepared to offer and what we expect to get out of these talks. >> i just want to say one word about, we cannot take a long time to get this going. the clock is [inaudible] our side now. and that's because of the developments of the north korean program. they are are moving out very strongly with that missile. i would urge my colleagues in the united states senate, whoever is elected president to put on the front burner the confirmation of the people that have to deal with this problem. and to get discussions going in the administration and with china and hopefully with north korea. certainly with our allies of japan and south korea. at the very beginning of the next ministration per. that needs to be on the front burner. >> before i turn to the members for question, is it clear right now what the response would be if the north were to take further -- we have seen test after test. if there there were to be a provocative action on

the part of the north korea that us, japan, south korea deemed a threatening, and i realize it has to deal with what direction the missile goes, but is it clear what the u.s. response would be? would there be a military response? what would it take to get a military response? >> well i am right in the speculation world which i don't really like to do. we spend a lot of time on this and we certainly have capability to respond. it covers a vast array of potential options and so it would really depend on what he did. merely attacking and south korea or attacking japan, hitting them with system, with some get a missile system we would rapidly destabilize the area. it's hard for me to believe in

i'm no longer in fall but it's hard for me to believe there would not be some kind of severe response. we have worked with our allies in the region with respect to that for a long time now. what we don't know about the guy , you just don't know what he's going to do. you don't know know what drives him. so the likelihood that something like that could happen is certainly out there. >> we are in the realm of speculation. what i understand you to say's there would there would not be a preemptive move. >> no, i actually would not say that at all. i would think that again in the array of options that certainly is one that is there. >> okay, we are going to turn to membership for questions. i'm told told to remind you that it is on the record, we would ask

that you wait for a microphone. there are couple of out there that they will bring to. speak directly into the mic, stand up and tell us your name, your affiliation, limit yourself to one question. let's start right over here with this gentleman. >> if you could stand up. >> okay you don't have to stand up is fine. we know who you are. >> my memory on this maybe hazy, but i was with bill perry at the time of the earliest crises and the old man, the grandfather i guess you could say somehow or another at the time as the cold war was ending made it possible for some of their records to be made available to us. one of the things that was a surprise to those of us who saw those records was that it took about one year him to persuade

the russian and chinese leaders to get into this. they are very much a frayed they want to go to war with america again. so the record show. so that was certainly an opening pressure back up and say was opinion then that we simply had to send a person of great stature over there. you have to keep in mind maintaining face, stature, we were important in the world. so if you're so if you're going to send somebody don't send assistant secretary, however able he may be. send somebody who has the ability but also the recognition stature in the world.

so it happened that i knew at the time to people who had been asked by him to come over. one was secretary general of the un, the egyptian, now passed away. and the other was president carter. my suggestion was nine presidents as i did, i thought none of them would like to have that done. you don't want to be undercut by somebody who seems to have more knowledge in the subject than you do. if anybody's going to do it you will do it. well, that is not the way is going to work in it doesn't usually work that we very often. so i say, why not -- why not just say we are not inviting anybody to go but nobody will

stand in the way. if somebody of us stature they can step aside and let them come. >> so your point is someone of a high standing needs to be needs to go. >> and carter do going get an agreement. >> let's let's ask if what about that. how high does the representative of the united states need to be involved in the negotiation? does it need to be the president himself? can it be. >> i think it has to be the by the president. any suggestion that he makes based on his contribution to humanity i would take seriously and i would hope the president, whoever that will be will take that's her sleep and i think that's a presidential call. >> i just sat and we alluded to this, this regime has a pretty robust history and the report

lays out the cycle that we have all been in for many years, decades now. there simply are meant to presented the report a sense of urgency and a very specific statement that the next president, whatever he or she may be is going to get tested very early with this capability. part of the idea of this was to propose at least a framework that might be used as a new and ministration will take over. were not the only ones in town doing it by the way. >> no hands on this side of the room. >> i'm on affiliated but a humble assistant secretary of state -- but i agree with a higher level of representative. i asked my question with a disadvantage of not having read the report. does the report address his

concept of the deterrent and whether he gets it? thinking specifically of the narrow that's worrisome and south korea when he going talk to them about him using his nuclear umbrella now his deterrent to take conventional action with impunity and this has led to debate about whether there should be a south korean nuclear weapon or reintroduction of u.s. nuclear weapons. you you address that in the report? >> i would say that this is the core of recommendation which is the the suggestion. as the missile capabilities develop he may believe, mistakenly that he is able to aggress set some conventional and conventional levels and cover that with his nuclear arms. our recommendation are explicitly designed to dissuade him of that pulse impression. we propose, as mentioned, new abilities in a submarine warfare, counterforce operations

