and currently as chairman of the board of directors of transparency international usa. in 2009, my transparency international counterpart, whom i'm very pleased you had the opportunity to meet, mr. chairman, and i participated in a private sector group that prepared and submitted a joint report to president medvedev and president obama. entitled russia u.s. joint working group on joint institutional integrity. simply in 2009 i served as co-chair of a public sector advisory committee that provided the administration with recommendations on a new bilateral investment treaty, new model bit. my written statement describes three sets of disciplines. you could think of them as a triangle, that form the foundation for a solid rule of law framework for international business activity. first trade disciplines, second, investment disciplines, and third, institutional integrity. when only one or two of those are in place, the rule of law framework for business is not as strong nor as stable as it is when all three sides of the rule of law triangle are in place. i believe congress

al larson, chairman of the board of transparency international usa. i must tell you mr. larson i enjoyed meeting with the president of transparency international russia in moscow last month. i think her name is elena. very, very impressive, sharp, intelligent lady. >> she is. >> and very compelling story to tell. that's why she is back in russia and didn't stay over in brussels. but thank you, all five of you very much for coming today. the usual practice, i'm sure you're aware, is just to you'll submit your statements for the record and then speak about five minutes. and i urge you to be very direct, forthcoming, candid. tell it like it is. okay? mr. allen, you're first. >> thank you, chairman baucus. senator kyl, distinguished members of the committee, my name is sam allen, chairman and ceo of deere company. on behalf of john deere and the business roundtable, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today on the importance of establishing permanent normal trade relations with russian to john deere and the u.s. business community. granting pntr is crucial for

i do think that civil society organizations like transparency international have a role to play. i think there should be scope for them to report on suspected instances of corruption, be able to do that, and finally, chairman, you asked about pntr and it's impact on all this. i think pntr is definitely a plus, not just for u.s. trade relations, but it does impose a degree of trade relations that is a positive step. it's not all we need to do, but it's very, very important. >> mr. kyle? >> thank you mr. chairman, i think we're getting right to the nub of the problem here, and that is that you talk about the three legs of the stool. when is it time to negotiate over the two legs of the stool. you've got a little bit stronger hand to play if we explain that on, for example, the bits, we want the duma to ratify the agreement that the united states has rafi

to me that this issue is a little bit blown out of proportion usually people look at the transparency international headline in the extra each ranks russia hundred fifty four out of hundred seventy eight countries it gets even more exciting than that because russia is a tree sandwiched between papua new guinea and did you start with a problem with that it's a but so exception perception makes and disparate sectioning as could being full of great media coverage of this country for example if you go to a conspiracy international also goes to individual countries and ask people and people themselves have you not a member of your family experienced corruption the last year or so while trying to present a russian says say yes this is not something to be proud of but i think that given the level of income this is not out of proportion with the rest of the world so i think this is something that sometimes who i finally usually forget i most western countries have institutionalized corruption but that's a different topic it is legal back to you what. well if we were looking for one single driver to do to e

i do think that civil society organizations like transparency international have a role to play.i think it should be scope for them to report on suspected instances of corruption, be able to do that. and finally, mr. chairman you asked about pntr, its impact all this. i think pntr is definitely a plus, not just for trade relations but it imposes a degree of discipline in trade relations that is a positive step. on the rule of law, it's necessary. it's not all we need to do but it's very important. >> thank you very much. >> thank you chairman. we are getting right to the nub of the problem and that is you talk about the three legs of this dual. when is the best time to negotiate the other two legs of us do? adds that after you grand pntr or is it before and that is really the question seems to me. you have a little bit stronger hand to play if we explained that on for example on the v. kai: t's we want duma to ratify the treaty that the united states has ratified. expropriation is not something that in this day and age ought to be permitted among rule abiding commercial patience

