ISSUE_NO = 2286 NO_OF_ITEMS = 5 COMMENTATOR = Leslie Mitchell ITEM_NO = 3 Racing drivers compete in the Formula One Race of Champions won by outsider Peter Gewthin in a Chevron-Chevrolet. CARD_FILE = 98952 CARD_TITLE : CONSUL RACE AND RACE OF CHAMPIONS SHOT_LIST : RACE OF CHAMPIONS - SV Formula 1 cars zoom out to front of No 66 Brabham driver Graham Hill: SV Hill putting fireproof scarf on: SV Emerson Fittipaldi talking: SV cars in pits, mechanic tightening wheel nuts up in fore ground: CU Hill sitting in his "Shadow Ford DNI": SV start of race of Champions pan with cars as they up front straight: LS No 6 Hill's car in ditch alongside front straight Hill being helped out by two officials: LS car coming out of bottom: SV fire attendants and officials wtching: SV piece of track with sign opposite "Daily Mail" whilst cars go by: SV pan car No 65 Ronnie Peterson coming out of bottom band and down straight: SV 2 female timekeepers: CU pan 2 cars No 60 leading followed by No 65 coming out of bottom bend and down bottom straight: SV spectators watching: SV John Player Special No 65 in lead coming round bottom straight: LV 2 cars coming round bend and along bottom straight: LV 2 cars coming roung Paddock Hill bend and up Pilgrims Rise: LS 2 cars racing round Paddock Hill bend and up Pilgrims Rise and under Dunlop Bridge: SV winner being flagged in pan with winning car down front straight: SV 2nd car being flagged in, 2rd, 4th, 5th zoom out to 6th coming over line: LV placing board giving 1st No 32 Peter Gethin driving Chevron Chevrolet B 24, 2nd No 57 Denis Hulme driving Yadeley McLaren Ford M 23, 3rd No 56 James Hunt driving Surtees Ford T 58B: 4th No 67: SV Gethin waving arm and receiving cup. [ 77 Seconds] CONSUL RACE - LS massed parked cars and spectators with large sign about cars "Daily Mail Leads" zoom into race track: SV Reg Harris (cycling) signs autographs, looks up and smiles into camera & walks away, Henry Cooper in back ground: SV Cooper and David Hemery standing by cars: SV Colin Cowdrey and Jimmy Greaves standing by cars talking: SV Hemery signing autograph: CU name on overalls Richard Mead zoom out to him talking: SV Harris sitting in car ready to start: SV No 15 Geoff Lewis on car door pan up zoom out to Lewis sitting in car ready to start: SV Clement Freud sitting in car pan down and out to car doors No 8 Freud: SV No 2 Chay Blyth car door pan up and zoom out Blyth putting crash helmet on: LS start of Evening News Consul Race pan with cars from grid to first bend: LS consuls coming round bottom bend: SV ditto out of bottom bend: SV ditto out of bottom end, pan with cars along bottom straight: SV crowds watching: LV 4 consuls racing over grid pan with No 21 last car down front straight: SV No 2 Blyth coming out of bend after bottom straight: SV ditto No 4 Henry Cooper: SV man and woman spectators both wearing fur coats: LS consuls crossing line and being flagged in, winners 1st No 2 Blyth (sailing), 2nd Tom Percival (Power Boating), 3rd Richard Mead (Equestrian), N0 4 Ivan Mauger (Speedway): SV winner Blyth getting out of car being given handshake by Graham Hill. [ 95 Seconds] INDEX : Buildings, Ceremonies & Celebrations, Equestrian Sport, Personalities, Photography, Sport and Games, Towns and Cities, Vehicles MATERIAL : RACE OF CHAMPIONS ONLY COLOUR CUT NEG IN G.R. CAN DATE_SUBD = 00/00/0000

BLACK WALL STREET

Reel 1. Technicians in white boiler suits walk into garage and remove white sheet covering truck. Title superimposed - The British Motor Corporation ltd presents - 'Design For Work'. <br/> <br/>Man climbs into cab of truck and starts the engine. Man seated at work bench makes notes on clipboard. He hands the driver various pieces of equipment and then climbs into the cab himself. C/U lorry wheel as it starts to move away. <br/> <br/>Exterior of garage as man opens sliding door. Sign on door reads "Experimental Keep Out". The lorry drives out - it is dusk and the vehicle has its headlights on. It drives past the exterior of the Austin factory. The company logo is clearly visible on the wall. The security guard on the works' gate checks their paperwork before the lorry drives out of the gate. <br/> <br/>The lorry drives along a country lane. (The voice over tells us that this is a prototype of a new addition to the 'Austin family of vehicles'.) C/U Driver and passenger in the cab. The lorry drives past the MIRA building (Motor Industry Research Association). This is near Nuneaton, Warwickshire. M/S of M.I.R.A. building. <br/> <br/>Two trucks driving round test track. Man in white overalls makes notes on clip board. Shot from inside hut with measuring devices showing trucks going past. Lorry pulls up quickly in breaking test. Two men walk across to measure the tyre marks. C/U man with tape measure. Technicians talk to driver and note his comments. Another lorry draws up alongside and then continues on its way. <br/> <br/>Prototype Austin lorry driving along test track at MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association). C/U technician in lorry cab checking instrument. He holds a stopwatch and a clipboard. Quick C/U foot pressing brake pedal. C/U wheels during breaking. C/U driver and technician looking at instruments in the truck's cab. <br/> <br/>Lorries driven through water splash test. Driver and mate check inside cab for signs that water has leaked in. Lorry driven over cobble test track. Lorry towing two other lorries around concrete testing area. C/U technician in cab making notes. C/U driver's hands as he moves the steering wheel. C/U driver. Shot of two lorries being towed. <br/> <br/>C/U man working at drawing board on complex drawing. Drawing office, lots of men working on drawings. C/U man checking drawing of lorry cab with model of man and rulers. He is checking ergonomics. C/U eyes of man while working on drawing (he wears glasses). <br/> <br/>Tracking shot of scientific laboratory. Lots of glass vases and tubes, coloured liquids and white coated scientists. Scientist adjusts flame on Bunsen burner. Very odd shot of face of scientist seen through glass vase. Scientist mixes chemicals. C/U face as he concentrates. C/U chemicals as liquid changes colour. Scientist looks through microscope. Fabric testing machine. C/U dial (shows the device was made by 'Goodbrand & Co. Ltd of Stalybridge'). The needle on the dial moves. C/U fabric as it stretches and breaks. Low angle shot of machine to test metal. Various dials showing results. <br/> <br/>L/S Bwlch-y-Groes mountain pass in North Wales. Prototype Austin lorry pulling hard up incline. C/U driver at steering wheel. Point of View shot from cab as truck drives up the mountain road. Lorry on road. C/U technician making notes on clipboard and checking his stopwatch. Lorry driving towards camera. C/U driver. C/U hand as he changes gear. Shot from back of lorry as it take corner. Lorry drives off along road. <br/> <br/>C/U mechanical hammer drops on to red hot metal. Men working with metal and drop hammers. Red hot metal placed in forge and drop hammer is used to shape it. C/U face of metal worker illuminated by flames from forge. Metal shaped in cast. Metal removed from heat and hit again. C/U metal in cast. <br/> <br/>Men working at machine tools. Sparks fly as man uses grinding tool on part. C/U man using machine tool which shaves off thin pieces of metal . More sparks as metal is ground on tool. Pan up from metal work lathe to man using it. Molten metal poured into mould. Metal poured from crucible into mould. C/U men wearing safety goggles as they work with the molten metal. Flames rise from metal. <br/> <br/>C/U automated drills drilling a cylinder block. Lights flash as automated work is carried out. Parts move out on automated line. <br/> <br/>Two men lift sheet of metal into press. The press comes down and forces the metal into shape. The men remove the pressed steel and place it on a pile of others. <br/> <br/>High angle shot of production line as worker feed tyre into roller. Row of lorries on assembly line. Engine lowered into chassis. Cab lowered from roof crane. C/U man operating crane. The cab is fitted onto the body. Operator gives thumbs up sign and shouts "Okay". <br/> <br/>Lorry driven off end of production line. Lorry driven to parking area. <br/> <br/>C/U statue of Neptune. Ships in docks. Pan across ship called 'Factor'. Sacks of goods lifted by large crane off ship and placed on back of Austin lorry. (According to the Voice over this is an Austin Five tonner and we are looking at Avonmouth Docks). Low angle shot of front of yellow lorry. Austin forward control prime mover being reversed to join its trailer. C/U as trailer locks on. C/U driver checking in wing mirror. <br/> <br/>Brightly coloured Austin cars being carried into docks on trailer. Other lorry pulls away with load. Prime Mover lorry driving through streets of Bristol. C/U driver checking mirror before driving in to traffic. The lorry drives alongside a green bus. C/U driver. Lorry in traffic. C/U driver. Lorry drives along, cathedral spire in back ground. The lorry drives up a steep road. Point of view shot from inside cab. C/U driver as he changes gear. More shots of this articulated lorry. High angle shot of town and canal basin. Lorry drives through shot. <br/> <br/>National Benzole Mixture tanker in oil refinery. The driver climbs into the cab and drives off. Two tankers drive away from the refinery. Small Austin omni-truck at small petrol station. Driver pays female attendant for petrol. The truck drives off the forecourt. <br/> <br/>Building site. Men working on roofs of bungalows. Man walks with hod towards Austin seven ton hydraulic tipper. C/U two men watching tipper lifting up. C/U hydraulic rams lifting trailer. Sand pouring out of tipper. <br/> <br/>Pan down gravel hopper at quarry site. Three tippers being loaded. C/U man filling tipper from large hopper. Tipper pulls away. Gravel is loaded onto lorry by crane. <br/> <br/>Articulated lorry driving along road. C/U driver. Another lorry pulls in behind the articulated one. They drive along country lane. Lorry along road. C/U driver, he is smoking. Lorry driving at dusk. C/U driver. <br/> <br/>Countryside scene. Sheep in yard at farm. Cows loaded onto cattle truck. Farmer walks around truck and climbs into Austin Gypsy four wheel drive vehicle loaded with milk churns. He drives off. The vehicle drives across a field. The farmer gets out to meet man loading milk churns onto lorry. <br/> <br/>End of Reel. Continued on next reel. <br/> <br/>Note: Reel 1 used to be reels 1 and 2. Colour is faded and some parts of the print are scratched.

Auto mechanics, carpenters and masons in training, supervised by adults. Young men work on car engines, a boy hands a tool to his father, closeups of a man sawing and hammering in a carpentry shop, masons build walls. DOC/WA - 1970's - CLR

manufacturing, working, industry

female car mechanic

Time Out for Trouble

FTG FOR CS ON NORTH CAROLINA RAPE LAW. 17:15:05 TIGHT SHOT OF YARN SPINNING ON MECHANICAL LOOMS IN PLANT IN BELMONT, NORTH CAROLINA. 17:15:15 TIGHT SHOT OF WORKER AT LOOM. 17:15:18 INTV W/ PLANT OWNER HARDING STOWE SAYS THEY ARE PRO-NAFTA (NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT). 17:15:31 HE SAYS THERE WON'T BE A BIG YARN PRODUCING CAPACITY IN MEXICO. 17:15:40 REPORTER SU. 17:15:54 VS OF WORKERS AT SEWING MACHINES IN VILLAGE DESIGNS PLANT. 17:15:57 TWO SHOT OF REPORTER AND VILLAGE DESIGNS FOUNDER TERRY THOMAS IN PLANT. 17:16:08 INTV W/ THOMAS WHO COMMENTS W/ THE PASSAGE OF NAFTA THEY CAN EITHER GO OUT OF BUSINESS OR MOVE THE PLANT TO MEXICO. 17:16:16 VS OF WORKERS. 17:16:25 INTV W/ STOWE WHO SAYS NAFTA IS A POSITIVE FOR US TEXTILE WORKERS BUT IF YOU ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF CUTTING OR SEWING CLOTHES NAFTA COULD BE A NEGATIVE. 17:16:40 SLATE. BLANK. 17:16:51 NEWS 13 ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA SLATE. 17:16:56 WS OF PARTS MANUFACTURING PLANT. VS OF WORKERS. 17:17:03 INTV W/ WORKER WHO COMMENTS THAT NAFTA WILL SHUT THEM DOWN. 17:17:05 VS OF WORKERS. 17:17:12 INTV W/ WORKER WHO SAYS IF US CONTINUES TO GIVE JOBS AWAY WE WON'T HAVE ANY JOBS FOR OURSELVES. 17:17:18 REPORTER SU. 17:17:38 TIGHT SHOT OF EQUIPMENT IN OPERATION. VS OF WORKERS. 17:17:42 INTV W/ PROFESSOR SHANNON WHO COMMENTS THAT THERE ARE SHORT RUN COSTS TO NAFTA. 17:17:55 HE SAYS SOME INDIVIDUAL WORKERS WILL BE HURT THROUGH THE PASSAGE OF NAFTA BUT OVERALL NAFTA WILL BENEFIT THE US. 17:18:09 WS OF FACTORY EQUIPMENT. REPORTER AUDIO. BLANK. 17:18:36 VS OF PEOPLE IN COURTHOUSE CORRIDOR. 17:18:50 TIGHT SHOT OF WOMAN. 17:19:04 HAS OF WOMAN WALKING DOWN STAIRCASE W/ ANOTHER WOMAN. 17:19:17 TIGHT SHOT OF WOMAN WALKING THROUGH METAL DETECTOR IN CORRIDOR W/ COURT OFFICER. 17:19:48 WOMAN ENTERS COURTROOM. 17:19:54 CU OF WOMAN WHO STANDS W/ OTHERS OUTSIDE COURTHOUSE AT IMPROMPTU PRESS CONFERENCE. 17:20:12 TIGHT SHOT OF MAN IN CORRIDOR WHO TALKS W/ OTHERS. BLANK. 17:20:35 ANIMATED WTVD SLATE. 17:20:39 WS OF NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE. 17:20:49 TIGHT SHOTS OF STATE REPRESENTATIVES. 17:20:56 TIGHT SHOT OF FEMALE LEGISLATOR WHO SAYS NORTH CAROLINA RAPE LAW IS ABOUT EQUAL PROTECTION PLACING MARRIED WOMEN ON THE SAME EQUAL FOOTING W/ UNMARRIED WOMAN. 17:21:24 TIGHT SHOT OF STATE LEGISLATOR. BLANK. 17:21:46 ANIMATED WTVD SLATE. 17:21:48 WS OF MEETING OF COMMITTEE OF THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE SENATE. 17:22:02 VS OF SENATE COMMITTE. 17:22:08 TIGHT SHOT OF STATE REPRESENTATIVE BEA HOLT AT PC AS SHE COMMENTS THAT THIS BILL WILL GIVE GREAT REASSURANCE TO WOMEN IN NORTH CAROLINA THAT THEY CAN NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED PROPERTY TO BE STOMPED ON. 17:22:21 VS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS. 17:22:27 HOLT SAYS WOMEN WILL STILL HAVE TO CONVINCE THE AUTHORITIES THAT THERE IS A TRUE CASE OF MARITAL RAPE. BLANK. 17:23:01 WTVD SLATE. 17:23:03 MS OF STATE LEGISLATOR. VS OF LEGISLATORS. REPEAT FTG. 17:23:56 WTVD SLATE.