activities and the mantra of the 20500 women of u.s. forces command in korea and they need to be ready to fight. that is absolutely true. that might require what we send the report not only defense reaction but proactive action. ma also required strikes and to create itself if we are aggress to get with sufficient magnitude. that may be required to dissuade them of this notion. at some parts recognize that we do not enjoy condition of mutual destruction with kim jong-un own and we will not consent to that arrangement. >> we have a question from new york. would you stand up and tell us your name and affiliation. >> i'm herbert with a chinese society. with when the united states has

been confronted with this in the past, we negotiated our way out of it, first of all we were free to negotiate very early on when faced with it which has not been the case here because of opposition within administrations and with the congress. we won after, but serious serious threats in argentina, brazil, we talked them out of it we managed to get south africans to stop. we then had israel in, india, india, pakistan, iran and at every case negotiations achieved a lessening of the threat. now when it comes to north korea, we have tried as the

senator knows to do some serious negotiations, negotiations have failed most of the time because north koreans are failed to fulfill at least twice have failed because we did not fulfill. so this. so this is a negotiating situation. a negotiated situation, what are our minimum criteria? well, it is not, with your hands up and agree to get rid of your nuclear weapons manufacturing capability. that is not initial negotiated situation. you have to start with no advance criteria and then you have to look at what it is the north koreans are after. they are paranoid, remember we invaded north korea when we were defending south korea. there are paranoid. we can get rid of this absurd military exercises with the obviously threatened them. >> did you have a question you wanted to tack on to that. >> yes, we can start by recognizing them as a country offering to send an ambassador in there, maybe mr. trump after the election and get started dealing with them as a serious

country. not simply as a threat. thank you. >> do you want to comment on that? >> while we make it clear that negotiation with north korea's one of our top goals. i have said said this morning communication is enormously important. we also made it clear in the report that we recommend that we have informal discussions with them. we do believe that you cannot sit down and negotiate with the men while they are continuing to test nuclear weapons and missiles. that would have to have a freeze at some point. that on be the aim of the negotiation but we can sit down and start talking to them if they basically make it clear they will sign a principle like all the other players will have to of the 2005 framework which they agree to wants. and then. and then we can discuss all of these things. we make it clear in the report that we are willing to talk about forced dispositions. i said that this morning. we are

willing to talk about exercises. that's in the report. we're willing to talk about conventional arms control. that's recommendation in the report. i think we all have to remember that the north koreans have a huge threat against our ally, south korea and the city of seoul before they ever had a nuclear program. it was a severe threat on the conventional side. all of those things can be put on the table it should be put on the table but you have to get to the table first. you have to get to the table with some hope of achieving a freeze on some of these very dangerous developments. >> we have a question over here. the gentleman. >> it good money. thank you for the invitation. >> jj green, wto p radio. there are those who think north korea already has achieved miniaturization of a weapon. we see they continue to test

delivery systems. while the concern about the possibility of a deployment of a nuclear weapon on top of a miss lesson point is a great concern, i wonder what your thoughts are about the test phase which is if they do have a miniaturized weapon, when they get to the point where they start testing because that is a huge risk. anything could go wrong as with something that they have already tested and deployed later. that is a lot closer to us now than them perfecting something and launching it later. i wonder what the panel thinks about where we are now in that process and what your thoughts would be on preparing for the possibility and perhaps an idea on what to do? >> thank you. >> actually i have looked looked at north korea's almost not having a test phase in terms of

the way they have developed their systems typically is a basically operational. they're very content with putting the system out there, firing it and having it fail but learning each time. they can see just as we have observed the progress that they have made. i would agree, although i do not know that certainly they are making progress with respect to miniaturization. the submarine launch recently are indicative of progress there as well. all of that is what greatly motivated the task force to focus on the urgency with which this is required to be addressed and the likelihood in the very near future that he is going to have this capability. he will not go through test phase. from my perspective i would treat it all is operational right now. i'm be able to address it from a threat perspective as he continues to go through these tests. they can be, they are and they can be very threatening.