alan larson, chairman of the board of transparency international usa. i enjoyed meeting with the director of transparency international in russia. she was a very interesting lady, and a compelling story to tell about why she is in russia. thank you for coming today. the usual process is for you to submit your statement to the record, and speak for five minutes. we urge you to be very direct and as forthcoming as you can't tell it like it is. mr. allen, you are first. >> thank you, chairman max baucus. on behalf option john deere and the business roundtable, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the importance of establishing permanent normal trade relations with russia to john deere and the business community. granting a pntr is crucial for u.s. manufacturers and agricultural producers to receive the full benefits. it is essential to enable us to compete on a level playing field for russian customers. the reasons are clear. first, pntr will ensure equal treatment for u.s. companies doing business in russia. here is a concrete example. ru

the things i advocate is we work with russia to establish freedom for organizations like transparency international to call out instances of suspected corruption and deal with them. i think strengthening non-governmental organizations such as those is a good thing. and as i understand this proposal, that would be one additional tool for doing so. >> but -- >> sorry, my time's up. >> just one second. since senator kerry might have been out of the room when i put the letters in the record. the piece in the "wall street journal" specifically referred to the letter that you quoted. and as they say, of course no one in russia's foolish enough to defend it, but it should be replaced with something else and we recommended as much as we recommended the passing of the act as has been done in europe. >> next, senator grassley? >> i was in and out because of other committee meetings. i think that looking over your testimony and hearing what i heard, i don't have any disagreement with the point you made, but i'd like to make this point and maybe it refers more to agriculture than it does other aspects of our e

talking about if the person would follow on from there naturally i should say i'm talking to transparency international serves them in the head of the office here. she's actually very upbeat in so much as she thinks the kremlin's that the cat out of the bag with the public discussion of corruption and they have to do something about it i mean it's become public there's no going back on that and we're seeing the beginnings of some institutionalized. it's true size nation of anti corruption in the form of you know the utility companies now are not allowed to do contracts with kind of parties where they don't know who beneficial owner is and stuff like that that we need to see more of the time when what are you what's the driver you're looking at what's the driver that putin should be giving you the most attention to over the next six years or maybe the first six months of his presidency. well might see a drive on full time liberalization simply for the master class crisis and i think that's something that could help to reduce our subsidies that the government pays to to the consumer and in doing so would

and today we have three core pillars are work the first is monitoring international arms transfers, the second is to promote transparency in international arms transfers. in today's presentation, i'll newly released data, which you can find in the sipri arms data transfer online. >> my plans today is to appeal to those who like dragnets and just go with the facts. i guess the general headline is that we see an upwards trend in international arms transfer. so our data for the period 2007 to 201 12011 indicates a 24% e increase. but i think it is worth flagging at this stage and i'd be happy later to discuss subregion increases, in particular with regard to east africa, northeast africa, south asia. first i'm going to switch to talk about the situation with regards to the suppliers. the headline here is really that it seems that not much has changed. the same five major suppliers continue to dominate, that is the u.s. followed by russia, germany, france and the uk. although they remain the same, their share of the international trade is declining. i guess there are some caveats there. we think that israel is probably unde

even in a more sophisticated discussion if we had time there was a work on rule of law and transparency international, the great people in moscow that work at that place. they argue forcefully that wto constrains bad behavior from their government and if you are interested in fighting corruption that is a good thing, not a bad thing. don't get me wrong. it is not a silver bullet. it won't solve everything overnight but our argument is we need to use everything we can to fight corruption, to help open up society and constrain bad nonmarket behavior. we think joining the wto and being inside as the wto member that has most-favored-nation status gives us more leverage to be at the table than on the outside. finally you mentioned magnificent. let me just remind everybody we took very seriously what happened. i personally met with his mother. we met with people who worked with him. met many times with bill browder who he was working for at the time and senator cardin. we met on wednesday. we agree that the gross human rights offenders should not have the opportunity to travel to the united states. we agre