Portrait of woman repairing a car in auto repair shop

American Look

APTN DIRECT COVERAGE IN BAGHDAD, IRAQ OF BRIGADIER GENERAL MARK KIMMITT & DANIEL SENOR, SENIOR ADVISOR COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY HOLDING A PRESS CONFERENCE SENOR: Good afternoon. We have a slight technical (OFF-MIKE) working, so we should have that fixed within the next couple of days. I just got a brief few words -- brief opening statement, and then General Kimmitt will do a short presentation. And then we are happy to take questions. We are joined by Hamid al-Cafari (ph), who, as many of you know, is the spokesperson for the governing council. And he is here to answer any questions you have with regard to the governing council. Ambassador Bremer today welcomed the news of the governing council's announcement of its new deBaathification policies and procedures. Ambassador Bremer said that this marks the final step in the transfer of deBaathification authority to the governing council and the Iraqi people. Ambassador Bremer signed the first deBaathification decree on May 16th. It was one of the first actions he took after his arrival here. It was the first decree he had signed. And then he signed -- he delegated authority over to the governing council on November 4th. And then yesterday marks the final step with the governing council announcing its new procedures. Ambassador Bremer said that the governing council now has full command of deBaathification. The policy is appropriately tough on senior-level Baathists and strikes a balance between being tough on senior-level Baathists while it also allows for the reintegration of nominal Baathists into society. It reintegrates those nominal Baathists with a sense of dignity and with an effort to ease the poverty and desperation that many nominal Baathists have faced since their dismissal. Ambassador Bremer has said all along that deBaathification should be a policy that is implemented and managed by the Iraqi people. And this signifies another important step in the transition of authority overall to the Iraqi people, which will culminate on June 30th with the hand-over of sovereignty. General Kimmitt? KIMMITT: Thank you. Good afternoon. Over the past week, there has been an average of 17 engagements daily against coalition military forces, just over two attacks against Iraqi security forces and just over one attack daily against Iraqi civilians. The coalition remains offensively oriented to kill or capture anti-coalition elements and enemies of the Iraqi people and to establish a safe and secure environment. To that end, the coalition conducted 1,768 patrols, 24 offensive operations, 32 raids and captured 114 anti-coalition suspects in the past 24 hours. In the northern zone of operations, coalition forces conducted 192 patrols, four cordon-and-searches, and detained 14 individuals in the past 24 hours. On 12 January, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers were attacked just north of the airfield in Mosul. The ICDC guards returned fire and the enemy broke contact. The coalition forces provided an outer cordon of the buildings where the fire originated from, and the civil defense corps conducted a search of those buildings resulting in the capture of four individuals. KIMMITT: Coalition forces also conducted three cordon-and-knock operations in Mosul. They detained six targeted individuals. The first operation, on a hotel in central Mosul, captured a facilitator for Sayf Hasan al-Rawi, number 14 on our list of high-value targets. In a second operation, four brothers suspected of distributing funds for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri to former regime elements was captured. In a third operation, a targeted enemy who was a suspected leader of a former regime element leader, the Missing Shadow group, was captured. The Iraqi telephone and postal company completed a 48-kilometer cable project from Mosul to Dohuk with donated fiber-optic cable from BellSouth. This is the first wide-area, high-speed inter-city public access connection in the north. This communications path will provide increased capacity for the telephone system, and will eventually be used for a high-speed data network to connect banks, airports, hospitals, universities and government agencies. A second like project is planned for Irbil, and should be completed within the next few months. The United States Agency for International Development has allocated $500,000 to medical and health-related projects in Al Sulaymaniyah. In the north central zone of operations, coalition forces conducted 155 patrols, five raids, and captured 43 individuals. Coalition forces conducted a raid near Baquba targeting Lefa Khalid Al Ogali (ph) and Ibrahim Khalid Al Ogali (ph) and others, all involved in attacks on coalition forces. Captured in the raid were five individuals, including four targets. The fifth detainee, a female, was searched by a female soldier and hidden on her person were four hand grenades. An informant led coalition forces to a group of approximately 40 Iraqis with AK-47s and 10 to 15 vehicles attempting to steal fuel from a pipeline south of Samarra. Forces attempted to apprehend the Iraqis, but the Iraqis opened fire on them. The units returned fire, killing seven personnel and destroying three fuel tankers. Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and coalition soldiers captured two individuals suspected of attacking an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps patrol in Samarra. KIMMITT: One Civil Defense Corps soldier was wounded and was brought to the battalion aid station for treatment of a gunshot wound. In Baghdad, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces conducted four offensive operations. Forces conducted 473 patrols, resulting in the capture of 33 enemy personnel. Coalition forces continue to work with Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers and conducted a cordon-and-search in the area, which included 500 vehicles and 250 houses, to disrupt enemy activities and safe- haven operations. The operation captured 23 personnel and included five companies of Iraqi Civil Defense Corps who also executed the post-operation management. Coalition forces prepared Commander Emergency Response Program project proposals in Baghdad and developed an automated projected tracking system for the $32 million proposals working in the city. Over $9.3 million in coalition projects have been submitted to the Japanese for possible funding under the Japanese grassroots grant program. Over $4.1 million in projects for Baghdad have been submitted to the Coalition Provisional Authority Program Review Board for possible new funding. The Iraqi Ministry of Health will fund construction of approximately 270 clinics throughout Iraq, with an estimated 15 to 20 percent of those to be constructed in Baghdad, using part of a $100 million primary care allocation fund. In the western zone of operations, coalition forces and Iraqi security forces conducted 195 patrols, captured 18 individuals and denied entry to 105 persons at the border, but turned away nobody whose (inaudible) documentation only at al-Tribil. Coalition forces continued training 329 border police and 240 police recruits throughout the western region, and began in-processing a class of 520 Iraqi Civil Defense Corps recruits from Fallujah at the Navea training center northwest of Hit. KIMMITT: Two hundred and seventy-six Iraqi Civil Defense Corps graduates are also undergoing advanced training. Civil affairs personnel in the Al-Anbar province met with local sheiks at al-Tasim (ph) to initiate payment for three CERP-funded projects. A total of nearly $25,000 was approved to conduct repairs on two primary schools and the local health clinic. Omar (ph) and Faraj Sultan Fukia (ph), from the Abu Shaban (ph) tribe, provided $50,000 to repair four local schools. In the central south zone of operations, coalition forces detained and deported 151 illegal persons to Iran for illegal border crossing. CIMC teams funded with CERP dollars presented special medical equipment valued at $10,200 to a pediatric hospital in Karbala and provided medicine for a hospital at al-Hay (ph) as well as furniture for schools in Al-Numaniyah (ph). Coalition forces supported the criminal investigation team exploitation of a possible mass grave site near Karbala city. And the mission concluded today. In the southeastern zone of operations, coalition forces conducted a cordon-and-search north of Al Qurnah. Six males were detained, including one targeted former regime element, who is believe to be the former leader of the Baath Party in Al Qurnah, responsible for the provision of intelligence. SENOR: All right. We will be happy to take your questions. QUESTION: Sir, now that the Shiite religious leadership has made it abundantly clear that they do object to key parts of the November 15th agreement, is that enough for you to amend the agreement, or will you continue with your efforts through third parties to persuade the Shiite religious leadership to come to your view of how that transitional council should be elected or selected? SENOR: Iraq is now on a new path. There are two models. One model for governance of Iraq is a strong, centralized dictatorial path. The other path is a free, democratic path that allows and celebrates the diversity of opinions that exist in Iraq. And that is what is thriving from north to south today in Iraq. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, individuals and political leaders and religious leaders have the first time to speak freely and articulate an agenda and articulate their own vision for the way Iraq should look. We view this as a healthy sign that there is this diversity of opinion, and that that diversity of opinion is freely expressed and protected. As for individual political leaders, we -- Ambassador Bremer has tremendous respect for Ayatollah Sistani. Ambassador Bremer has said repeatedly that Ayatollah Sistani has a strong following in this country and he represents eight traditions and, as I said, has tremendous respect for him. But the November 15th political agreement, which was signed and published and agreed upon by Ambassador Bremer and the governing council is now being implemented. We are working very closely with the governing council on the next steps to move toward a basic law, to move toward a status of forces agreement, to move toward the establishment of a transitional government for the summer. SENOR: And so, while individual political and religious leaders may take issue with various parts of the political agreement, we view that as a healthy sign and as something for the governing council to engage with those leaders about. But we are working closely on implementation. I don't know if, Hamid (ph), if you have anything to add. AL-CAFARI (ph): Well, I just want to add one thing, which is very important. It is difficult for us to trust the information records left to us by the regime of Saddam Hussein. There are at least 5 million people absent from these records. That's why it is important to, you know, postpone elections -- proper elections until we have a proper census and everyone is on record. And Ayatollah Sistani and the governing council and everyone else agrees, you know, that we need to have proper census. We need to have an electoral law. We need to have the infrastructure for elections ready before we can, you know, carry out any proper elections; elections that will be safe and sound and trusted by the people of Iraq and internationally. QUESTION: Yes, but following up on that, how troubling is it that this freedom of speech that the Iraqis are now getting, that Sistani is using that freedom of speech to use references to violence, when he's talking about what his goals are? It's not explicit, but he's basically saying, "If you don't go the way I want to go, there's going to be more violence in this country." I mean, how troubling is that to you that violence and his political goals are being uttered in the same sentences? SENOR: What I hear from Ayatollah Sistani and the full range of religious and political leaders that are speaking out is a vision for Iraq, a democratic vision for Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani has been very clear that he wants democratic direct elections. That is a clear vision for Iraq, based on democratic principles. We may have discussions, the governing council may have discussions with various leaders about how best to get there, what procedures are in place or what need to be put in place in order to get there. But the political leaders and the religious leaders we're hearing from share the basic principles with us about the need for a democratic, free Iraq. QUESTION: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC) KIMMITT: If I did not make myself clear in the statement, what I said was that the operation conducted in Mosul captured a facilitator for Sayf Hasan al-Rawi, number 14. I did not say that we had captured number 14, only a facilitator in Mosul. QUESTION: There were reports of demonstrators in Kut over something about unemployment, people looking for jobs, I guess similar to what happened in Amara. Do you know anything about that? And do you guys have any kind of plan to address what happened in Amara, you know, why people are so upset about not having jobs; any kind of program or other action? SENOR: We are moving forward every day with the reconstruction, which includes deployment of billions of dollars in this country for economic renewal, for rebuilding the infrastructure, the economic infrastructure of this country that was devastated, that was chronically underinvested in for 35 years by Saddam Hussein and his kleptocracy. Now, whether it's the oil infrastructure, the electricity infrastructure or the security infrastructure, it was all in terrible condition, which makes the economic conditions even worse and only compounded by the fact that this was a totalitarian-run economy. That said, over the last six months -- approximate six months, we have completed 17,000 reconstruction projects. If you average it out seven days a week over six months, it approximates to 100 reconstruction projects per day. SENOR: And that is, project by project, community by community, rebuilding the economy, putting Iraqis to work. So when you add to that, the billions of dollars -- the $8-plus billion package that the U.S. Congress has appropriated to Iraq and you consider the economic impact that will make, both in the short term and the long term -- when we are looking at contractors and subcontractors it is very important to us that contractors agree or at least places a priority, the subcontracting to Iraqi firms -- small- and medium-size businesses, putting Iraqis to work. Take the Bechtel contract, the past contract, and they put over 40,000 Iraqis to work. We want to see more of that. It is very important to us, not only to put Iraqis to work, but to do capacity building within various industries, like construction, for instance, so that there is an economy in place here after we're gone and it is not only a public-sector economy, but it is also a private-sector economy, which, over the long run, will address Iraq's economic needs. QUESTION: But is there anything specific for Amara, since people there obviously are really upset? And do you know what happened in Kut today, if anything? SENOR: I'd need more information with any specifics on Kut. But Amara is part of our overall economic reconstruction plan for Iraq, which is going to take time. You cannot improve, you cannot fix an economy that was devastated for over three decades in just a few months. It's going to take time, but we are deploying billions of dollars -- an amount almost twice the size of Iraq's GDP, which will improve the economic situation in Amara and throughout the country. QUESTION: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC) SENOR: We believe it is a priority to stand up the Iraqi security forces. When we arrived in Iraq after the war -- when the reconstruction team arrived in Iraq after the war, there were zero Iraqi police on the streets. Today there are over 60,000. That has helped to contribute to the decrease in crime, for instance, in Baghdad and the decrease in violent crime in Basra. We have graduated two battalions of the new Iraqi army. The third battalion in the new Iraqi army is scheduled to graduate on January 24th. The fourth one is already recruited. We're on track to graduate 27 battalions by September. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, as General Kimmitt has spoken to in the past, is already at work, involved in missions, sometimes leading operations or working side by side with coalition forces in operations. The border guard is deployed. The facility protection service is deployed. The diplomatic service protection corps is being trained and deployed. The correction services security is being trained and deployed. SENOR: It is very important that Iraq's security is protected by Iraqis, not just the coalition. And we are pleased to say that today there are more Iraqis in positions securing their own country than there are Americans on the ground securing Iraq. It's a priority. It affects everything we do. It affects our ability to get to the economic renewal. It affects our ability to work with the governing council in returning a sense of normalcy. Security is critical. KIMMITT: And if I could add, that is just not the coalition speaking, but it's the Iraqi people speaking. Every poll that we've taken time after time, as recently as the poll that came out last week, indicates that the Iraqi people trust the Iraqi police service above any other security institution. One number that just struck me was that if asked the question, 86 percent of the people that were polled said they would like to see more Iraqi police service, Iraqi policemen in their neighborhoods providing security. So we think that's money well spent and a great investment for the Iraqi people. QUESTION: I'm wondering if you can address some of the criticisms from army officers about the process for standing up the new Iraqi army, specifically the application process distinguishes or asks you to identify whether you are Sunni, Shia, Christian, Kurd, and people have said to us that might lead to soldiers protecting their own rather than defending the entire state. And they've also complained that the Americans aren't turning to the right people to help choose the new Iraqi army. SENOR: My understanding is that the new Iraqi army has recruits in every single battalion that represent Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, so it is a very diverse security force, as are all the security forces. And with regard to whether or not we're choosing the right people, over 150,000 Iraqis have been recruited. They have stepped forward. In many cases, particularly with the ICDC, for instance, we have sometimes five times as many individuals seeking employment with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps than there are positions available. So it seems to us that working and serving with the Iraqi security forces, whichever security force we're dealing with, is very popular. It's something Iraqis want to take a serious role in. And given the fact that they are beginning to play a critical role, not only as supporting us, providing us intelligence and serving as an interlocutor in dealing with the local culture and the language and having a sense for the rhythm of life in Iraq, but they're also on the front lines leading their own operations and doing a very effective job. So I would say that we are very pleased, and the Iraqis seem to be very pleased -- if you just look at some of the polls that General Kimmitt cited and some of the comments made by Hamid (ph), the Iraqis seem to be pretty enthusiastic about the security forces. But there is still a lot of work to do. We've got to get close to 220,000, so we are forging ahead with that. QUESTION: Referring back to an earlier question, no one on the day seemed willing to either agree with Sistani's remarks that if early elections are not held there will be violence or to disagree. QUESTION: Now, does everyone agree that there will be violence or you don't want to say that you don't agree there will be violence? SENOR: I guess what I would say is that I don't respond to hypotheticals. I can tell you that Ayatollah Sistani has spoken out with his vision. Many Iraqi political leaders and religious leaders have spoken out with their visions. We respect and think it's a healthy process when all these individuals are able to have a health debate and discussion in this country. It's something we want to protect. And we look forward to implementing the political agreement we worked on with the governing council. QUESTION: Have a couple questions for General Kimmitt. On the Dutch discovery of those shells with the suspected blister agent, I'm wondering if there's any test results back that confirms those were, indeed, blister agent? KIMMITT: We have got the Iraqi Survey group moving into that location today to do the final testing. The rounds that we did find exhibit some characteristics that we would expect from blister agents. The age of those would indicate that those were probably 10 to 20 years old; indicated to us that that probably was when the Iran-Iraq War, particularly in the location that they were found so near the border. So I think we'll probably have some results in the next couple of days confirming it. QUESTION: I heard also that there was some search under way for some clues or a site that was somehow related to that downed pilot, Scott Speicher. I was wondering if you could elucidate on that. KIMMITT: No, I can't. I'd refer to the DOD for that. We're not involved in that, that I'm aware of. QUESTION: By my count, there's more than 50 soldiers have been killed from surface-to-air missiles in about two months' time. And we had the incident with the C-5. Two questions: Have there been any other such in-flight emergencies from Baghdad International Airport that maybe you didn't tell us about? And what is the impact of this type of activity on the overall plan to transfer troops? KIMMITT: Well, first of all, I'm not aware of any in-flight emergencies that have been declared by Baghdad International Airport that we haven't been forthcoming with. So I would have to go through the record to find out what you knew and what you do know. QUESTION: Well, we have the DHL and the C-5 and that's all I have. Do you have any more? KIMMITT: Let's you and I talk about it afterwards. We can go through the records. The second question? QUESTION: The impact of this sort of thing on the overall transfer of power of the troops going in and troops going out. KIMMITT: We have numerous airfields that we use throughout the region and we do an appropriate risk management and force protection analysis of each one of those airfields on a daily basis. Were we to lose one or two airfields because of heightened force protection, which we do not have right now, we don't think that would impact on our overall plan. We always have some contingencies for that. QUESTION: The news agency Reuters has launched a formal complaint with the Pentagon and the U.S. military authorities here about the arrest and treatment in custody of three staff journalists arrested on January the 2nd in Fallujah. QUESTION: Given their complaint, I just wondered whether you would now accept that that arrest was a mistake, and whether you had any comments on the allegations that they were mistreated by your soldiers. KIMMITT: No, I don't think we would accept any of those allegations because the investigation is not yet complete. We're going to run a full and thorough investigation, with the information provided not only by our troops on the ground but by the Reuters journalists as well. So it would be premature to make any conclusions or take any action until that investigation is complete. QUESTION: You confirm you've received the complaint? KIMMITT: I can confirm that. And I can also confirm that we have an ongoing investigation as well. QUESTION: Every time the subject of direct elections has come up for quite some time now myself, I think seven months ago in this same room heard the response that there needs to be a census before that's able to be done. Could you talk about how much time there needs to be to set up an apparatus to do a census and, sort of, the mechanisms behind that, what sort of plans in the near distant future there are for doing that? SENOR: We have not specifically said a census is needed. What we have said is that there is no electoral infrastructure in this country to institute direct elections immediately. There are no voter rolls. There are no electoral districts. There is no history of direct elections in this country. We've heard various estimates from various experts about how long this sort of process takes. The timeframe we often hear is approximately 14, 15 months, but again, those range, sometimes higher, sometimes a little lower. But it tends to be at least a year is what we've heard from a number of experts that we've consulted. QUESTION: I suppose what I'm asking is how far along the road of setting up that sort of thing are we? I mean, what to date has been done to facilitate that? SENOR: The first direct elections on the November 15th agreement are allowed for electing drafters to the constitutional convention, which is, you know, within the first quarter -- approximately within the first quarter of next year -- end of the first quarter next year. And so, the governing council -- and Hamid (ph) can speak to this -- has set up a committee to look at what needs to be put in place in order to get the process moving forward. But our immediate focus right now is on the drafting of the basic law and getting that process going forward, because the deadline on the November 15th agreement for the drafting and passage of the basic law is February 28th. SENOR: And in that basic law it lays out the specifics for the timeline of the political process going forward, including the mechanics for the lead-up to the June election -- the caucuses leading up to the June election of a transitional government, a sort of parliament, if you will, followed by that body's election of an executive branch which would take over sovereignty beginning of July. Do you want to? AL-CAFARI (ph): Just to say that it is not easy to just conduct a proper census just like that with the country functioning as it is at the moment. We need to improve armed services, we need to improve a lot of other functions in the country before we can really, you know, do this that you have asked about, which is have a proper infrastructure for electoral process. So at the moment... (AUDIO GAP) QUESTION: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC) KIMMITT: Yes, I did mention during the briefing that we had, in fact, turned back 151 persons at the Iranian border for not having the proper documentation. KIMMITT: The Iraqi border, like any other border in the world, requires proper documentation -- passports, visas -- to come across. Those people were not in possession of the proper credentials and so forces sent them back from whence they came. SENOR: We have said all along that Saddam Hussein would be treated according to the Geneva Convention. And according to the Geneva Convention, Saddam Hussein is an enemy prisoner of war until determined otherwise. So Saddam Hussein's final disposition is neither affected nor determined by this designation under the Geneva Convention. Ultimately, the Iraqi people are going to have to make these sorts of determinations as they lead the pursuit of justice against Saddam Hussein. QUESTION: As of today, have any prisoners been released under the guarantor program that you took great pains to announce last week? SENOR: The process is well under way. Ambassador Bremer made clear during his announcement, as did Dr. Pachachi, that 100 prisoners would be -- we were prepared to release 100 prisoners immediately, conditional upon, of course, the stepping forward of the guarantors, which are community leaders, tribal sheiks, imams, university presidents, various individuals from their respective communities. And that the overall program in the near future schedules to release a total of 500 prisoners, and we are in the process of implementing the program. As I've mentioned before from this podium, I will not provide a day-to-day update on numbers released. There's a number of issues involved here, not the least of which is the privacy and the security of both the individuals being released and the leaders of the communities that are serving as guarantors. But we will let you know once we are near complete implementation of the program. QUESTION: Just a follow up on that, Bremer said on Thursday, specifically that day, 100 would be released. So did that happen or not? SENOR: What Ambassador Bremer said was 100 would be released and we were relying on the guarantors to step forward. General Kimmitt later that day, in the same afternoon, said that these releases were conditional upon the guarantors stepping forward. We're working with the guarantors now. We have 100 individuals ready to be released. We had 100 ready to be released on the day the ambassador announced it, and now we are in the process -- immediately following the ambassador's announcement, we began the process of implementing the program. QUESTION: As far as walking out the door though, none have done that? SENOR: I said that day and I've said since then that, for the interest of privacy and security of both the individuals and then also the community leaders, we will not provide information on the names of the people being released, where they'll be released from, what time they'll be released, how many are going to be released each day. I mean, there's a lot of sensitive issues involved here, as I'm sure you can understand, and so we will let you know certainly when the program is complete or near complete. But during the implementation phase, we just want to let it play out. QUESTION: (SPEAKING IN ARABIC) KIMMITT: Yes. Regarding the issue with Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, what I said was that we captured four people who we believed were being financed by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri for the purposes of providing money to groups that would carry out attacks against Iraqi people and coalition forces. QUESTION: Just wanted to ask, specifically with regard to the proposal that was given to the governing council a month ago to use the U.N. oil-for-food database, which is also, kind of, used in Kurdistan as well, in the Kurdish north, to set up elections within months, has that plan been rejected outright at this point by the governing council and the coalition? AL-CAFARI (ph): The governing council is studying all the possibilities. And now the state administration law is being drafted by a committee of the governing council, and we are studying all the possibilities. But it looks that it will be difficult to hold, you know, proper elections, you know, with the current information that we have. AL-CAFARI (ph): We have to gather more information about electorates and we have to establish -- we have to have an electoral law before we can have proper, sound elections. QUESTION: So this proposal is not being rejected out right. It's still under discussion at this point? AL-CAFARI (ph): Which proposal? QUESTION: The proposal to use the U.N. oil-for-food databases, which fed -- which have the names and details of every single Iraqi to do elections within months instead of a year or two. AL-CAFARI (ph): Well, all the proposals -- all the possibilities are being considered. But even the U.N. information, even the U.N. cannot claim that it is accurate. So we cannot really rely on any old information. We have got to have a new -- we have to carry new census and we have to gather more information about the electorate in Iraq, about the people who have come from abroad who were refugees in Saudi Arabia and Iran, other countries, neighboring countries in Europe. All these are Iraqis and they need to participate in the electoral and democratic process. SENOR: Thanks, everybody. END NOTES: [????] - Indicates Speaker Unknown [--] - Indicates could not make out what was being said.[off mike] - Indicates could not make out what was being said.