>> okay the front row. >> i am in the naval postgraduate school. i'm an anthropologist by training. i look at this from a human standpoint. one of the changes i have observed, i have observed, i came to the pentagon 40 years ago. when the admiral when i think was a lieutenant. [laughter] , i met him at the naval academy. >> okay kaman asked the question. >> what i am struck by is a slow change of language in the defense department where both the vice president of the secretary of defense, last spring is the word relationship. and i think this question of trying to build relationships rather than going in insane we have got all of the strength, how are you going to deal with

it, it is a real shift if we are going to move in recognizing how important relationships are. the question i would have is, how, how do you start putting that in military education so you do not have this sense that if you are in the military you fight and if you're in the state department you try to work it out. >> that's a good question. >> she knew you. >> i actually with a survey from my perspective what i have observed and again i'm a few years removed but in my time particularly as a senior officer there is a number of people in the military, the pentagon, working on the relationship aspect of this. the strong preference for the military is we would rather not fight, we certainly can but our preference would be to have a

peaceful outcome to be led by astute policy and doctrine and even politics so that we do not get to the point where we have to use the weapons. i think the military certainly in the last several decades have this move to -- that that it's moved away from the ability to fight but the importance of having it. we are in a much different place and we were a few years ago and this is a great example. i believe the most important relationship in the 21st century is the one between u.s. and china. driven principally by the fact that there the two biggest economies in the world. we are going to have to figure out how to make this work. if this region destabilizes, our economies go bad very quickly. it has four of the five largest economies in the world in this

region. that is compelling, motivation to try to get this right. and so part of this is our relationship with china which is enormously complex. you cannot just pull on peace out and say do this. that is why think what senator said earlier so important. we have to understand this from the chinese perspective. what other priorities and incentives. what are they worried about, in addition to what we historically thought they were worried about. that said, we cannot get to a point with this young leader puts a nuclear weapon on top of a missile and puts the united states and our people under a stranglehold. that is a line in in the sand that cannot be crossed. >> the next question. and we invite task force members to join in the questions and comments if you want. let's go to the back of the room. >> and i had one thing?

to that other point that was just me. mike mullen has said over and over again that the most important security challenge america faces is our economy. and our fiscal problem. the main that is a military leader say that. bob gates said at least on two occasions that he would take money out of the defense budget to beef up the state department if he had the ability to do it. i don't think the type of military wanted to fight and the state department wanting to make a deal, come i don't think that's correct on either count. that is, perception, i think think that is wrong. >> okay question .. of the room. >> can we stand up so we can see you. >> i'm rachel with congressional quarterly. mr. malik, when when he talk about a potential preemptive military strike, would that be envisioned as a strike sun north

korea's launch sites recognizing that it is now developing mobile missiles, or with these be test that or strikes you alluded to earlier to destroy missiles launched in the sky? if that is the case or you talk about developing new types of missile-defense capabilities beyond bad? -- tha de. >> really from a self-defense perspective meaning if we believe that they're very close to develop in this capability which can threaten us, it is important for us to develop the capability to defend herself. which could theoretically take out launch capabilities on the launchpad or take them out once they are launched. certainly the capabilities we

have deployed in the region on our u.s. navy ships are part of that as well as the japanese self-defense force. the maritime self-defense force. so we also we also urge the continuing evolution of those regional self-defense capabilities to neutralize that. but but it is to prevent that threat from actually being effective either before it is lost or after. we are clear in the report that certainly and adam said this earlier, it could include attacks in north korea. >> okay there is a hand here at the second table. >> gilbert. my question is there has not been a single word mentioned about russia and there has been no mention of china with its weak implementation of the marc.

what, if russia and china are not at minimal to these actions, what besides defense and deterrence is intended to make it clear to them that the u.s. takes this situation very seriously? rather further thinks expected? >> the un resolution that we have alluded to and that is one of the pillars of our report in terms of enforcing it strictly was voted on and four by russia and china. we mention russia throughout the report. it there part of the five party talks that they recommend. russia would be part of the six party talks of north korea joints. we have made it clear that russia has to be part of this. it is clear that is the feeling

that the panel. i don't think think anybody has questions about that. >> we also say a word about u.s. sanctions policy. it is often said that the policy ought to be integrated into the broader levers of the american power. sanctions alone are not sufficient to solve the problem. but when we look at the contribution to the test were some sections it was very clear that enforcement of 2270 strictly which china has signed on to should be a priority. we hope china will join with us in that. if they do not, the standing regional mechanism that can enforce these what we are obliged to do under un obligation is important. there