in a more sophisticated discussion as we've had time there was a work on the block and transparency international for instance great people in moscow that work at that place they argue very forcefully that wto constrains bad behavior from their grumet and if you're interested in fighting corruption that is a good thing, not a bad thing. don't get me wrong, it's not a silver bullet, it's not going to solve everything overnight. but our argument is we need to use everything that we can to fight corruption, to help open up society and constrain bad market behavior. we think joining the wto and being inside as a wto member that has most favored nations russia gives us more leverage to the table and to be on the outside. finally you mentioned -- let me just remind everybody we took very seriously what happened. i personally met with his mother. we met with people that work with him and met many times with bill who was working at the time, and met with senator cardin to retrieve years ago and a meeting with senator cardin i think on saturday. we agree those -- the gross human rights offenders should no

we signed on to join the international aid transparency initiative which is the premier entity that sets standards for investment transparency and we announce that in south korea recently. we launched the foreign assistance website that puts all of our expenditures and obligations for every country by sector so there is clarity of where the resources are going. we are testing different strategies to use our website and to use different programs in country to expand transparency and i would highlight the new pakistan country website that lists every program that we support in pakistan. it has a way to go and can get better and we will be relaunching completely this june and i think that will improve. people can click through and see every program we have everywhere. we will be launching a valuation database. all of the valuations are made public within three months and there will be no effort to edit the independently conducted evaluations and they will be part of a public database and we will have 250 of those evaluations. it will be the largest and most significant repository of real ev

risk to the system, and to your credit, i think you put forth some fairly transparent rules, but when we look at the international community right now they're going through a process where they're not being as transparent. and a lot of the entities that are domestic companies looking at complying or determining where they stand with you the international community is not as long. is that process out of whack, and do we need to make sure that -- you know, you've heard me talk about harmonization. >> we are really ahead of europe in designing the bafg framework for oversight transparency or derivatives market. the fact that they're behind us creates a problem. we want to be converged to the basically similar standards. and that's one of the reasons why they've been a lut bit slower than the deadlines established by congress. and that context, like in my others where they're a little behind because they want the make sure to maximize the chance for alignment. but very important question. we're concerned about it, too, and we want to make sure that we bring them along, so we don't put u.s. markets at a disadvantage a

international frame work by 2014. we've already had teams of people in china to start working on this in a specific way in terms of exchange of information, more transparency, what could be that international framework? but in the meantime, we've made a decision at xm bank, working with the administration, we have a transaction in pakistan where we got information on the chinese financing offer. we looked at the offer. we were able to offset it and we're matching the offer. still at no cost to the taxpayer. still without a subsidy. we were able to reduce the fee we charged, the points essentially, like points on a mortgage. extend the term as the chinese had done so that we were able t. pakistan is still deliberating emd li re looking at chinese locomotives but the financing terps are the same. we're not going to sit back and wait for this to happen. in the meantime, we will find every way to offset that if we can. >> let me just pose one last question before we close out and go for i think all of you for well-deserved drinks. if those of you who are interested, i wrote a piece for "the atlantic." you can google my name and the bricks and find this interes

this promises to be the most transparent election in russia's history with russian international observers as well this. morning tory every polling station every detail all the latest information live with me just several minutes. more than a hundred suspected mercenaries caught being war torn homes as fears of foreign interference in syria escalates. and e.u. states sign up to tough budget rules to stop overspending europeans rally against harsh cuts imposed to save the single currency. you're watching artes with the news your view on the latest developments welcome to the program well russians are going to the polls to choose their next president thousands of observers are monitoring the tens of thousands of newly installed web cameras trained on the ballot boxes across the country. polling stations have just opened across moscow. to see how the vote is going alexia who've been casting their ballots so far. well probably most of russia has already started to vote from the far east to the regions and now as we speak polling stations have opened in the russian capital moscow and all the ci

and has all the makings of the most transparent voting in russia's history both international and independent domestic observers as well as cameras and more it's henri every single polling station across the country in just a minute i'll be live with all the latest details from the place the white presidential candidates are fighting for the kremlin states you. and in other news this week more than one hundred suspected mercenaries are caught fleeing war torn homes as fears of foreign interference in syria escalate. and e states sign up to tough budget rules to stop overspending by europeans value against cuts imposed to save the single currency. forecasting live from moscow this is our tease we can use it here but first russians are going to the polls to choose their next president thousands of observers are monitoring the vote and thousands of newly installed web cameras are trained on the ballot boxes across the country. yes polling stations across all of russia's nine times and so open toilets no totalities. lexy yeah how has the turnout been so. well it's a relatively high turnout compar