MARTHA RADDATZ ABOARD THE USS KEARSARGE ( LHD3 / LHD-3 ) OFF THE COAST OF ITALY AS THEY SUPPORT OPERATION ODYSSEY DAWN AGAINST LIBYA. 13:34:29 USS Mt. Whitney at pier / USS MOUNT WHITNEY FROM CATANIA, ITALY 13:34:37 ts mast of Mt. Whitney 13:35:02 Marines on board 13:35:12 sailors on board 13:35:43 commander? Mt. Whitney 13:36:02 female sailors lined up 13:37:36 sailors waiting around 13:38:17 sailors lined up on sides of red carpet 13:38:43 General Ham, MR. commander of Mt Whitney 13:38:56 NATS whistle, Ham arrives on board 13:39:09 NATS whistle, MR on board 13:39:46 helo / helicopter lands on tarmac 13:39:52 MV-22 Ospreys starting up, propellers turning 13:40:57 Blackhawk taxing 13:42:09 vs Gen Ham standing around 13:42:26 MR and Ham walking *** 13:42:54 ss Ham walking 13:43:19 MR putting on survival kits 13:44:59 MR walks on board MV22 Osprey / MV-22 13:45:24 MR and Ham in helmets, sitting next to each other in Osprey 13:46:31 Ham talking on comms system 13:47:28 ws group seated in MV-22 13:47:59 looking out back, flying over fields 13:48:50 MR and Ham seated, looking out back 13:49:01 Ham looking down 13:49:10 crew members sitting on floor 13:49:33 crew members in seats 13:50:24 other Osprey through shot 13:50:40 looking out back, ocean, bright light 13:50:50 better light 13:51:32 over water, shaky 13:51:55 sun reflected over water 13:52:18 landing on USS Kearsarge / NOW ABOARD USS KEARSARGE 13:53:05 moving bombs in front of helo, shaky 13:53:09 Ham arrives on board USS Kearsarge, shaking hands 13:54:09 group photo taken 13:54:38 Ham talking to officer, has cap in hand PILOTS Captain Joe Andrejack ( USMC ) / UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 13:55:27 TWO SHOT MJR: Tell me about that night. You knew you were going in to get a downed pilot right? (04) JA: Yes maam. That's about all the information we had. (06) We didn't know exactly what the situation was on the ground. (09) 13:55:55 TWO SHOT MJR: So you always look at it as possible hostile territory even thought that was a rebel-held area. JA: Yes maam. (05) 13:56:32 MJR: So you were on night vision? JA: Yes. 13:56:44 JA: We saw his flare on the ground. And we got eyes on his position. And a airplane way up overhead at about 25,000 feet was able to shine a laser down (15) in the vicinity of the downed pilot (17) and that just confirmed where we thought he was. (19) And we landed pretty much right on top of him. (21) 13:57:21 TWO SHOT MJR: How did he describe the situation? He was understandably a little frazzled. (06) And that was coming through in his communications over the radio. (10) CAPTAIN Erik Kolle, copilot ( USMC ) 14:00:52 EK: When we landed // and I turned and looked at Angry and // I was like you know that was probably the coolest thing I've done since I've been in the Marines. (05) 14:01:02 EK: We felt very good you know. We did something that was. (03) You know getting a guy out like that and having everything go off the way it's supposed to is very satisfying. (08) And it was very personally satisfying to see this guy - you know he's gonna get to go home. (13) 14:01:59 EK: Honestly the recon guys ran out and I was expecting to be there for a little bit and the crew chief about five seconds later said, "Hey, he's on board. Let's go." (09) 14:02:32 EK: We had our jets up there as well (ROUGH CAMERA PUSH) that were talking to him and I think they were just kind of telling him what they were seeing around him. (05) Because like Angry mentioned he didn't have goggles. Whereas the jets had a good picture what was going on down there. (11) So they were communicating with him. There was a few times I think his wing man was saying hey drink some water, take it easy. You know just trying to keep him a little bit - you know very mellow. (22) 14:03:06 MJR: So was he hiding in grass? (OFF CAM) EK: I think he was hiding like near a little bush. And there was - there was kind of rolling terrain there. (06) And there was little desert shrub-type bushes. I think he was hiding in that. And then (11) As soon as we set up for our approach to land he just started bolting to the airplane. I think he said that he was in our dust cloud by the time we landed. (21) 14:03:38 TWO SHOT EK: He had his sidearm away. Because he knew we had a lot of very -- MJR: You mean he had it out? Ready to shoot? EK: No he had it put away. (07) MJR: Put away, OK. Oh. And he was running at the airplane like this (09) (EK HAS HANDS UP IN SURRENDER) because you know the Marines in the back they're gonna treat everybody as an unknown until they identify that he's a friendly (16) so he didn't want any confusion that he was intending the airplane any harm or anything like that. (21) So he pretty much did everything right. Presented a very non-threatening image. 14:04:16 TWO SHOT MJR: Boy how'd that feel when you were taking off? EK: Oh it was awesome. (03) 14:04:32 TWO SHOT EK: It was awesome when they said "hey we got him," and I was like yes. You know he's not hurt. We got him on board. (04) And a few minutes from now we'll be out over the water and everything will be good. (08) Overall 45 minutes. Maybe 150-160 miles. 14:06:43 MR and pilots standing around talking 14:07:00 ws 14:07:13 low shot 14:07:27 MR walking in hallway of ship 14:08:08 following MR down ramp 14:08:31 Marines lined up in hangar of ship, vs 14:09:44 Raddatz SU - this crew has actually been underway for 210 days, only 4 days in port 14:10:58 reversal - Gen Ham speaking to crew 14:11:21 ss Gen Ham speaking 14:12:06 "tell anyone engaged in this operation, thanks from the President.whatever order he gives us will be accomplished precisely and with skill." 14:12:36 "recovery of downed jet crew or control of the air space..i used a very technical term as I was talking to the president, and he said 'how are the attacks going in Asidmihyah? And i said, mr President, the Marines are hammering the shit out of them.(laughter) he understood what that meant.all of us involved in this operation.we could not be more proud of what you're doing every day.there are missions out there that we can't see it.thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you are doing for our country, makes all of us very very proud" 14:14:24 Ham pinning awards on sailors Intv Gunnery SGT MABE / SERGEANT MABE 14:16:20 16 years, 2nd deployment since 2001 Intv Petty Officer Kelly Wiley 14:17:09 I was part of the intel support team, 14:17:21 first deployment 14:17:29 on board 2 and a half years.trying not to count anymore 14:17:51 from southern Maryland, calvert county 14:18:01 Lt Joshua Lyon, Danville, VA 14:18:15 2nd deployment, 1st to Afghan, last summer 14:18:28 24 years old 14:18:32 we just got here a little bit ago, it's been a whole new experience aboard ship 14:18:44 it's been great, we've worked a lot with sailors on board ship 14:19:16 Ham in survival gear, talking to others 14:19:45 following Ham out to MV-22 Osprey 14:20:34 MR and Ham in Osprey talking 14:21:52 USS Kearsarge aerial 14:22:18 MR riding in Osprey Interview with General Carter Ham 14:23:15 Q I want to ask you first about giving command to an intl body or NATO, where do we stand? HAM: as far I know there has not been a decision. But we're planning to hand over to NATO, the question is do we hand over the entirety of the mission, which is arms embargo, no fly zone and protect civilians, or some subset of that - obviously the preference is to hand off the entirety of the mission, so that's the discussion that's ongoing now - .what we are doing preparatory to that, is some of the mechanical work, establishing the NATO command and control system, communication system that is common throughout NATO, those kinds of things, starting to bring in officers from various NATO HQ so they become familiar with what we do so that when the decision is made, we are able affect this transition more easily. 14:24:18 Q it doesn't' sound like something that's just going to take a few days? 14:24:25 there are 2 pieces of it. The overall command piece can be done relatively quickly and I'm confident about that, but there are some frankly mechanical pieces and procedural pieces, particularly with regard to the air operations which are very, very complex, and we want to make sure that obviously we operate, we make that transition so that our airmen can operate safely, but we also want to ensure there is no loss of momentum in the air operations as well, while we affect the transition. 14:24:59 Q today, how kinetic? 14:25:06 there has been a shift - there are not as many fixed targets - we were targeting fixed sites, we are doing less of that, more dynamic targeting, regime ground forces that are engaging civilians in cities across the country 14:25:41 Q what do y ou see after you are no longer in command - how much involvement of US military 14:25:57 phrase we use is US will contribute its unique capabilities to second phase of operation - intel support we weill continue to provide, communications, tankers for aircraft, we wouldn'4t see a large number of fighter aircraft- the kind of mission would handover to others 14:26:47 Q first violation of nfz? 14:26:55 same report we saw a Libyan fighter jet taking off, it was detected by a French aircraft - in accordance with UNSCR, and withstanding rules of engagement appropriately, it attacked the aircraft 14:27:21 Q: in zirata, tanks and snipers 14:27:36 most difficult mission is when we have regime forces in cities - we remain conscouls and careful about civilian casualties = diff to distinguish btw opposition forces and regime forces, very difficult to discern who is attack who.toughest thing to do, it's very hard 14:28:26 Q how do you do that? 14:28:30 we have very precise weapons systems, we don't have all those systems brought to bear, even with those, there willb e difficulty of civilians in .very complex situation. What we are able to do what we have seen with good effect, disrupt command and control, effect on supply..get to a sniper on a rooftop is a very difficult for us 14:29:23 Q does it frustrate you? 14:29:29 as commander, I get the mission I get, I present operation to achieve that. There's, it's easy to say if we just had this or that, leads to other complicateing factors. Opposition says they don't want other ground forces engaged. It's a tough situation.it's going to be a tough one 14:30:18 Q you said you were worried about stalemate? 14:30:28 end state is pretty cleawr, establish NFZ, arms embargo, protect civilians and hand over to floow on HQ.this is an ongoing discussion, where is it where want to be.I am confident that conversation is occurring 14:31:09 Q does it surprise you that we are just now discussing what the next phase is? Given that you don't want to go in unless you know how you're going to get out? 14:31:23 sometimes conditions, things happen that don't let you do that. we could have had and obviously would have been nice to have , the longer debate about eventually what do you want to get to, like to see the intl community support in Libya. But he was slaughtering his own people, you can't stand by I don't think you can stand by and have a debate about that endstate while he is killing his own people, but that point it may have become a moot point. So I think what we did collectively to try to stop the killing is the right thing and I'm confident now that the discussions about what's next are occurring. 14:32:09 Q Gadhafi do you think he is waiting out? 14:32:20 we do see he is trying to be more on TV and radio, perhaps he is under int'l pressure, he is an int'l paraiah, I don't have a sense of his timeline.we are trying to protect as many civilians as we can 14:32:55 Q given his state of mind..do you see this thing dragging on for years. 14:33:10 I don't know, I can't state it any more plainly, I don't think about him. It's not in my mission set, disruopt the ability for leaders to control military forces, and that's what we focus on, that's the effort, our mission is clear, protect the civilians 14:33:48 Q could be a stalemate? 14:33:53 the way ahead, if we could get violence stopped - first step, Libyan people have self determination 14:34:16 Q to stop violence, you've said can't stop all the violence, you can't stop all the violence through air power, you can't get those snipers, you can't really tell people apart? 14:34:30 there are some pretty bad people, there is evil in the world, you just have look at regime actors. Maybe I'm just bought into this too much. I believe we are and can continue to make a difference, will we stopped all the violence, no, we haven't. does it bother me that there are innocent, civilian people who have been slaughtered by these people while it's been my mission to protect them, I absolutely take that to heart and that's why I think we have to do the absolute best we can each and every day for those who need our protection at this desperate moment. MR SU / RADDATZ STANDUP 14:35:30 Good evening david, we spent a day with Carter Ham..we traveled with him to in this Osprey behind me to see the troops at work OPEN: 14:36:17 Good David, from Sigonella Airbase in Italy. we spent an extraordinary day in the Mediterranean with General Carter Ham, who took over command of Africa command, just ten before this war began :15 CLOSE: 14:36:47 and David the Osprey that you see right behind me is the very one that rescued the F-15 pilot :08 CLOSE/ANSWER TO QUESTION: 14:37:03 that rescue truly was extraordinary, in fact the osprey right behind me is the Osprey they used in that rescue, David? :08 ] ANSWER TO QUESTION: 14:37:19 well those two Marine corps captains felt absolutely amazed by the whole rescue, as I said in the piece, it was the first time they'd ever done anything like that. Basically one of the captains said to me 'that was my best day in the Marine Corps,' David? :15 14:37:47 Question for David - tell us more what it was like, what they said to you, the marine corps pilots about the rescue... 14:38:05 Ham press conf cuts 14:38:22 side shot DV tape 4x3 14:40:37 Osprey taxiing 14:40:42 Erik in right hand (screen left) seat of Osprey 14:43:02 quick shot Osprey in flight 14:44:39 Ham arrival on deck 14:48:53 USS Kearsarge photo display 14:49:22 MV-22s on deck, props spinning 14:49:25 Anderjack walking out 14:52:12 Anderjack in pilot's seat 14:54:59 ws rear of Marines lined up 14:56:44 General Carter Ham talking to Marines 14:57:22 Marines milling around 14:57:28 MR / Martha Raddatz and Ham 14:58:32 Ham talking to aide

