mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate the remarks of the senator from connecticut. glad i had the opportunity to hear them. i, too, am here to celebrate ronald reagan's life, born 100 year, but also his nearly 50 years of influence on american public policy. and i would begin in this way: a few years ago when he was president of the united states, president reagan attended one of the many washington press dinners that are held here. i think it was the gridiron dinner. it is we will-known that 90% of the people in the audience, the members of the press, had a different point of view on politics than he did. but they liked him anyway and they respected him, just as he respected them. and i remember that evening that he strode into the gridiron dinner and smiling and looking like a million dollars. the press rose and smiled back and applauded him, and president reagan stood in front of the media until the applause subsided and then he sthaid: "thank you very much. i know how h

to spotlight algor narbonne just a reminder that my guests today is finnish foreign minister alexander stubb. mr stubbs welcome back to the spotlight's well let's talk about a political issue that is maybe a stumbling block in the russian finnish relations what i mean is the issue of the korean territories which belong to russia since nine hundred forty do they have any weight in federal and domestic policies can if in the land raise this issue one day what would you say. well i think you know we have the treaty of paris and we don't have a territorial issue with russia my family my both grandparents were born in v. borg my dad was born in khaki so mean karelia there's of course an emotional attachment to historical and cultural attachment but in terms of politics no so my basic philosophy is very simple let's try to bring down the border barriers as much as possible and then let's do exchange through that way but they are not a stumbling block in our relations so so we we don't have any grounds to saying that there are like timebombs in the history in russia finnish relations now ok now next qu

today i'm at the russian embassy in london talking to mr alexander of the m.k. who's just taken up the post as the new russian ambassador to the u.k. he was formerly of the press department at the ministry in moscow thank you very much for talking to us he congratulations on your new pasting and a very warm welcome to london now who took up your first post as a diplomat in one nine hundred seventy six how do you think that working for the diplomatic service and diplomatic relations between countries in general have changed since then i think since that time you know there were quite a serious changes. first of all if you look at the gender of the leaders of the countries and the agenda of the negotiations between the ministers of foreign affairs you can find you know thirty thirty five years ago. more than fifty percent were the by little issues know when the ministers are meeting they are talking about the climate change they're talking about the international security so basically the big issues you know the global issues takes almost sixty or seventy percent

today i'm at the russian embassy in london talking to mr alexander who's just taken up the post as the new russian ambassador to the u.k. thank you very much for talking to us he congratulations on your new pasting and a very warm welcome to london on a human level relationships between the u.k. and russia are very good lots of work in russia russian culture is widely celebrated tear but on a diplomatic and political level they're not so why do you think that well i think it's the task you know for the diplomats and for the political leaders you know to get the of course. to do their best to have. political relations and as far as the russian britain rationed i would like to say that the last year was very fruitful from that point of view there were two meetings of the. president of russia and the prime minister of britain that was in canada and then saw we expect the visit of lager all of this will be next week which is very important. mr hague was. in russia you know the negotiations were very productive and we expect the visit of mr cameron this year with i mean the embassy we're st

mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate the remarks of the senator from connecticut. glad i had the opportunity to hear them. i, too, am here to celebrate ronald reagan's life, born 100 year, but also his nearly 50 years of influence on american public policy. and i would begin in this way: a few years ago when he was president of the united states, president reagan attended one of the many washington press dinners that are held here. i think it was the gridiron dinner. it is we will-known that 90% of the people in the audience, the members of the press, had a different point of view on politics than he did. but they liked him anyway and they respected him, just as he respected them. and i remember that evening that he strode into the gridiron dinner and smiling and looking like a million dollars. the press rose and smiled back and applauded him, and president reagan stood in front of the media until the applause subsided and then he sthaid: "thank you very much. i know how h

mr. alexander mentioned seeing caltrans crews this morning, and we ran into some caltrans crews on highway 17 at summit road around 6 this morning as well. it was dry there, and drivers had their plows on the side of the road just waiting, waiting for the snow to fall. we were told 8 to 10 workers had been monitoring the roadways overnight. and highway 17 at least four of those drivers were driving around just watching for the snow. crews are working a 12-hour shift. cam trance driver i spoke to was waiting to be reload at 8 this morning. and we told them our mission to find snow and he directed us right here to highway 35 and highway 9 this morning. driving along roads were pretty icy, and of course we'll have another report for you from the spot in about 30 spits. >>> 10 warning centers are just about to open this morning in san jose. ali rasmus is live at one of those warming centers, and has it warmed up at all since since you arrived? >> reporter: not much. it's still very cold. when i checked about an hour and a half ago, it said it was about 33, 34 degrees. but those warming centers

accuse the country's leader alexander lukashenko fall played during recent presidential elections that cost the office its license and the always see chairman sees little hope mr bush angle can be talked into changing his mind but the lithuanian foreign minister drawn a sociable is optimistic about the fact economic sanctions can have a mains and he's also optimistic about the frozen conflict in trans am hoping something finally change for the better. minister welcome to the show thank you very much we'll spotlight my pleasure well. has assumed the chairmanship of the sea and one of the burning issues is the situation in neighboring neighboring to lithuania also of course to russia where the authorities have shut down the sea office what is your reaction to how we are going to act i doing to try to reopen the office of course it's our intention to the person. to reopen but we would like to. in this case the office would keep the same meaning for us but it will be this some content not just the creation but to be very frank i do not have very much hope despite of all countries including russia united states. minsk to close various office what next. step is just

mr. president, i'd like to announce that we have cosponsors in senator alexander, senator burr, senator mccain, senator isakson, senator chambliss, senator inhofe and senator kirk, and i want to thank them for joining us in this effort, and i hope that many more will do the same. mr. president, i spent a lifetime in business and i came to the united states senate not to score political points, not to be involved in messaging, but to solve our country's problems. i think everybody in this body understands that we have tremendous fiscal and financial issues to deal with in this country. this morning, i was happy to see that 3 senators met over at the visitor's center on both sides of the aisle to listen to people involved in the financial industry talking about the path that we're on and what that's going to lead to as far as the ruination of our fiscal situation in this country and our ability to borrow money at low rates as we are today, and all of us know what that will mean to citizens of this country. mr. president, i think there is no one in this country that doesn't understand how problem