transparent. there was a record number of international service again a record number of bowl volunteers who had signed up who wanted to work the boat and to report any possible violations there was also a system called altered geo working parallel to be official city system and if your application your tablets were your telephone have the software on it you could also closely monitor what was going on post pictures and they say that would be analyzed and will be an independent report. by these this time around this definitely is the most closely monitored or nationwide. of course these numbers might change here and there throughout the night in the next week but how decisive are the results that we're seeing command now or. will they might change indeed any says. as more than slightly more than a third of the total number of ballots are being analyzed but it doesn't look likely that they'll be a second round we could see that now with a dimmer pushing getting almost sixty four percent of the vote would know that if he gets that magic number figure of fifty percent there will be no second round before

international armed street fairs. the second is to promote transparency in international arms transfers on the third is to conduct research present findings and recommendations to strengthen others to come close efforts to combat trafficking. in today's presentation, and will present some of the highlights of my newly released data, which you can find in the sipri database transfer online and this provides information on orders and deliveries of major conventional weapons between the years 1950 and 2011. we think providing this information is chantel noted is for policy analysis, identifying destabilizing trend but also can be used as an indicator for the strength of interstate relations in certain cases, too. my attention today is to appeal for joe friday and track not just prevent facts although i am more than happy to discuss the details about the drivers behind some trends and go into some of the minor but perhaps concerning transfers b.c. i guess the general headline as chantel recognizes the arms transfers or a data for the period 2007 until 2011 indicates 24% in christ christ 2002 until 22,002 until 2006. an aside

this may become the most transparent election in russia's history with both international and independent observers as well as web cameras long story every single polling station across the country join me beside the red brick walls of the kremlin for all the latest information in just one minute. on another news this week more than one hundred suspected mercenaries are caught fleeing. this is a foreign interference in syria escalates. and sign up to tough budget rules to stop overspending europeans rally against harsh cuts to save the single currency. this is r.t. if you welcome to the program but first a russians are going to the polls to choose the next president thousands of observers. tens of thousands of newly installed cameras trained on the ballot boxes across the country. well putting stations across russia have now opened so let's now talk to our t's and. see how has the turnout been so far. the latest information we have received from russia's sensualist election commission is that twelve percent of the russia's population has already cast their ballots indeed wender stand in s

international usa. a joint meeting of the direction of the transparency of russia in moscow. very compelling story to tell why she's back in russia and didn't stay over in brussels. but thank you all very much for coming today and the usual practice i'm sure you're aware is to have you submit your statements for the record and speak about five minutes and urge you to be just very direct, forthcoming, candid, tell it like it is. mr. allen, you're first. >> thank you, chairman backus. senator kyle, distinguished members of the committee, my name is sam allen, chairman and ceo of john deere and company. thank you for allows to provide -- u.s. business community. granting pntr is crucial for u.s. manufacturers, service providers and agricultural producers to receive the full benefits of russia's wto accession. it is essential to enable us to compete on a level playing field for russian customs. the reasons are clear, first pntr will assure equal treatment for u.s. companies doing business in russia. russia as committed attention on reported agricultural equipment from 15% to 5%.

this may become the most transparent vote in russia's history with both international and independent observers as well as the web cameras monitoring every single polling station across the country join me live from the heart of moscow with all the latest details in just one minute. one hundred suspected court. of pardons of parents in syria escalate. tough budget rules to stop spending. cuts imposed to save the single currency. the very latest developments welcome to the program well russians are going to the polls to choose their next president. monitoring the thousands of newly installed well trained on the ballot boxes across the country. well the polling stations across russia have now opened the most westerly mentioned in grab a final place to start voting let's now talk to r.t.c. let's see let's see how has the turnout been so far. well the turnout so far has been higher than four years ago during the previous presidential election in some regions especially in the far east now that several russian has been voting for several hours or really from the give us talk to go out and