Mechanic girl .Girl in a workshop on the machines

MARTHA RADDATZ ABOARD THE USS KEARSARGE ( LHD3 / LHD-3 ) OFF THE COAST OF ITALY AS THEY SUPPORT OPERATION ODYSSEY DAWN AGAINST LIBYA. DISC 1 Martha Raddatz with General Carter Ham 23 March 2011 13:34:29 USS Mt. Whitney at pier / USS MOUNT WHITNEY FROM CATANIA, ITALY 13:34:37 ts mast of Mt. Whitney 13:35:02 Marines on board 13:35:12 sailors on board 13:35:43 commander? Mt. Whitney 13:36:02 female sailors lined up 13:37:36 sailors waiting around 13:38:17 sailors lined up on sides of red carpet 13:38:43 General Ham, MR. commander of Mt Whitney 13:38:56 NATS whistle, Ham arrives on board 13:39:09 NATS whistle, MR on board 13:39:46 helo / helicopter lands on tarmac 13:39:52 MV-22 Ospreys starting up, propellers turning 13:40:57 Blackhawk taxing 13:42:09 vs Gen Ham standing around 13:42:26 MR and Ham walking *** 13:42:54 ss Ham walking 13:43:19 MR putting on survival kits 13:44:59 MR walks on board MV22 Osprey / MV-22 13:45:24 MR and Ham in helmets, sitting next to each other in Osprey 13:46:31 Ham talking on comms system 13:47:28 ws group seated in MV-22 13:47:59 looking out back, flying over fields 13:48:50 MR and Ham seated, looking out back 13:49:01 Ham looking down 13:49:10 crew members sitting on floor 13:49:33 crew members in seats 13:50:24 other Osprey through shot 13:50:40 looking out back, ocean, bright light 13:50:50 better light 13:51:32 over water, shaky 13:51:55 sun reflected over water 13:52:18 landing on USS Kearsarge / NOW ABOARD USS KEARSARGE 13:53:05 moving bombs in front of helo, shaky 13:53:09 Ham arrives on board USS Kearsarge, shaking hands 13:54:09 group photo taken 13:54:38 Ham talking to officer, has cap in hand PILOTS Captain Joe Andrejack ( USMC ) / UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 13:55:27 TWO SHOT MJR: Tell me about that night. You knew you were going in to get a downed pilot right? (04) JA: Yes maam. That's about all the information we had. (06) We didn't know exactly what the situation was on the ground. (09) 13:55:55 TWO SHOT MJR: So you always look at it as possible hostile territory even thought that was a rebel-held area. JA: Yes maam. (05) 13:56:32 MJR: So you were on night vision? JA: Yes. 13:56:44 JA: We saw his flare on the ground. And we got eyes on his position. And a airplane way up overhead at about 25,000 feet was able to shine a laser down (15) in the vicinity of the downed pilot (17) and that just confirmed where we thought he was. (19) And we landed pretty much right on top of him. (21) 13:57:21 TWO SHOT MJR: How did he describe the situation? He was understandably a little frazzled. (06) And that was coming through in his communications over the radio. (10) CAPTAIN Erik Kolle, copilot ( USMC ) 14:00:52 EK: When we landed // and I turned and looked at Angry and // I was like you know that was probably the coolest thing I've done since I've been in the Marines. (05) 14:01:02 EK: We felt very good you know. We did something that was. (03) You know getting a guy out like that and having everything go off the way it's supposed to is very satisfying. (08) And it was very personally satisfying to see this guy - you know he's gonna get to go home. (13) 14:01:59 EK: Honestly the recon guys ran out and I was expecting to be there for a little bit and the crew chief about five seconds later said, "Hey, he's on board. Let's go." (09) 14:02:32 EK: We had our jets up there as well (ROUGH CAMERA PUSH) that were talking to him and I think they were just kind of telling him what they were seeing around him. (05) Because like Angry mentioned he didn't have goggles. Whereas the jets had a good picture what was going on down there. (11) So they were communicating with him. There was a few times I think his wing man was saying hey drink some water, take it easy. You know just trying to keep him a little bit - you know very mellow. (22) 14:03:06 MJR: So was he hiding in grass? (OFF CAM) EK: I think he was hiding like near a little bush. And there was - there was kind of rolling terrain there. (06) And there was little desert shrub-type bushes. I think he was hiding in that. And then (11) As soon as we set up for our approach to land he just started bolting to the airplane. I think he said that he was in our dust cloud by the time we landed. (21) 14:03:38 TWO SHOT EK: He had his sidearm away. Because he knew we had a lot of very -- MJR: You mean he had it out? Ready to shoot? EK: No he had it put away. (07) MJR: Put away, OK. Oh. And he was running at the airplane like this (09) (EK HAS HANDS UP IN SURRENDER) because you know the Marines in the back they're gonna treat everybody as an unknown until they identify that he's a friendly (16) so he didn't want any confusion that he was intending the airplane any harm or anything like that. (21) So he pretty much did everything right. Presented a very non-threatening image. 14:04:16 TWO SHOT MJR: Boy how'd that feel when you were taking off? EK: Oh it was awesome. (03) 14:04:32 TWO SHOT EK: It was awesome when they said "hey we got him," and I was like yes. You know he's not hurt. We got him on board. (04) And a few minutes from now we'll be out over the water and everything will be good. (08) Overall 45 minutes. Maybe 150-160 miles. 14:06:43 MR and pilots standing around talking 14:07:00 ws 14:07:13 low shot 14:07:27 MR walking in hallway of ship 14:08:08 following MR down ramp 14:08:31 Marines lined up in hangar of ship, vs 14:09:44 Raddatz SU - this crew has actually been underway for 210 days, only 4 days in port 14:10:58 reversal - Gen Ham speaking to crew 14:11:21 ss Gen Ham speaking 14:12:06 "tell anyone engaged in this operation, thanks from the President.whatever order he gives us will be accomplished precisely and with skill." 14:12:36 "recovery of downed jet crew or control of the air space..i used a very technical term as I was talking to the president, and he said 'how are the attacks going in Asidmihyah? And i said, mr President, the Marines are hammering the shit out of them.(laughter) he understood what that meant.all of us involved in this operation.we could not be more proud of what you're doing every day.there are missions out there that we can't see it.thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you are doing for our country, makes all of us very very proud" 14:14:24 Ham pinning awards on sailors Intv Gunnery SGT MABE / SERGEANT MABE 14:16:20 16 years, 2nd deployment since 2001 Intv Petty Officer Kelly Wiley 14:17:09 I was part of the intel support team, 14:17:21 first deployment 14:17:29 on board 2 and a half years.trying not to count anymore 14:17:51 from southern Maryland, calvert county 14:18:01 Lt Joshua Lyon, Danville, VA 14:18:15 2nd deployment, 1st to Afghan, last summer 14:18:28 24 years old 14:18:32 we just got here a little bit ago, it's been a whole new experience aboard ship 14:18:44 it's been great, we've worked a lot with sailors on board ship 14:19:16 Ham in survival gear, talking to others 14:19:45 following Ham out to MV-22 Osprey 14:20:34 MR and Ham in Osprey talking 14:21:52 USS Kearsarge aerial 14:22:18 MR riding in Osprey Interview with General Carter Ham 14:23:15 Q I want to ask you first about giving command to an intl body or NATO, where do we stand? HAM: as far I know there has not been a decision. But we're planning to hand over to NATO, the question is do we hand over the entirety of the mission, which is arms embargo, no fly zone and protect civilians, or some subset of that - obviously the preference is to hand off the entirety of the mission, so that's the discussion that's ongoing now - .what we are doing preparatory to that, is some of the mechanical work, establishing the NATO command and control system, communication system that is common throughout NATO, those kinds of things, starting to bring in officers from various NATO HQ so they become familiar with what we do so that when the decision is made, we are able affect this transition more easily. 14:24:18 Q it doesn't' sound like something that's just going to take a few days? 14:24:25 there are 2 pieces of it. The overall command piece can be done relatively quickly and I'm confident about that, but there are some frankly mechanical pieces and procedural pieces, particularly with regard to the air operations which are very, very complex, and we want to make sure that obviously we operate, we make that transition so that our airmen can operate safely, but we also want to ensure there is no loss of momentum in the air operations as well, while we affect the transition. 14:24:59 Q today, how kinetic? 14:25:06 there has been a shift - there are not as many fixed targets - we were targeting fixed sites, we are doing less of that, more dynamic targeting, regime ground forces that are engaging civilians in cities across the country 14:25:41 Q what do y ou see after you are no longer in command - how much involvement of US military 14:25:57 phrase we use is US will contribute its unique capabilities to second phase of operation - intel support we weill continue to provide, communications, tankers for aircraft, we wouldn'4t see a large number of fighter aircraft- the kind of mission would handover to others 14:26:47 Q first violation of nfz? 14:26:55 same report we saw a Libyan fighter jet taking off, it was detected by a French aircraft - in accordance with UNSCR, and withstanding rules of engagement appropriately, it attacked the aircraft 14:27:21 Q: in zirata, tanks and snipers 14:27:36 most difficult mission is when we have regime forces in cities - we remain conscouls and careful about civilian casualties = diff to distinguish btw opposition forces and regime forces, very difficult to discern who is attack who.toughest thing to do, it's very hard 14:28:26 Q how do you do that? 14:28:30 we have very precise weapons systems, we don't have all those systems brought to bear, even with those, there willb e difficulty of civilians in .very complex situation. What we are able to do what we have seen with good effect, disrupt command and control, effect on supply..get to a sniper on a rooftop is a very difficult for us 14:29:23 Q does it frustrate you? 14:29:29 as commander, I get the mission I get, I present operation to achieve that. There's, it's easy to say if we just had this or that, leads to other complicateing factors. Opposition says they don't want other ground forces engaged. It's a tough situation.it's going to be a tough one 14:30:18 Q you said you were worried about stalemate? 14:30:28 end state is pretty cleawr, establish NFZ, arms embargo, protect civilians and hand over to floow on HQ.this is an ongoing discussion, where is it where want to be.I am confident that conversation is occurring 14:31:09 Q does it surprise you that we are just now discussing what the next phase is? Given that you don't want to go in unless you know how you're going to get out? 14:31:23 sometimes conditions, things happen that don't let you do that. we could have had and obviously would have been nice to have , the longer debate about eventually what do you want to get to, like to see the intl community support in Libya. But he was slaughtering his own people, you can't stand by I don't think you can stand by and have a debate about that endstate while he is killing his own people, but that point it may have become a moot point. So I think what we did collectively to try to stop the killing is the right thing and I'm confident now that the discussions about what's next are occurring. 14:32:09 Q Gadhafi do you think he is waiting out? 14:32:20 we do see he is trying to be more on TV and radio, perhaps he is under int'l pressure, he is an int'l paraiah, I don't have a sense of his timeline.we are trying to protect as many civilians as we can 14:32:55 Q given his state of mind..do you see this thing dragging on for years. 14:33:10 I don't know, I can't state it any more plainly, I don't think about him. It's not in my mission set, disruopt the ability for leaders to control military forces, and that's what we focus on, that's the effort, our mission is clear, protect the civilians 14:33:48 Q could be a stalemate? 14:33:53 the way ahead, if we could get violence stopped - first step, Libyan people have self determination 14:34:16 Q to stop violence, you've said can't stop all the violence, you can't stop all the violence through air power, you can't get those snipers, you can't really tell people apart? 14:34:30 there are some pretty bad people, there is evil in the world, you just have look at regime actors. Maybe I'm just bought into this too much. I believe we are and can continue to make a difference, will we stopped all the violence, no, we haven't. does it bother me that there are innocent, civilian people who have been slaughtered by these people while it's been my mission to protect them, I absolutely take that to heart and that's why I think we have to do the absolute best we can each and every day for those who need our protection at this desperate moment. MR SU / RADDATZ STANDUP 14:35:30 Good evening david, we spent a day with Carter Ham..we traveled with him to in this Osprey behind me to see the troops at work OPEN: 14:36:17 Good David, from Sigonella Airbase in Italy. we spent an extraordinary day in the Mediterranean with General Carter Ham, who took over command of Africa command, just ten before this war began :15 CLOSE: 14:36:47 and David the Osprey that you see right behind me is the very one that rescued the F-15 pilot :08 CLOSE/ANSWER TO QUESTION: 14:37:03 that rescue truly was extraordinary, in fact the osprey right behind me is the Osprey they used in that rescue, David? :08 ] ANSWER TO QUESTION: 14:37:19 well those two Marine corps captains felt absolutely amazed by the whole rescue, as I said in the piece, it was the first time they'd ever done anything like that. Basically one of the captains said to me 'that was my best day in the Marine Corps,' David? :15 14:37:47 Question for David - tell us more what it was like, what they said to you, the marine corps pilots about the rescue... 14:38:05 Ham press conf cuts 14:38:22 side shot DV tape 4x3 14:40:37 Osprey taxiing 14:40:42 Erik in right hand (screen left) seat of Osprey 14:43:02 quick shot Osprey in flight 14:44:39 Ham arrival on deck 14:48:53 USS Kearsarge photo display 14:49:22 MV-22s on deck, props spinning 14:49:25 Anderjack walking out 14:52:12 Anderjack in pilot's seat 14:54:59 ws rear of Marines lined up ---------------------------------------------------------------