are also other pillars to u.s. sanctions policy. for example this is an area where u.s. and chinese interests overlap. in shutting down north korea's illicit network of illegal and destabilizing activity that happens in china and happens in southeast asia and to confront their allies in the region. these are areas where we should devote considerable attention to try to get china on the right side of it. lastly, if after these few steps we need to be prepared to reporters put in place new u.s. unilateral sanctions. hopefully in concert concert with our allies. if necessary either steps the united states should take. so they do not face a strict sanctions as i rented. that's not acceptable. we really do need to be able to ratchet up pressure from north korea in order to course them back to negotiation. >> i would act quickly that if you have been in involved in sanctions you know how hard it is and if you haven't you think it's simple. i mean it's a good

example of the whole financial sanction or which we thought we knew something about in 2006 and seven, and we are at a level now that we cannot even have imagined back then. the same is true with the 2270 sanctions. 270 sanctions. these are enormously complex. their countries in the world addressing the report you are ignoring the sanctions. but the physical aspect of said should be keeping this material out are from flowing out of a country like north korea particularly on the chinese border were china has not been as active as we would like them to be in enforcement of the sanctions, even though they signed up for them when the un voted on them. >> back against the wall, the gentleman that had his hand up for a while.

>> the question is not about the council but by my count this as either the fourth or fifth study group the council has undertaken related to north korea over a number of years. obviously this is a problem that alludes easy solution. my query is this and i want you to connect the dots if you can. it's been alluded that the goal is not a change of regime. what i think about what an essence the study group is urging north korea to do, the only way i can conceive of this is either the end of the regime as we know it, or alternatively a transformation in the internal structure of the regime and leadership of the regime that is almost on a match double in the context of a dynasty now 70 year standing. is that appropriate therefore that the ultimate outcome here would presume the end of north korea as we know it? >> thank you for that question. i just mentioned that when i was asked to start this project the

first book i picked up was -- to no exit. you also mention there have been previous task force reports. many. many of which have done some serious work. but, i want to reemphasize the flexibility in the consideration a dedication of our task force group. they were remarkably engaged, remarkably unified and the need for a progressive and series report. we think this is an important case study for how you as policy north korea should be made. with respect to regime change, the position of the report is that we do not take steps that intentionally cause the collapse of the regime which is most likely to occur for internal reasons. that having been said, if this new ultimatum and new proposal is not sufficient to say if they

don't make progress on the steps, the next presidential administration is going to have to take a serious look at that. we will have to take a new look at policy review and that includes questions that you undermine the viability of the regime. it is not permissible to allow a north korean regime to exist that can threaten the continental united states with a ballistic nuclear missile. >> that necessarily would entail military force, wouldn't it? >> so that is part of the toolkit but there is also for example persistent concern that new sanctions could undermine the economic viability of the regime and lead to collapse. one thing we mentioned in the report is the north korean economy is diversified. there is marketization cropping up in various areas both in illicit and illicit markets that are increasing the resiliency of the regime to sanctions pressure

and forcing them to have or allowing them ways to circumvent as a sanctions regime. so i think it's important to recognize that as the regime has adapted the sanctions regime has to adapt as well. that will have to result in new pressure and new relationships. >> i have one point. we get into the point of implication of the question of having to use military force and regime change in that sort of thing. it is very clear the report that that is the last resort, as mike said we're not going to sit here and see a threat develop against the united states that puts our own people in danger and put our allies in danger. that's a last resort and if we get to that point this strategy has failed. the china strategy has failed to and it goes against what the

leader of china said he was not going to permit to happen. it goes against the south korea adds that policy would fail. it goes against the interest of japan so that would fail. and for goodness sakes a war is going to be devastating to north korea so that would fail. so don't think this on to become a front burn off option. this is a last resort, it's devastating with the huge number of flies lost. we have to understand that. we have to understand the risk but north korea has to understand the biggest risk is to north korea. >> the other thing i would add us maybe it is a modern phenomenon because throughout history certainly regimes have changed. the regime change has not been working that well lately. so i'm a little sensitive, i think were a little sensitive to quote, unquote advocating for that even though there are certainly, and it is in the report some discussion about what could be from a common