it promises to be the most transparent election in russia's history with international observers and web cameras monitoring every single call the station life details with me in just several moments. but in other news this week more than one hundred suspected mercenaries report fleeing water homes fears of foreign interference in syria escalate. and eve states signed up to tough budget rules to stop overspending europeans rally against harsh cuts imposed to save the single currency. you're watching artie's weekly news if you're on the very latest developments welcome to the program russians are going to the polls to choose their next president thousands of observers a monitoring of thousands of newly installed web cameras trained on the ballot boxes across the country. well all the polling stations across russia have now opened their voting just on the way in the west embrace teachin of kaliningrad let's now talk to our t's alexy . let's see well the whole country is now voting so who have been the most high profile voters so far. indeed from. all polling stations have opened across

transparent sit of u.n. organizations. the administration's report on united states contributions to international organizations shows that $8.58 billion was provided to the u.n. and other international organizations. fiscal year 2010. i was very concerned to learn that while the u.s. is the largest u.n. donor, we have limited access to information to ensure that our funds republican spent wisely and effectively. as a result, provisions are now included in the state foreign operations appropriations bill that would require the secretary of state to withhold funds if the u.n. and its agencies are not making progress on transparency and accountability measures. we expect to see real changes and want to hear how these new requirements will be met. another troubling development is that the subcommittee recently learned about the possibility of a significant cost overrun for the u.n. headquarters renovation project. as you know, language was carried in the last two the appropriations bills to limit the costs of the project and minimize the burden on the united states. we continue to expect you and the state department to work

international arms transfers. the second is to promote transparency and international arms transfers and the third is to conduct researchnd prevent findings and have recommendations to strengthen recommendations for arms transfers. in today's presentation i'll just present some of the highlights from my newly released data which you can find in the sipri arms transfer database online and this provides information on orders and deliveries of major conventional weapons between the years 1950 and 2011. we think providing this information as chantel noted is forming policy analysis, identifying destabilizing trends but also can be used as an indicator for the strength of interstate relations in certain cases too. my intention is to appeal to fans of joe friday and dragnet and just present the facts although i'm more than happy to discuss more details behind the drivers in some of these trends and going to the minor but perhaps concerning transfers that we see. and i guess the general headliner as chantel indicated we see an international upward trend in international arms transfers so our data for the period 2007 to 2011 in

russian authorities their recent election was the most transparent in the country's history to support this claim there were a record number of international action observers and some two hundred thousand web cameras installed air polling stations but that is to say found out the costly initiative serving are just to ensure transparency but also to produce some moments of hilarity. allegations of widespread voter fraud in last december's parliamentary elections set off a wave of ness of protests mr putin sensitive to the incited opposition he ordered the installation of with cameras and all of russia's pulling stations it has been a very ambitious and costly project for the russian government not everybody was convinced by the use of the web cameras to ensure transparency the cameras however did prove to be quite handy in some provinces such as date is done in one station the results were cancelled after the cameras showed by legions of election procedures. the web cameras reproduced a fascinating slice of russian provincial life which went viral and got hundreds of clicks on social networking sites such as. some even joke that mr putin ga

transparent election. but really that's in direct contrast what we've heard from some of the international observers the mystical so as to keep those affiliated with the opposition movement slightly less happy say the better stuff it did take place case electoral fraud also how so voting where people assemble on passengers to meet your polling station of votes and multiple amounts of times the central issue commission has refuted this claim ready say mere fact bus loads of fact you workers were taken to individual polling stations to be given the chance to voice independent candidates every candidate has given observers to these elections priss me feel for straw man of the place in the presidential elections he was given about twenty thousand he can amass twenty thousand they reported four thousand lation is taking place and said they would see this in a court of law an independent body also reports three thousand far away she is taking place on the cheek concerns here being the promise of down to who she sees are really exceeded expectations in these results and given all that then are we likely to see protests