robotics, engineer, factory

1400 STATE BRIEF FS31 71 State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert - Briefing Subject: Foreign Affairs Location: The State Department, 2201 C Street NW, Press Briefing Room 2209, Washington, D.C. Time: 2:00 pm EDT, Date: Thursday, July 6th, 2017 NAUERT: Hi, everybody. How's everyone? (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: OK. And you? NAUERT: Doing very well. Thank you. Great to be back with all of you. Let me start by introducing you first to the new director of our press operations, Robert Greenan (ph), right here. He joins us from post in Austria and he's been many places around the world. And so he will be a valuable asset and resource to all of you. NAUERT: He's done a terrific job already, and so this is his first briefing with me. So, Robert, thank you. (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) Now you have to take over. And Mark Stroh will continue to be on, and Mark has been incredible in helping me to get up to speed, so thank you. All right, a lot of stuff going on today so let me start out with a few toppers that I have. First, let's start with the secretary's travel. Secretary Tillerson is in Hamburg, Germany today, and he's accompanying President Trump in meetings surrounding the G20. He will also participate in a series of bilateral meetings tomorrow. That schedule is still being finalized. I know you have a lot of questions about that. We'll announce those hopefully later today. The secretary then -- will then travel to Kiev, Ukraine on July the 9th to meet with a group of key activists pushing for reforms and meeting with Ukrainian President Poroshenko. The secretary and President Poroshenko will host a joint media availability after their meeting. The secretary will also meet with the staff and families of our embassy there. The secretary will then depart Kiev in the afternoon on July the 9th and travel to Istanbul, Turkey. On July the 10th, the secretary will participate in bilateral meetings including the meeting with members of the Turkish government. The secretary will also meet with our staff and families of the U.S. mission in Turkey, and I know he looks forward to doing that. The second thing that we have going on is Brett McGurk, our special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, will host members of the coalition for a series of meetings in Washington D.C. next week. This will be an opportunity for members to discuss the efforts to defeat ISIS, including maximizing pressure on its branches, on its affiliates, and on its networks. The coalition will discuss all aspects of our campaign, including stabilization support, counter-finance, foreign terror fighters, counter-messaging, among other things. The meetings are taking place at a key moment in the fight against ISIS. Just as ISIS is trying to stay alive, we remain dedicated and committed to defeating them. There is still a lot of work to be done but the coalition has a strong and proven strategy committed to the total destruction of ISIS, while in parallel preparing for the day after. Another thing, this is related to Iraq. And we were pleased to announce this: On July the 5th, Ambassador Silliman, our U.S. ambassador to Iraq, announced the U.S. government's intent to provide $150 million to the United Nations development program to support the government of Iraq identified stabilization priorities in the areas of Iraq that have been liberated from ISIS. The funds will support efforts to establish basic security, reestablish essential services, restore local economies, stabilize communities and allow Iraqis to finally return home. This brings the United States commitment to stabilization programming in Iraq to more than $265 million over the past two years. The funds will be provided through USAID. And then finally one last thing: The United States remains deeply concerned over Tuesday's violations of the cease-fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, that resulted in multiple civilian casualties including possibly a two-year-old child. This happened near the line of contact. We wish to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of those victims. Along with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, we call upon the sides to cease military action and return to the negotiating table. Our policy remains clear in that region: The only solution to this conflict is a negotiated settlement based on international law that includes adherence to the principles of non-use of force, territorial integrity and self-determination. So with that, I'll take your questions. Matt Lee, would you like to start? QUESTION: Thanks. Let's start with Syria/Iraq and the secretary's statement from last night which was -- made note of the fact that the situation in Syria in particular would be a subject of discussion when President Trump meets President Putin tomorrow. And it talked about, as you know, cooperation between the United States and Russia, including on the military front, setting up -- specifically mentioned no-fly zones. And the reason I'm asking about this is because it has been the position of -- in the past at the Pentagon that a no-fly zone -- that no-fly zones, setting them up in Syria would be very, if not unworkable, extremely difficult and very expensive to do. Has there been a shift in position on that? And is this a serious offer? Because this administration and the previous administration wanted to -- had proposed suggestions of cooperation with the Russians like this, and it never bore any fruit, or they never bore any fruit. NAUERT: So, understood. And thank you for that question. The secretary's statement from yesterday, and I know a lot of you are very interested in that, it describes how our interactions with Russia on Syria are at the moment. We are continuing to have conversations with the Russians about how things will play out in Syria. Our overall policy has not changed on that matter. The United States is looking to explore the possibility of establishing what we would consider to be joint mechanisms for ensuring stability with Russia and in Syria. If our two countries can establish stability on the ground, we believe that that will lay a foundation for progress on the political settlement of Syria's future. The policy has not changed. Some of the words and some of the phrasing may have changed at this point, but overall it's just one of a series of options that the United States will now consider. QUESTION: (inaudible) no-fly zones? NAUERT: The United States is considering a lot of things. The secretary -- and I don't want to get ahead of any of those conversations that are being had or will be had this week. I'm just going to leave it at that. QUESTION: So, all right. But when you say "joint mechanisms" for securing Syria, particularly places that have been liberated from ISIS, that goes beyond the de-confliction -- the current de- confliction, right? I mean, it's something... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: We are exploring a lot of options. Syria continues well into its sixth year. We believe that Russia has a special responsibility. They have unique leverage over the Syrian regime. And so we're going to continue to put pressure on them and ask them to do more. And we will continue to work with them as this dialogue unfolds. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Can you -- so given that he said even at the beginning of his statement that he was kind of putting this out there, because he knew that the president -- the two leaders would talk about this. So, you know, these discussions have been going on with the Pentagon and also with Russian officials for weeks now. So, would you see this, king of following up on what Matt was saying, is this a kind of -- an opening offer, if you will, that the two presidents are going to see that as a kind of jump-off point for, you know, the beginning? Not necessarily that they would have the negotiations in this meeting, but he laid out certain conditions under which the Russians -- under which you would consider that if the Russians were to accept their responsbility. So, I mean, I just -- I'm just trying to... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: I wouldn't say that at all. There are a lot of options on the table. The overall goal, and let's stay focused on the overall goal, the overall goal is to eventually bring peace and stability and try to grow some of the deescalation zones, which we've had some progress with. Certainly not enough, but we've seen a slow-down in terms of some of the attacks taking place. So the goal would be to advance numerous options to have conversations with the Russians. QUESTION: So where do you see this in terms of a jump-off point for the presidents? Do you consider that they'll just have a kind of general discussion of the idea? Or... NAUERT: I'm not going to get ahead of the president and the White House conversations. But I know that the secretary will be very engaged in that. The president will as well. QUESTION: It was really the most specific thing that we've heard in terms of anything that would be discussed in this meeting. NAUERT: Yes, well, from me, you're not going to hear from me getting into what exactly is going to be discussed in those meetings. I just don't want to get ahead of those. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Hold on. Hold on. Barbara, go right ahead. QUESTION: Yes. If you're throwing out options that could be discussed, he very specifically mentioned something that's been a point of controversy for a couple of years. So it doesn't sound like he'd just say, "Oh, well, maybe we'll do a no-fly zone, but we'll see." It seems to have been a shift. NAUERT: I can tell you that we've been talking with the NSC. We've been talking with the Department of Defense. There have been lots of parties involved with these conversations. The conversations will be had this week. They will continue for the time, you know, for the future. And that's all I'm going to give you on that. QUESTION: You know, not to belabor the point, but... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... sorry, it's really a beginning. It's something that was time and again stated by the Pentagon, by generals, by the former secretary of defense and so on that it's a very difficult thing to impose and enforce, as a matter of fact. So is this something that would, you know, likely create some sort of problem with coordination with Russia? After all, the statement itself -- the secretary's statement is quite, you know, positive about Russia's role. NAUERT: I think we are looking forward to continuing conversations with the government of Russia to see what we can do with them in concert to try to resolve the situation in Syria. QUESTION: OK. And just a quick followup on Syria. In the south -- the south of the country, in Dariya (ph), the Jordanian border, things have, you know, a cease-fire has been taking place. And it seems to be holding. Do you have any position on the cease-fire taking place in various areas of Syria? And how are you coordinating with both the Russians and the Syrian government? NAUERT: I can't get into the de-confliction lines. That would be a matter for DOD. I know that we are pleased when a cease-fire can take effect and take hold and allow for humanitarian assistance to come in. That is something that we continue to push for and hope that we will continue to see progress. We've seen some limited progress in terms of the cease-fires. We hope that that will continue. QUESTION: Can we stay (inaudible)? NAUERT: Yes. QUESTION: There was proposed joint (inaudible). No-fly zone was only one of those. The rest -- there were others mentioned in the secretary's statement. And I wanted to ask if there is something -- if those nuts and bolts are something that's being discussed right now? Or this is sort of a dangling (inaudible) in the distant future? You know, that's something that might be discussed or might not. Because the previous administration, and it is well known, came very close to actually striking a deal with Russia. And as Secretary Kerry (inaudible), it was sort of blocked by the Pentagon. NAUERT: I think your question would fall under the realm of some of the diplomatic conversations that will be had presumably this week and in the near future. So I'm just not going to get into that part, OK? Thank you. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: When he says "on the ground cease-fire observers or observations," does that open the door to American troops doing that? Or -- I don't... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: That would be a DOD matter. So, I'm going to leave the secretary's statement at that, and when we start to talk about forces on the ground, that's just something that they would have to cover. OK? Anything else on Syria? OK. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Excuse me. OK. QUESTION: I just wanted to know if there was any -- in the meeting that Tom Shannon had with the Russian ambassador the other day, did they -- did they make -- was there any progress? NAUERT: You have such a good memory. You really do, Matt. QUESTION: It was only Monday. NAUERT: Yes, was that Monday? Dog years in this job. It feels like it was longer ago than that. QUESTION: I just wanted to know if there's any more progress on getting the (inaudible) channel. NAUERT: Yes. So, Mr. Shannon and Ryabkov did have a conversation. QUESTION: No, Kislyak. NAUERT: Kislyak, excuse me -- did have a conversation -- thank you -- about trying to re-start those meetings that the Russians had canceled a couple of weeks ago. No meeting has actually been set at this point, but I know they had that conversation about that. QUESTION: They're trying to set up a meeting for next month... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: I -- I don't have any timetable or any back-meetings to give you, but I know that they're talking about that. Are you on -- Gloria, are you on Syria or Russia right now? QUESTION: Syria. NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: On the meetings for the global coalition that will be held next week, are the Syrian Democratic Forces going to be invited? NAUERT: They will not. This is a meeting of the actual members of the coalition. I believe there are about 72 members of the coalition, countries as well as entities such as NATO, for example. SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is not a part of that. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: I don't know. I can check for you on that. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Yes? QUESTION: ... in Syria, there was a large demonstration protest yesterday in a city -- the Kurdish city of Afgein (ph) against attacks from Turkish-backed forces in that city. Do you have a statement on that? Are you... NAUERT: I don't. I don't believe I do. I know that that's something that we've been following -- following carefully. But let me see what I can get for you on that, OK? OK. Anything else on Russia or Syria? (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: OK. Want to go to North Korea? OK. QUESTION: OK. On North Korea ICBM launch (inaudible) North Korea (inaudible), Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to United Nations, she said that the U.S. had strongest military power we could use if we do want. Does that means U.S. take any military action to North Korea or... NAUERT: I know that Ambassador Haley, as she was -- as she pulled together that U.N. emergency meeting earlier this week -- it's obviously a huge concern to not just the United States, but Japan and South Korea as well. They're looking at doing some Security Council resolutions some time in the near future. As it pertains to military action, that's not something that we can speak to here from the State Department regarding that. QUESTION: But do you think the additional sanctions against North Korea (inaudible), but the Russia and China did not agree with the sanctions. How you going to convince them this? NAUERT: I think that would be an Ambassador Haley question. I know that she'll be speaking with her counterparts very closely. She's been a very effective spokesperson here as ambassador to the U.S. -- U.N. And I know that's going to be something that we just continue to have that conversation to be able to put additional pressure on the DPRK. QUESTION: Kim Jong Un in answer yesterday, he said that North Korea will not put nuclear and military -- I'm sorry -- missile issues on the negotiations table. He doesn't want a negotiation table on these issues. NAUERT: Right. QUESTION: Are you going to accept this? Or... NAUERT: It sounds like he wants to keep his nuclear and ballistic missile program. That is something that the United States and the world is against. We've had multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. What they are doing there is not only a threat to the region, but we view that as a threat to the world. And I think the world community is really coming around on that and understanding through what they watched happen here on our Fourth of July, and what a huge concern that is to the world. And I think the world will increasingly get behind the United States and our other partners and call out -- not only call out North Korea, but continue to ratchet up the pressure on North Korea. Anything else on North Korea? (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Is the U.S. beginning to lose patience with China on this issue? NAUERT: I think we view it as there's a lot of work left to be done. We're still somewhat early-on in the overall pressure campaign against North Korea. We continue to believe that China can do a whole lot more to try to bring additional pressure to North Korea. NAUERT: We continue those conversations with China. As you saw, I believe it was just last week, that the Treasury Department put additional sanctions on Chinese companies that were doing business in North Korea. So, I would anticipate we would look to continue to put pressure on North Korea in that kind of fashion. But in terms of sanctions that are in the future, I'm just not going to broadcast or get ahead of what we might do. QUESTION: Can I follow up though? The president has kind of, you know, like about a month or two ago and when the Chinese president came here, he was saying, you know, that we're working together, you know, it seemed like it was more of a partnership, and in recent weeks, he's kind of seemed to indicate that, oh well, that was a lost cause; we tried. And now it seems as if its, yes you still want China to help on North Korea, but it's more of a pressure tactic with China, as opposed to working as partners. NAUERT: I think what we're seeing here is just overall diplomacy. We're seeing Secretary Tillerson and many of our counterparts here at the State Department reach out to, not just China, but other nations to address the issue in North Korea. The president is doing it in his own fashion as well, and I think we're just watching our Democratic process play out, and watching it play out the pressures that we're continuing to put on North Korea. QUESTION: But do you see China as a kind of partner in this endeavor to pressure North Korea, or more like, you know, a hostile witness type of situation? NAUERT: I wouldn't describe -- I wouldn't describe it either way, Elise (ph). I think it's -- we just continue to work with China and talk to China, as we do all nations, about using what leverage they have -- and China had unique leverage with North Korea, because of that strong trade relationship that they do have, and also borders and so forth. So, we continue to put pressure on China. We expect and ask them to do more, and we'll continue to do that. QUESTION: Was the sanctioning of the bank last week the thin edge of the wedge? Are there other Chinese entities in the pipeline ready to go if China doesn't do... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: That would be a Treasury matter. I can't imagine that they're going to get ahead of any sanctions. If you start announcing sanctions, then those people or entities that would be sanctioned then have a heads up, so we're not going to get ahead and start broadcasting sanctions. Hi. QUESTION: This latest rocket launch -- or ballistic missile launch, China now is (inaudible) joint (inaudible) with Russia, proposing something that your predecessor had said was a non-starter for the U.S., this idea of a freeze for a freeze. Are we actually losing China's cooperation with this issue? NAUERT: I think -- I think that doesn't really matter. We see it as there's no equivalency between the United States and its activities and actions that it undertakes with its allies, including South Korea and also Japan. These are something that are lawful. Its long standing that we do, whether its military exercises or basing over there, these are all things that have taken place since the 19 -- since the 1950s. So -- so that -- that wouldn't change and I think that's the important thing that we're standing up for our allies, and our men and women who are on the ground serving in the region. QUESTION: But the fact that China is now again calling for us to -- to either halt or, you know, bring down the military assistance a little bit, and they're doing so now with -- with Russia who has increased trade with -- with North Korea over the last couple of months. Is that not a sign that we're losing their cooperation? NAUERT: We do these kinds of exercises and have relationships like this all over the globe. If China and Russia decide to come out against that, that is not going to change our position. QUESTION: Do you see an increased stance with those two countries? I know at the U.N. Security Council meeting yesterday, both countries also made a point to criticize the deployment of THAAD in South Korea. NAUERT: I'm sorry, who criticized THAAD? QUESTION: Both Russia and China. Do you see them working closely together on this issue against U.S. interests? NAUERT: I don't know that that -- that that really matters. That is not going to change where we stand on the issue. We had a very productive meeting with Mr. Moon when he came over here; I believe it was last week. We have had -- I know the secretary had met with his counterpart, the foreign minister, here that same week, and they have lots discussions about the importance of THAAD, the alliance decision that was made and the reason that those decisions were made to deploy THAAD in the first place. And that is the safety and the defense of our partners over there, as well as the safety and defense of our U.S. forces over there. I just can't see that changing. OK, anything else DPRK? South Korea? QUESTION: So given especially what the president said about China's trade with North Korea increasing, I think close to 40 percent, would the administration -- you know, some of the most sanctions against Iran were actually congressionally imposed secondary sanctions that were kind of imposed over a number of years in various pieces of legislation. Would the administration support that sort of legislation or sanctions of that kind against North Korea more broadly, you know, so- called secondary sanctions? NAUERT: I think that's something -- if Congress chooses to employ -- announce sanctions and vote on sanctions, that would be a congressional matter, so I'm not going to weigh in from here on anything that's taking place or that may take place in Congress, but we'd certainly keep an eye on that. OK? Anything else DPRK (inaudible). Hey, Michelle (ph). QUESTION: Hi. NAUERT: Go (inaudible). QUESTION: Hi. Now that the U.S. has put the entire world on notice, from the State Department's perspective, what does "on notice" mean? NAUERT: The entire world on notice regarding what? QUESTION: North Korea at this point. NAUERT: Regarding North Korea? QUESTION: Yes. NAUERT: OK, so we've continued to talk about this from here, and I can't underscore enough the importance of the message that the secretary, and I believe the president also, has delivered to nations around the world. Let me assure you that when they have meetings with countries you may not even imagine, that I can't get into unfortunately because they're private diplomatic conversations, but we've continued to reach out to many countries that have citizens from North Korea working in those countries. We've called on those countries to cut the business that they do with North Korea. We have said if you have guest workers in your country from North Korea, eliminate those guest workers, and by that I mean send them home. We have said to them if you have 10 guest workers, cut that to five. If you are doing business with North Korea that is $2 million worth, for example, a lot of countries will say, oh, it's not much money. This secretary and other folks in this administration have come back and they say, cut that in half. That is the kind of economic and diplomatic pressure that we continue to put on countries around the world, and many of them are taking notice and starting to do things about that. Some of them have done things about that for a while. But that pressure campaign, we believe, is continuing to work. One example that I can give you is in Germany. You all may recall, it was a couple months ago that there was a German -- there was a North Korean -- I believe it was a hotel. I can double check the facts. This is just off the top of my head. But there were North Korean workers, and we had concerns that they would -- those workers would collect the money and then be forced to give it back to their government. We believe, as we've looked at this model, that that money ends up going to the illegal nuclear ballistic missile programs, so we continue to look at those countries, pressure different countries to shut that stuff down. QUESTION: So does "on notice" mean we see you? Or does "on notice" mean, we're going to do something to you unless you change? NAUERT: We're in the diplomatic phase of this right now, and that is why the secretary and others continue to ask countries to do more to change. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) does that mean, what you just said -- I want to make sure that you weren't just saying this as (ph) a generality, but are you looking for all countries that have guest workers or investments with North Korea to cut them in half? NAUERT: No, half is just really just an example. QUESTION: OK. NAUERT: That's just something... QUESTION: I mean this came up -- the White House said that it came up in the president's call with President Sisi of Egypt, and there's -- there are a lot of countries, yes, and a lot of them that you might not expect who do have North Korean guest workers. QUESTION: But the half is not something that you're... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Half is not a literal number, no. I'm just saying for example. Some countries may say, oh, we don't do a lot business with North Korea; we only do $2 million worth. We'll say, make that a lot less. QUESTION: Secretary... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: Because, I mean, what everybody seemed to agree on yesterday in the Security Council was that nothing -- nothing has been working. So, when you hear Russia suggest, "Well, why don't -- you know, why don't we try dialogue first and foremost without preconditions," is that anything that the U.S. would consider, at this point? NAUERT: I'm not going to get into what Russia's plan is right now and -- and comment on that. QUESTION: But, would -- would the U.S. consider trying to talk to Kim Jong-Un without... NAUERT: Without preconditions? I -- I think it's clear to the world that he wants to stick to his illegal nuclear weapons -- or nuclear program, and also his ballistic missile weapons program. I think his actions that he took earlier this week are very clear. I can't -- I'm -- I'm not going to get ahead of what could and -- could happen down the road, but -- I just can't anticipate that. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Can I just go back to the guest workers and such? NAUERT: Sure. QUESTION: Secretary Tillerson, at that meeting at the U.N., I don't even know how long ago it was... NAUERT: Oh, gosh. The one back in March or so? (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Yeah. NAUERT: Yeah. QUESTION: Was it then? (UNKNOWN): April, actually (ph). QUESTION: April, whatever. NAUERT: Good memory. QUESTION: Kind of brought this up, in terms of the U.S. wanting the international community to do this. Nikki Haley brought it up yesterday. Is this something that, perhaps, you would want to put into a U.N. Security Council resolution to mandate U.N. -- because, I mean, I think the last resolution called for members to consider thinking about getting rid of their guest workers, or something. But it's not... NAUERT: They're all supposed... QUESTION: ... mandated by international law at all. NAUERT: They're all supposed to stick to their resolutions. We hope that those countries will take responsibility and adhere to sanctions under -- under various resolutions. But I'm not -- I'm not going to forecast... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: But they were voluntary -- but what I'm saying is they... NAUERT: I'm just not going to forecast quite what might be in a U.N. Security Council resolution. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: No. I understand. But they're -- those were -- it was kind of like you urged them, and in these resolutions, that's more of a voluntary -- more of a voluntary decision. And I'm wondering, beyond, like, Secretary Tillerson saying, you know, "The U.S. wants you to do that," is there a consideration to making this illegal under international law? NAUERT: I can't -- I just can't comment on that at this time. QUESTION: But he is going beyond U.N. resolutions with the way he's pressuring on guest workers, no? Because as -- as Lisa said (ph)... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Barbara, I -- I think this is a good thing. We see North Korea as a nation that... QUESTION: Would you say it was... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: No, no, no. I just want to make this clear. We see North Korea as a nation that starves its people, that treats its people horrifically. We see a leader who is taking actions against the entire civilized world by continuing with this program. And so I think we will continue to look at various options to try to hold that country responsible and hopefully -- hopefully change that behavior. QUESTION: But just a technical question... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Can we change topics? NAUERT: Do we have anything else on DPRK? (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: How are you? QUESTION: Good. So another option that the United States is taking is denying the landing rights of the national airline of North Korea, Air Koryo. Could you please give us an update of the progress and status on that ground? And then will this be adjusted in the next week's -- I believe it's on Monday -- the aviation meeting here at the State Department? NAUERT: The aviation meeting at the State Department. OK. I'll look into that one. I have to say I was unaware of the aviation meeting. I'm familiar with this, that that is one of the areas that we have been looking for governments to -- to try to narrow. You bring up the issue of the state-run airline in North Korea. I know some of the flight route options have been curtailed. That is something that we are -- are pleased with, and that is another example of the kinds of ways that we are asking other countries, North Korea included, to try to put pressure on them. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: OK. OK, hold on. Are we -- are we done with DPRK? QUESTION: No, no, no. One last one. NAUERT: OK. OK, go ahead. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Yeah, I think so. QUESTION: The Russian deputy foreign minister, Morgulov, is in town. He met with Ambassador Yun today. Do you by any chance have a readout? And secondly, Ambassador Yun is going over to Singapore to take part, as -- as the State Department has announced -- to take part in the so-called Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, I think this thing -- the thing is called. Supposedly North Korea's a part of this -- to that informal co-op (ph). (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: So the meeting that you're talking about, that Ambassador Yun is attending -- my understanding is that they will be talking about regional issues. I know a lot of people are interested in Ambassador Yun and his travels, because he was key to bringing home Otto Warmbier. So I know a lot of people take interest in his schedule. My understanding is that he has no meetings with the North Koreans. If anything changes on that, I -- and if I can share it with you, I certainly will. QUESTION: And Morgulov? And Morgulov? (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: There was a meeting here today, and the -- the Russian foreign ministry actually posted photos... NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: ... from the conference room. I don't know what floor it was on, but it was in this building. NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: So if you could find out... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: I don't have any information on -- on that. I don't have a readout on that meeting. If I can get anything for you, I certainly will. QUESTION: The nineteenth... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: One more on this... NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: ... Northeast Asia -- is he planning to talk to any North Korean officials? Because they're members... NAUERT: No. QUESTION: ... of this... NAUERT: No -- no, my understanding is that the North Koreans will not be attending. That's what I was told... QUESTION: OK. Thank you. NAUERT: ... and he will not be meeting with them (inaudible). QUESTION: On Qatar really quickly... NAUERT: Sure. QUESTION: ... the -- four Arab nations were commenting on Qatar's objection of their demands. How much of this crisis will occupy the secretary's time while he travels? And, as it has been going on for a month now, is there consideration here at State of changing approaches? NAUERT: Yeah. So it's -- it's now, I think, as of today, been a month and a day. We remain very concerned about that ongoing situation involving Qatar and GCC countries. We've become increasingly concerned that that dispute is at an impasse at this point. We believe that this could potentially drag on for weeks. It could drag on for months. It could possibly even intensify. The secretary will remain engaged. He's been very engaged, and has made himself available to all sides of this matter. We continue to stay in close contact will all of them, and we'll continue to do so. The Kuwaitis have done yeoman's work on trying to mediate the dispute, and we, you know, continue to thank them for their efforts in doing that. It certainly has not been -- it has not been easy. We believe overall that the fight against terrorism will something -- is something that will bring all these countries together eventually, because we still have that shared fight, and I think all the nations recognize that. QUESTION: Can I -- in Athens (ph), please? NAUERT: OK -- OK, let's stay with Qatar, if anybody has any questions on that. QUESTION: I have a -- kind of a question kind of related to Qatar... NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: ... but it can wait. It's not about Qatar, it's about one of the countries involved. NAUERT: OK. Got it. All right. Let's move on, then, from Qatar... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Can I -- can we... QUESTION: Bahrain. QUESTION: ... Palestinian-Israeli relations for a... NAUERT: Yes. QUESTION: ... very quickly. NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: I just wanted to ask you for your (ph) comment on the announcement by the Israeli government about no settlements in east Jerusalem. Do you have -- you have any comment on that? There had been an announcement on the 3rd or the 4th... NAUERT: Yes. QUESTION: ... of this month, and... NAUERT: Yeah. So I think the president has been very clear about this, and our message on that has not changed. The continuation of unrestrained settlement activity, we view as something that gets in the way of what we hope will be an eventual peace process. This administration has made that a priority, with Mr. Kushner and Mr. Greenblatt just having made a trip over there, one in what we believe will be a series of trips over that -- over there. But our position on the settlement activity has not changed. QUESTION: But in the past, every time there was new settlement activity, the State Department would either issue a statement or (inaudible) and so on, you know, in particular to that particular building project, and so on. QUESTION: Are you prepared to issue any kind of a statement on this? NAUERT: I don't have a statement. That is currently in the works on that issue right now. But our position, again, has not changed, that the settlement activity we believe can be an obstacle to peace. And we continue to make that a priority. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: I know that you're not probably super, super familiar with all the granular Talmudic details of this. Does the -- does the administration make a distinction between settlements on the West Bank and housing in East Jerusalem? NAUERT: That is a good question, Matt. I'm not sure. Let me dig into that and see what I can get for you. OK? QUESTION: OK. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Anything else on Israel? Tell me your name. I don't (inaudible). (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Hi. How are you? Nice to meet you. QUESTION: So, there seems to be a differentiation in the administration between restrained and unrestrained (inaudible) construction. Because frequently the administration has said that previous settlement freezes have not advanced the prospects for peace, while at the same time saying unrestrained settlements have also not. So my question is, (inaudible) 800 buildings in East Jerusalem, is this part of the restrained settlement construction that's kind of OK? Or is this in the unrestrained, which is not OK? NAUERT: I don't have a map. I love maps. But I don't have a map in front of me that indicates exactly where these settlements are. So I just can't tell you if this is considered to be restrained or unrestrained. But I can tell you our position remains the same, that the settlement activity and pushing that is an area of concern for us. Ultimately, we want peace. That's something that the United States cares deeply about. QUESTION: But how are the Israelis supposed to know if it's restrained or unrestrained if you won't even say it? NAUERT: It's not that I won't. I just don't have a map in front of me that indicates exactly where these places are. So I... (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) NAUERT: Exactly. QUESTION: Thank you. NAUERT: OK. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: I just want to get an on-camera comment. So yesterday, a senior official said the U.S. has no intent or desire to work exclusively with Russia. Can we be assured that Washington is not going to cut a deal with Moscow over Ukraine, particularly after President Trump's meeting with Putin tomorrow? NAUERT: So, as you may recall, President Poroshenko from the Ukraine -- from Ukraine, rather -- came over here not long ago. He had a series of very productive, very friendly and warm meetings with the president and also with the secretary of state. We have a good relationship with that nation. The secretary, as you know, will be headed to Ukraine in a few days. And that is something that we view as an important relationship. We continue to be concerned about the situation in Crimea and in the eastern part of Ukraine. And we continue to work toward pushing parties to follow through on the Minsk agreement. But I cannot anticipate that there will be any changes. That is an important country to us. And I think that that hasn't changed. QUESTION: Shall we be assured that U.S. is not going to cut a deal with Moscow over (inaudible)? NAUERT: In doing what? QUESTION: In a kind of (inaudible) agreement (inaudible). NAUERT: And sell out the Ukrainians? (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) NAUERT: We have continued... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Yeah, right. (LAUGHTER) NAUERT: We have continued to call upon the Russians and Ukrainians to come together. We remain very concerned about the security situation in the Dombass. You know that. We have talked a lot about how we believe that the so-called "rebels" are Russian- backed, Russian-financed, and are responsible for the deaths of Ukrainians. I don't imagine that we will be backing away from our concern for them. OK. Last question. QUESTION: Can you give just a little bit more details about the future meeting with Tillerson and Poroshenko? Which topic they will discuss, besides the Minsk agreement, of course? And secondly, will the secretary discuss the future supply of the arms to Ukraine in the (inaudible)? Because when President Poroshenko was here in Washington, D.C. he told -- he found a common language with U.S. officials. NAUERT: So, I'm not going to get ahead of the secretary's meeting. You'll find me saying that a lot when the secretary is getting ready to meet with a world leader. I know that we look forward to going over there. We have a lot of areas of mutual interest that will be discussed, including the security situation in Ukraine. But I'm not going to get ahead of the secretary's conversations. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Sure. QUESTION: ... two things very briefly and very limited follow- ups, if any. One, on the refugee -- suspension of the refugee program. We've been told by resettlement agencies that you guys have now told them to schedule -- continue to schedule previously vetted and accepted refugees through the 12th. Originally, when, after the Supreme Court decision came out, it was the 6th. NAUERT: Well, let me be clear about that, OK? At the time I said, and this was the guidance that we were getting from the Department of Justice and others, on or about. Remember, the limit is 50,000. And we estimated that that number would be reached within a few weeks. And I think I said a week or two. QUESTION: Right. Right. NAUERT: So there was never any particular date that was put out. (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Oh, OK. I just want to make sure we're clear. QUESTION: Well, no, I mean, they did -- they said anyone who was planning to come until the 6th should be scheduled, but that... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Actually -- actually, it was until we reached the number of 50,000. QUESTION: OK. Is the 12th now the new date at which you expect the 50,000 to be hit? NAUERT: So, I'm not going to name a date, but I will tell you this. We have not reached that number of 50,000 refugees just yet. When we do reach that number of 50,000 refugees, whatever date that falls on, that will be the time. QUESTION: All right. And then has there been any clarification to the Iraqi -- Iraqi translators? The initial guidance had been that it was going to be done a case-by-case basis, whether or not they would have to go through the vetting all over again. But it was my understanding, and maybe I was wrongly thinking this, that that was being revisited and it was still being discussed. NAUERT: So, I know you and I had talked about this not too long ago. And that was a question that I just asked our folks about today. QUESTION: Are you aware -- has that been resolved finally? NAUERT: I'm not aware whether or not that has been resolved, but let me just continue to look into that for you. QUESTION: All right. And then the last thing is Bahrain, which was the country that was (inaudible) related to Qatar. But this doesn't have anything to do with Qatar. It has to do with human rights, and this has been a perpetual concern, or a longstanding concern of this building in general. And that is two cases, one is Nubeel Rajab, whose trial was postponed again. But is now expected to -- the 10th to be a final verdict. NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: And I'm wondering if you would have had any discussions with the Bahrainis in this case? You previously called for his release. And then secondly... NAUERT: We have, yes. QUESTION: ... and then... NAUERT: And I know last time that members from our embassy were -- were present at his trial. QUESTION: OK. Do you expect that to be happening again? NAUERT: I -- that I do not know. I know we continue to be very concerned about that. We continue to be concerned about freedom of expression, Matt, as you probably know, as many journalists probably do. There was a closure of a newspaper, a news outlet not too long ago. That freedom of speech, human rights remains a concern of ours. And we continue to bring is up (inaudible). QUESTION: OK. And then are you familiar -- overnight as we were all preparing for fireworks and parades and things like that, a human rights women -- female human rights defender was rousted from her home by Bahraini security and arrested. She's accused of cooperating with the U.N. -- U.N. special rapporteurs... NAUERT: OK. QUESTION: And I'm wondering if... (CROSSTALK) NAUERT: Do you have her name, Matt? QUESTION: Yes. NAUERT: Let me look at that for you. QUESTION: Yes, it is Al Saig (ph) -- I'll give you the spelling. NAUERT: OK. And I'll look into it. QUESTION: Thank you. NAUERT: Thank you, everybody. Thanks for coming. I'll see you soon. END