sense standpoint would logically get you a point where you would have a transformation in the regime. he has executed more people, he has conducted more missile and weapons test in five years than his father did and 18. you don't know what is going on in his head but the action certainly start to paint a strategy that is pretty distractive to the region and potentially by his own regime by our perspective, maybe maybe not by his. >> and lastly i would commence you the additional views in the back of the report which we do feel strength in the report. for example others do discuss that consideration and death. and i would encourage you to take a look at those. >> last question in the front row. >> hello, thank you. i work on china and nuclear

issues in the security bellows. even though much china expert i have a question talks. it seems from the discussion that there is a consensus consensus in the discussion that an increased pressure would lead back to the negotiating table. i just spent an embarrassing large proportion of my adult life working on dissertation on this precise question of how to get enemies to talk to each other during complex. the bottom line is the united states seems to think that escalating will get the other side to the table but it undermines efforts. the other side is worried about giving in under the got a course and them look weak and they're worried about creating for the coercion in the future. my question is given that there's a consensus i'm curious to know on the discussion, were there any voices that talked about perhaps how the increased

pressure could reduce the probability that north korea would be willing to talk to the united states? or was there a general consensus that the strategy would work? >> an easy last question. >> we thought that this would work in a very difficult problem. it's enormously complex. members of the task force who have negotiated in the clinton administration, negotiated the issue in the bush administration and negotiated in the obama administration. it just speaks to the difficulty. what is changing is the technological development if you will of the system which now very directly is coming into the horizon of threatening u.s. citizens. literally the continental united states. we just cannot see ourselves getting to accepting that in any way, shape or form. and maybe that changes the view

of how this should be negotiated. >> a with that it looks like -- and we want to thank everybody and i want to thank -- [applause]. with like to thank you for moderating, thank you all. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] . .

now more for fruit and the council on foreign relations. argentina's foreign minister susana malcorra talks about the future of our country and u.s. latin american relations. this is one hour. >> welcome to today's council on foreign relations meeting.

we are truly honored to have the honorable susana malcorra with us today, the minister of foreign affairs appointed by president in december of 2015. she brings extraordinary experience to the ministry, management, economics, technology and international relations. you all have a copy of her impressive resume and we have only one precious hour so i am going to limit my introduction most done diplomatically to just a few points that i would like to make about her magnificent achievements. she has been assistant engineer for ibm, she was executive officer of telecom argentina and the third-largest argentine company.

chief operating office of the united nations food program, undersecretary general for the newly-created u.n. department dealing with providing field and financial support for our peacekeeping mission and last but not least chief of staff to u.n. secretary ban ki-moon. the minister's remarks and our conversation following are on the record and with no more words i am going to invite minister malcorra to the podium. [applause] >> thank you so much ambassador hill. it's a real pleasure to be here to be hosted in such an important organization related to all matters of common

interest in international affairs and dicey good friend sitting around the table. it is good to be among friends. i will take a little bit of time to tell you where we are in argentina and then as the ambassador said we will be opened in -- open to question so we can speak about anything that you want to talk about. i think it's my duty to start to describe where home is. as you know the president took office last december. spend nine long months of hard work trying to have a different approach to argentina and argentina in the world. it is our view and it is the view of the president that in

this day and age the only way for us to really get to the point where we need to be from a development and from an institution perspective, from the perspective of being a mature country and to do that within a very integrated view into the world. the president came with it very clear object if for our government. first of all elimination of poverty. it is hard to say and heartbreaking in a play that has a poverty level of 30% and more than 30%. such a rich country and subject country with so many resources is hard to understand how we are

where we are. the first objective is to eliminate poverty. this is much in line with the view that the world has on sustainable development, climate change and doing it in a manner that will be sustainable long-term. so it's first objective which seems so clear toward the internal perspective of argentina are the marching orders that i have by the minister of argentina. clearly our job is to bring argentina so we can generate business opportunities investment opportunities, trade opportunities in a way that allows us to create jobs that are sustainable in the long term , not jobs that depend on a

particular subsidy, not jobs that feel like falling from the sky but jobs that are real, better quality jobs in the long term. that's the first objective read the second object if that we have set for ourselves is the fight against narco-trafficking. this is something that many people do not fully know but argentina has evolved into a country of passage of dark products of significance. being a transient company of course went to pastor a place something is always left behind and that something that has been left behind for some time now has created a very sad situation

in our seats to be. not only of course the use of two drugs has increased but out of that we have now a situation of drug trafficking which hasn't not the sort of the big cartels we see in the world and has created tension and has created problems on security. again here in the foreign ministry we are working in the different ministries to first get as many lessons learned in information and capabilities coming from countries and others and work together with the neighbors because clearly it's a question that affects the region