thousands of observers along with seven hundred international observers working at the polling stations making sure that this election would become transparent and it is being promised as the most transparent election in the history of mourning in russia whether that will be so certainly we will know soon enough as i said the polling stations are closing in just two hours from now finally alexei most eyes are on the front runner vladimir putin of course but for other candidates in the running against him one of their chances as head of today and what happens if they capture a large percentage of the vote. it is widely believed and a nobody has any illusions about the fact that lenin put in will win this election definitely he's the front runner despite having his support diminished by almost two fold as. something suggest that anyway he is the front runner if you will when it's the question is how he will win it in order to get a straight victory he must get fifty percent of the votes plus one vote and that will give him a straight victory in the first round if he gets less than that then he will have a second round runoff to be held on marc

intern director for politics. more information about our panelists is available in case you want to learn their full biographies. sunlight foundation and director on transparency. i've asked each panelist to speak about super pac and what is available in the public record, what is absent and how the information available affects stories that reporters can tell. >> thank you. thank you to the sunlight foundation for having this event. in the movie, the character known as deep throat tells bob woodward to follow the money. even though that was not actually a line from the book, that was something that a screen writer wrote. it became kind of a rallying cry for generations of people who care about transparency and accountability. but i think it's fair to say that it's more difficult now to follow the money than it once might have been and there are number of reasons for that. the truth is, transparency has been eroding for some time now. it's not just because of the citizens united ruling. my own view is that the greatest threat to transparency, if you can be call it a threat, is the increased activism and political engagement of nonprofit groups, as i'm sure you

transparency. good governance is a critical part to our international involvement objectives. also hold that in powering women is one of the most critical tools and toolbox to fight poverty and injustice. the field in planning and d.c. must be a central part of all of these programs. if anyone's assertion that women's empowerment should take a vaccine to any other so-called important priorities. i put on that list my efforts to encourage reform. many women around the world are doing the agricultural work and not getting the benefits of it. of the land reform is a critical part of our objectives. i want to praise dr. shaw, with your release last week of the new usaid policy for gender equality and female empowerment, which makes and tikrit engender and including women and girls central to all u.s. international assistance. this policy, which updates guidelines that were over 30-years-old recognizes the integration of women and girls is the basic effect of international assistance across all sectors like food, security, health, climate change, science and technology, economic gr

violations were detected there as well as certainly almost seven hundred international observers who were also there to check on the transparency of this election but certainly that we passed the selection now there will be no second round as i said and now the main focus is on how life will be off of this election with which in becoming russia's president for the third time and to talk about this i'm joined live in moscow by sygate the political rights are with the congress on daily many thanks for joining us here in moscow and my first question to you we we've been hearing a lot from putin and and everyone in the power that russia will change that it is looking for a major major shifts do you think we'll see the new push in the new russia with his presidency well let me start by saying that election results came as no surprise not only commute but to the mooste analysts here actually turn sides with opinion polls which were made before the elections but at the same time we should not be fascinated with the major of this figure i understand that nearly sixty four percent of support this is really confortable majority but at th

. >> mitchell twiner, international religious liberties soeshs office. a question that goes to credibility transparency, reliability. the moderate groups that you referenced, the question is -- to what degree does their position at opting the variety reflect a true change of heart and mind? do they accept some degree of toleration and diversity and all of those things as the ultimate good or is this simply a tactical grudgingly accepted position that acknowledgement of current reality? >> okay. >> so that, you know, it's a good question. it's frankly an old question. one that has been answered many times before. well -- time will tell, of course. we don't know if these groups are exactly, completely changed their hearts and their minds in that regard, but one thing that we know imperrickly from the historical record is that radical groups can moderate. we have communist groups in europe. many have made historical compromises to be able to fit within the political systems they're in. we've had green parties that started out quite radical and today they're rather, you know -- a stable part of the governm