in order to attack the horrible situation that we are facing. the that's the second object. a third object if the president has set for us is what in the u.s. government you would say rule of law but in our terms we call it coming together of the argentinian and the credit institutions. the notion of coming together, the notion of eating able to work with each other no matter what your view is, where it comes from and what your thinking is and being able to work out your differences because you have institutions that are solid. that is critical for a country that has had quite a few rounds of changes of profound impact without a lasting view of

institutions particularly institutions that strong democratic roots. this is what we are doing. it's very simple and it's very complex. the president has promised to deliver many things and i will say the first six months of this administration he has proven that what he promised us what he did and we have reopened particularly in economic terms to the world we have eliminated all the hurdles to doing business with argentina. one of the ones that clearly has had a huge impact are the holdouts that were there for many years and cost the country

a lot in terms of opportunities. we are now working on the hardest part which is to translate all these framework decisions into things that impact the lives of each argentinian everyday. you know going from macroto microis always difficult. that's exactly where we are. we have launched a very ambitious infrastructure plan because we have a sign that they have protective argentina that requires -- and one of the issues we have to be competitive is to update our infrastructure be that in terms of railroads,

terms of ports, in terms of energy and argentina having been in net exporter of energy for a long time is now a net importer so we have to reshuffle and invest in the basic infrastructure needs not only to make argentina competitive but also to have that integration within the south of the continent and to make sure we can do that in a manner that is absolutely connect did. so we are working on that. we are working on the question of bringing the interest of private sector investments which we just had earlier this week a form on business investment with 1600 very senior people from

companies coming to see what is it that we can offer both on initiatives that the government is leading on infrastructure but also to see sector by sector where are the opportunities and of course the network business the key factor for us. that's one of the site is where we are competitive. we produce food for 400 million people and we have a plan to become a producer of 800 million people in a years time and that's part of the need to build and rebuild to be able to carry that through and also we are very much dedicated to go from being the -- of the world to being a supermarket or the worlds of two make sure that we

add value in argentina and we are part of the solution to one of the biggest risks the world faces which is food security risks. it's true in many parts of the world and i think argentina can represent an opportunity in this regard. we are working sector by sector trying to not only the most basic agribusiness which i shall describe also technology which is the natural tendency to be creative that the argentinians have. they have proven so good in commerce and the i.t. arena, in the technology arena at large and in the media so we are trying to diss where we can have

a competitive advantage and look for partners that come from all over the world to join efforts with us and invest and create again job opportunity. this is what we are doing. i'm not going to bore you much more with what it is we are trying to do vis-à-vis argentina and its own challenges. a we are very cognizant that we are immersed in a region that has its own challenges and it's very important for us to remain well-connected with their neighbors. dare we are trying to make sure that we take it to the next level of a closeness.

we have started conversations with the european union. exchange of offers are in progress. the third were mutually disappointing i have to say but as is always the case we have to work and develop those offers into something that's mutually satisfactory. we are also working with latin america because again it's very natural that you work to integrate yourself in the world. we are also investing very heavily in our relationship with north america with the u.s., canada and mexico. we are also working hard renewing our commitment that the european union. we have a relationship with china that were started by the prior government and we have now rerouted a new administration.

we are looking to business and the rest of the world in asia and the middle east and africa. africa has an opportunity because africa is so much in need of some of the things that we produce but also as a cooperation opportunity to develop areas where we have a competitive advantage. we have a very broad agenda. i would say we have almost no stone left unturned. that means we have many fronts that we are trying to do our very best to work in a manner from big concepts and big ideas for things to that make a difference for our people. without elaborating much more

because i don't want to take our time, i will be ready to engage with you all in a conversation. thank you all very much. [applause] >> well that was spectacular and i can't tell you how pleased we are to have you with us. thank you. i will ask the minister a couple of questions and then i will be turning it over to you so think about what you can ask in very few words in the short time that we have. you mentioned -- many observers believe that it's current set up as an obstacle for vibrant

argentine trade and i, let me just ask you what reformed if any do you see that it needs to reinvigorate the integration and some have suggested that if the numbers have a free trade agreement instead of a customs union they would be much more flexible and engender mucks more growth. what are your views on this? >> it is clear that it's short and the initial particularly from brazil. it's also true in recent history it has hidden between argentina and argentina has hidden behind brazil.

so i think we are facing a huge opportunity now because both countries agree that we need to take it deep look and think about what is next. we don't have a particular formula. but we think is first we have to be truthful to what we have agreed and we need to eliminate all -- among ourselves and eventually take a deeper look whether there is a better model that we could go ahead and take. i hate and i will be very clear that when we make excuses that we have to invent something new because what is supposed to be working is not working.

while we invent something new we are creating new excuses not to do things. in the meantime let's talk about anything we feel should be of help and we are ready because the president is very open open-minded precedent that he's ready to take on any issue. >> we go wish you well in that endeavor. let me ask you another question. argentina has played a role in preventing venezuela from assuming the presidency and the deadline has been set for december 1 for argentina to comply with the membership requirements. tell me if the political situation continues today as it has with respect to venezuela what do you foresee?

is argentina prepare to vote for venezuela being dropped from merck and sell? >> first of all we need to be very careful. the political -- to separate the political issue. mercantile is a common market. we have other environments and other organizations where we deal with the political issues. we have done -- been very strict in compliance and we have found him when i say we not only argentina but the forefathers we have found their certain questions that are basic prerequisite of compliance that mercantile has not adhered to. we all want to give venezuela extra time.

venezuela has been slow in the approval of treaties that goes to the legislation should be endorsed. so we are hoping that venezuela will renew their commitment to be part of it. should that not occur i think we need to regroup and find out what are the next steps. but there's no intention that venezuela will be -- because we hope that venezuela will go through. tonight in your foreign policy responsibilities let me ask another question about venezuela currently hosting the 17th summit of the nonaligned movement. there will be 160 delegations that attend including north korea, iran syria and many others.

the last summit was held in 2012 what do you think is going to come out of this meeting? >> i have not been involved in the organization of the meeting. it's clearly a group as the name itself indicates that is trying to be mutual and not aligned to what was at the time that the powers in the bipolar world. the reality that there is no bipolar world any longer there is no full alignment. but i think it's a platform that rings together most of the countries in the south. and that allows conversations that they define in their priority. i don't know and i'm of the view

that if people want to come together and have a conversation and have exchanged there's no reason why that shouldn't happen my sense having been in a multilateral organization for some time is that it's better for people speaking and talking than to be fighting. into play i think it's worth looking at what happens and wishing that out of that there will be a sense of belonging in this world. we have a lot of common agendas that we are working on. >> and argentina will participate? >> argentina is not a member. we used to be but not any longer. >> let me ask another foreign-policy issue. for more than a century argentina and great britain have had a quarrel and they even

fought a war in 1982 over the issue and this past wednesday, just a few days ago the two governments issued a communiqué ending restrictions on a number of industries enabling them to function on the islands and agreeing to allow flights in and out of the island and planning, promising to discuss in the future shipping, fishing and oil and gas drilling. how do you see these negotiations preceding and in what timeframe? give us something about can we see the end of this 100 year war >> well it's not a 100 year war. it's a difference of opinion which had a war in the middle unfortunately. first of all we have said that

we are ready relate and communicate with the rest of the world. as long as the basic principles that we believe in our mats. clearly the uk meets this end we have also said in a relating to the world we believe in the principles. you should be aware that i'm an engineer so i believe in the 80/20 principle where normally have 80% of things with whomever you are talking, country another person or another institution you can agree on it and you work on that. 20% were either you don't agree or you disagree or you work. in the case of the uk we have a

deep deep -- in the uk. something argentina has enshrined in the constitution. this is a country that is deeply-rooted in our society. having said that we are working on the way present the form that i described and members of the private sector and individual government. we have a few that this may take long to be totally resolved. there are things that can be done in the meantime without giving up our sovereign bright. it is in the communiqué that we signed we talked about sovereignty there and in the

meantime we have agreed to work together on quite a few fronts. i'm trying to see how we can find ways to work in the area that is so important to argentina as part of it. that's what we are going to do. none of that has the scripted timeline but it's a good first step toward sitting at the table and trying to find solutions. >> you mentioned in your remarks president marcri's priorities and in every he came to the council on foreign relations and laid out his foreign-policy priorities and one of them was to develop a more cooperative relationship with the united states you what two or three

policy areas would your government like to pursue with washington and also what would you like to see washington do to facilitate a closer relationship between our two governments? >> first of all back in february many things have happened. president obama came to argentina in what we considered was a very successful visit and a very successful encounter between the two leaders. ..