certainly almost seven hundred international observers from all across the globe also monitoring this election where the as i said this would become the most transparent election we are yet to see but so far there have been no reports of major votes of patients nor irregularities throughout the day of this election. let's talk about some of the candidates and understandably a lot of eyes if not most eyes are on the front runner vladimir putin of course but what about the the other four candidates how are they faring in the vote so far any idea. nobody has any illusions that they will eventually win this presidential race even despite the support has diminished compared to let's say five six years ago but still he is the clear front runner of this race the only big question and the only intrigue remaining here in this in this presidential race is whether there would be a second round runoff that would happen only if we can does not manage to go on a fifty percent plus one vote in today in this first round of voting then the voting will automatically go to the second round and of course everyone is speculating right now who could potentially become the

international arms transfers. the second is to promote transparency in arms transfers.he third is to promote recommendations to control arms transfers. in today's presentation, i will highlight some newly-released data. there is a database online. this combines information on orders between the years 1950 and 2011. we think providing this information is useful for reforming policy analysis, identifying stabilizing trends, but also as an indicator for the strength of enter-state relations since 2002. i -- ntern -- inter-state relations. i want to stick with dragnet and just discussed the fax. -- facts. i guess the general headline as achanta -- as chantal indicated was arms transfers. there's a 24% increase from 2002 until 2006. when we see the slide, we see how it breaks down from major regions. europe, the middle east, the americas, africa. i think i would be happy to discuss this later -- some interesting regional increases, in particular, at east africa, north africa, southeast asia. before going into more detail, i will switch to talking about the situation with reg

protecting core political speech and encouraging transparency without disproportionately burdening one of many. the arm of the unu.n. known as the international telecommunication union new powers over internet governance through a renegotiation of a treaty. the internet has flourished under deregulation not only within our country, but throughout the globe as well. but some countries such as china, russia, india, iran, and saudi arabia among many, many others are working hard to change that and we must stop them. thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to your questions. >> many thank, commission mcdowell. it's nice to have you hear, too. so i want to get into this whole issue if we could of political files. there was -- i'm sure you all read "the washington post" article this morning. i'm curious, chairman, where in your governing stats does it say that the fcc is has responsibility or the authority for campaign finance issues. i'm confused by this. >> sure. congress in 2002 directed required broadcasters to disclose information about campaign ads et cetera that was a codification of fcc rules that had

authorities say their recent election was the most transparent in the country's history to support this claim there were a record number of international action observers against some two hundred two hundred thousand web cameras installed at polling station. well later this hour we'll look at what role the costly technology played in ensuring a fairness of the ballot and also retaining people around the world with the recorded vote becoming instant internet hits. russia and the arab league have agreed a plan to help syria and its yearlong crisis in which thousands of people died the agreement came after months of declaring bickering over how to tackle the turmoil speaking after the meeting with our counterparts in cairo russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov says he agreed plan sends an important message to all sides in the syrian conflict. we've agreed a joint position of five main points first to stop violence wherever it comes from second to create an impartial and independent monitoring system third no external interference fourth and unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid to all syrians and finally the firm support of kofi ann

international arms sales and start to create noise about arms sales. so it gives states a tool in their foreign policy tool box. just again to plug sipri's work and the importance of transparency in arms transfer, it would be a lot easier if states just made this information available and we didn't have to dig quite so much. so presumably there will be a transparency aspect to the arms trade treaty that will hopefully allow this information to be presented in a standardized, consistent and regular manner, which will make all this work easier. and so in conclusion, in my opinion the att needs to be practical and effective and we need to balance the very worthy aspirations and ideal concerning the arms trade with the reality of the goebbels arms trade, which we've heard from this morning. it's not going to help to have a treaty at the end of the day th that legitimatizes systems. or burden the trade so that nobody wants to be part of it. att is not about banning anything. it's about developing for the first time the rules of the game. it's about developing clear international standard for the global trade in arms. so we will see how state do with that task in july. >> thank you

we're going to have to resolve is the issue about transparent sit in reporting because there are still states out there for whom reporting on international transfers is a taboo subject, notwithstanding the fact that you have to register, some of these states have never participated in the register on the imparting side. that's something we have to resolve because there are people who want to have a extremely detailed transparency and reporting requirements and other states, sorry, mandatory ones and other states who don't want to have any kind of reporting that is required under the treaty. and i think that we as i mentioned before we need to be careful of the basic attention

i'm flying this weekend for yet another international meeting on monday and tuesday on these matters. so we've got to get it right with the transparency to protect the public here. and there's been good progress internationally, as well. over here and then we'll go to the front table. >> john bookman with e-trade financial and a member of the adjunct faculty. we heard earlier this morning that in the context of legislation drafting that sometimes mistakes can be made if actions are taken -- >> not in title 7. >> no, no, that's not where i'm going. if actions are taken too quickly, and i would say perhaps the latest example of that would have been possibly the mmf global situation where money was being traded from accounts that contained both mmf global funds and customer moneys. and so do you see to try to prevent something like this from happening again, that you should have a complete segregation of client funds and firm funds? and if not, how do you prevent another mmf global from happening again? >> let me just say i'm not participating in that matter because it's an ongoing investigation that i'm not participating in. but in term

transparent rules. when we look at the international community right now, they are going through a process where they are not being as transparent, and a lot of these entities that are domestic companies that are looking at complying and determining where they stand with you, the international community is not as far along as -- and so is that process out of the plaque, and we need to make sure it that you have heard me talk about romanization between all of these very strolls. where are we in that process? >> particularly in derivatives, we are really a long way ahead of europe in terms of transparency. the fact that they are behind this creates a problem, because we want to be conversed to the basically similar standards. that is one of the reasons why the writers have been slower than the deadlines established by congress. in that context, like many others, they are a little behind because they were make sure that they maximize the chance for alignment as the european regime takes shape. a very important question, we are concerned about it too, and we want to make sure that we bring him along so we do

but the process must be inclusive, four support, transport, the transparent and consensus based. the international community should draw attention to the importance of the process and work to convince a wide array of sudanese political entities of its value. usip have been working to help sudanese civil society organizations. concerning south sudan, it should be noted this out sudanese leader should did an impressive job navigating their country toward independence. but since independence, there has been growing concern about the government of south sudan that a commitment to good governance and tackling corruption and the ability to stabilize a fledgling nation. the united states has an important role to play helping to arrest and reverse those trends before they are fully ingrained. the united states have been a friend of south sudan for years, and it should continue. but it is now time for south sudan to be held to the same basic standards of governance and transparency of any other independent nation. it while recognizing the limited capacity of the government of south sudan, the united states

its own people but by the international community -- the kremlin already had a warning after the duma elections. everything was very clear that there had to be more transparencythat there had to be more justice for the access of different candidates. more freedom of press and equal chances. all this has not been changed up to now to the presidential elections. so the conclusion is between december and march, there was no main changes to the question is whether now, within the next six years, which pitching gained due to these elections, he will really start to reform the country. >> thank you for joining us from moscow. an economic slowdown may be ahead for china. the country's premier wen jiabao has cut the target for this year and says boosting domestic consumption is a top priority. >> his statements came in and stated the nation address to china's parliament. he acknowledged that china's export-driven economy is slowing to into europe's debt crisis and a sluggish economic recovery. >> it is an annual ritual in march. representatives from all over china travel to beijing. they come for two weeks of meetings in the great hall of the people. the protocol is

to increase transparency, we secured a commitment from the heads of all new york-based u.n. funds and programs to disclose publicly online all internal audit reports starting this year. our reform agenda is based on four key pillars. first, economy. a leaner u.n. that does more with less. second, accountability. a cleaner u.n. with robust oversight mechanisms, ethics enforcement, whistle-blower protection, and greater transparency. third, excellence. an insistence on delivering real results and upholding the highest standards. and fourth, integrity. a more credible united nations that lives up to its founding principles and values and does not tolerate individuals or states that bring dishonor to the institution. this brings me to another every day we stand with israel to oppose hostile efforts to challenge israel's legitimacy and security at the united nations. we remain vigilant on the palestinians' unilateral bid for u.n. membership and enhanced status. there is no shortcut to statehood. tough issues can only be resolved through direct negotiations between the parties. and we always fight against anti-israeli resolutionth in the g