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SEGMENT [ALL] 2011/09/13 ************************************************ Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton announces the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) Designations and releases the Annual Report On International Religious Freedom (IRF) for July through December 2010, at the Department of State Open-in briefing room - FOX POOL LIVE She also comments on the attack on the US embassy in Kabul Secretary Clinton announces the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) Designations and releases the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (IRF) for July through December 2010, in the briefing room at the Department of State SLUG: 1000 CLINTON CPC RS31 71 AR: 16x9 Disc: 698 NYRS: 5104 [TRANSCRIPTION JOINED IN PROGRESS] 10:06:45 before I begin on this important topic, I want to address the issue of Afghanistan where there was an attack on our embassy in Kabul 10:07:23 we are following the situation very closely 10:07:52 I want to say a word about our civilians who serve at our embassy 10:09:29 as you know, the protection of religious freedom is a fundamental 10:10:38 in china, Tibetan Buddhists 10:11:33 this sort of hateful violence SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON: (In progress) -- promote religious tolerance. One of those is U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 1618, which was introduced by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and adopted by consensus in March. It calls on all states to take concrete action against religious bigotry through tolerance, education, government outreach, service projects and interfaith dialogue. And we worked very hard with a number of nations and with the OIC to pass this resolution, and we will be working with our OIC and European counterparts on implementing it. And Ambassador Johnson Cook is leading our efforts. We have also seen Turkey take serious steps to improve the climate for religious tolerance. The Turkish government issued a decree in August that invited non-Muslims to reclaim churches and synagogues that were confiscated 75 years ago. I applaud Prime Minister Erdogan's very important commitment to doing so. Turkey also now allows women to wear head scarves at universities, which means female students no longer have to choose between their religion and their education. Third, as we release this report we reaffirm the role that religious freedom and tolerance play in building stable and harmonious societies. 10:14:10 Hatred and intolerance are destabilizing. When governments crack down on religious expression, when politicians or public figures try to use religion as a wedge issue or when societies fail to take steps to denounce religious bigotry and curb discrimination based on religious identity, they embolden extremists and fuel sectarian strife. And the reverse is also true. When governments respect religious freedom, when they work with civil society to promote mutual respect or when they prosecute acts of violence against members of religious minorities, they can help turn down the temperature. They can foster a public aversion to hateful speech without compromising the right to free expression. And in doing so, they create a climate of tolerance that helps makes a country more stable, more secure and more prosperous. So the United States government will continue our efforts to support religious freedom. We are engaging with faith groups to address the issues that affect them. Our embassies encourage interfaith dialogue, and we will speak out against efforts to curtail religious freedom, because it is our core conviction that religious tolerance is one of the essential elements not only of a sustainable democracy, but of a peaceful society that respects the rights and dignity of each individual. People who have a voice in how they are governed, no matter what their identity or ethnicity or religion, are more likely to have a stake in both their government's and their society's success. That is good for stability, for American national security and for global security. And with that, let me introduce both our assistant secretary and our ambassador-at-large to come forward. Thank you all very much. Q: Madam Secretary, could you just -- do you have anything to -- what your -- can you tell us anything about your understanding of what's going on with -- in Iran with the -- with the -- with the hikers and President Ahmadinejad saying that they might be able -- that they will be freed? 10:16:16 SEC. CLINTON: Well, Matt, as you know, we have followed this very closely, and we are encouraged by what the Iranian government has said today. But I'm not going to comment further than that. We obviously hope that we will see a positive outcome from what appears to be a decision by the government. Q: Thank you. MICHAEL POSNER: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. 10:16:53 As you know, the State Department is mandated by law to produce this report each year. The secretary of state also designates countries of particular concern, countries whose governments have, and I quote the statute, "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom." Secretary Clinton has designated eight states as countries of particular concern. They are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. All of these countries have been long-term, chronic and egregious violators of religious freedom. The report documents in full detail the violations that have prompted these designations. In Burma, for example, hundreds of Buddhist monks are still in prison, and the government refuses to recognize that the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, are Burmese citizens. In China, the government's overall level of respect for religious freedom declined in 2010 and it -- and has worsened this year. The repression of Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims continues. In Iran, members of the Bahai are arrested, expelled from university, and their leaders languish in prisons. Saudi Arabia prohibits the public practice of any religion other than Islam, and the government discriminates against the Shia minority. And in Uzbekistan it's illegal to proselytize, and it's dangerous for a Muslim even to discuss religious issues outside of a state-sanctioned mosque. 10:18:30 These and many other violations in the eight countries of particular concern are spelled out in great detail in the report. But I want to emphasize that the list is by no means the only measure of serious violations of religious freedom. In a significant number of other countries, we are also closely monitoring official repression of religious minorities or official indifference to their plight and urging governments to uphold their affirmative obligations to protect religious freedom. Let me mention a few. We are deeply concerned about the fate of Christians in Syria. Many of these people have been victimized twice. They fled the violence in Iraq, and now many are seeking to flee Syria. The government has created a climate of instability and violence in which the human rights of thousands are being violated on a daily basis. In Pakistan, the government has not reformed a blasphemy law that has been used to prosecute religious minorities and in some cases Muslims who promote tolerance, or to settle personal vendettas. This year there have also been several assassinations of those who called for reform of the blasphemy laws, including the Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, and Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minorities, whom Secretary Clinton and I met in February before he was killed. The government of Pakistan has taken steps to address these rising concerns. For example, in March Shahbaz Bhatti's brother, Paul, was appointed to a special adviser on religious minorities to the prime minister. In July the government also created a Ministry of National Harmony, which will have oversight for protection -- protecting religious minorities at a national level. And in August President Zardari celebrated National Minorities Day and committed his government to support protection of minority religious rights. We will continue to engage with the government of Pakistan to address these issues, to promote tolerance and to improve religious freedom. In Iraq religious minorities and Shia pilgrims have been the targets of devastating attacks since 2003. Last October more than 50 worshipers were killed in an attack on our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church in Baghdad. We welcome the fact that the government of Iraq has tried and convicted the perpetrators of that attack, but the tragic massacre of the Shia pilgrims that Secretary Clinton mentioned that came to light yesterday indicates that there is more work to be done. In Vietnam the record is mixed. While the government has allowed hundreds of new places of worship to be built, significant problems remain, especially at the provincial and village levels. These include slow or no approval of registration for some groups, especially in the north and northwest highlands. There are also reports of harsh treatment of detainees after the protest over the closing of a Catholic cemetery in Con Dau parish. And the government reimprisoned Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic human rights defender, who has been paroled 16 months earlier after suffering a series of strokes while in prison. In Egypt tensions between Christians and Muslims continue. For example, in January a bomb at the Church of Two Saints in Alexandria killed 22 people. After the fall of the Mubarak government in February, soldiers fired on unarmed Copts at the Saint Bishoy Monastery, wounding six. And in May clashes between Muslims and Christians in Imbaba left 15 dead, 232 injured. In response to the Imbaba clashes, military leader Marshal Tantawi issued a strongly worded public condemnation of sectarian attacks, and 48 suspects have been referred for trial. Prime Minister Sharaf has ordered 17 churches be allowed to reopen across Egypt. We will continue to call on the government to pass a unified law which would set one single unified standard for building houses of worship that would apply both to Christians and Muslims. And we stand ready to support political, religious and civic leaders in Egypt as they work to build a new society where democracy and religious tolerance can flourish. In these and other places, we will continue to review and assess the state of religious freedom, and we are prepared to designate other countries as countries of particular concern as the situation warrants. Finally, I would urge leaders of all these nations and civil society groups as well to use this report as a resource to help identify and address violations of religious freedom. We stand ready to help. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Suzan Johnson Cook, who is the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. 10:23:38 SUZAN JOHNSON COOK: Thank you, Mike, and good morning. It is a privilege to be with all of you today as we release this important report. You know, I was sworn in on May 16th after a long haul to get here, but it was worth the wait. Throughout my career, I've had the privilege and opportunity to work with people of different faiths, to bring them together to achieve common goals. It is my belief that in order to live peacefully side by side, we cannot allow violence based on religion to continue under any circumstances. In my first months in the Office of International Religious Freedom, I've met with interfaith leaders from Switzerland, Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC. And I'm working with my colleagues in the U.S. government and the religious community to address systemic challenges to religious intolerance. As the secretary said in her remarks last week, too many countries in the world today do not allow people to exercise their religious freedom, or they make it difficult or dangerous to do so. So as hard as it may be, we need to get up every day and keep trying to make a difference. The International Religious Freedom Report we're releasing today is one way to do that. It shines a spotlight on this fundamental human rights issue and guides our policy-making. The report is the work of my dedicated and talented staff in the International Religious Freedom Office, who have put in long hours, as have all our missions overseas and others here in Washington, to verify that this report is comprehensive, accurate and fair. I would also like to thank the hundreds of activists and academics who regularly provide us with reporting and analysis, sometimes at great personal risk. This year we are publishing the report on our website, www.humanrights.gov. Humanrights.gov is now the one-step location for all our human rights reporting, and we're updating it every day with other State Department statements, speeches and materials. This report covers every country, every faith, and myriad forms of harassment, persecution and abuse on the basis of religion. We hope we will prompt other countries to redouble their efforts to create an environment where citizens can freely follow their faith or profess no faith, according to their own conscience. In some cases, we spotlight government violations of the right to religious freedom, and in other cases we call out governments that are not doing enough to stop violence by some citizens against others. Sadly, the list is long. So I urge all of you to read the executive summary, where we have distilled in just a few pages the state of religious freedom in 2010. Obviously, a great deal has happened since the end of 2010, including the upheaval in the Middle East and an uptick in sectarian violence there, so we've included a summary of key developments around the world in 2011. We also use shoe-leather diplomacy, where -- at the State Department we call engagement. It's going to countries and talking to government officials, religious leaders, educators, human rights activists, journalists, young people and others about how to combat hatred and religious persecution. So I'm going to be hitting the road in the fall. I hope to visit a number of countries that face challenges in protecting religious freedom, including Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And the third way we make a difference is by spotlighting examples of where things are going right. So I also plan to travel to countries that are doing the hard work of resolving religious animosities and taking practical steps to guarantee religious freedom to all their citizens. In July I went with Secretary Clinton to Istanbul for a meeting on combatting religious intolerance. As the lead U.S. coordinator for the implementation of the U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 1618, which she referred to this morning, I'm eager to work with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and others, other partners, to discuss best practices and exchange ideas on how to best protect freedom of religion. 10:27:45 I will convene a meeting of experts later this year with participants from around the world and from a wide variety of faiths and religions. We'll talk about how to counter offensive expression, through education, interfaith dialogue and public debate, and how to prohibit discrimination, profiling and hate crimes. And we will share ways of combatting hate without compromising the universal right to free expression, because everyone must have the right to believe as well as the right to manifest their belief. So I want o thank you for coming this morning. And Assistant Secretary Posner and I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you. STAFF: Questions? Go ahead. Q: Thank you. I have two questions regarding China. The first is, according to CECC, the Congressional and Executive Commission on China, according to their report, Beijing had launched a new round of -- a campaign since year 2010 to year 2012 that says -- quoting -- for increased transformation of Falun Gong practitioners. So I'm wondering if you have been aware of this persecution, this continued persecution. And the second question is, recently China is trying to amend the criminal procedure law, and if this is adopted, it would expand the police power and it may authorize the forced disappearance. So what's your comments on that? MR. POSNER: Sure. Let me just put those two questions in a slightly broader context. We've said repeatedly that we have concerns about what really has been a deteriorating human rights situation, especially since February of this year. I was in China in April for the human rights dialogue. We raised a number of these issues publicly. And the specific question you raise with the Falun Gong is part of a broader pattern. We have concerns about the treatment of those who are in unregistered churches, so-called house churches, the Shouwang church, for example, in Beijing, where, beginning around Eastertime, people were not allowed to gather and a number of the leaders of that church were put in prison. We have concerns about the Uighur community and restrictions on Muslim religion. We have concerns about the Tibetan community -- the Kirti monastery, where 300 monks were taken from the monastery and detained. So there's a broader pattern of religious and other persecution that's part of a broader human rights problem. I also would call out the case of Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who has represented religious communities and who's been missing since April of 2010. Q: Follow up? Two questions, one just to follow up on China. As far as religious freedom in China, you say you have been visiting China and meeting officials and all. But, one, what answer do you get from them as far as their -- not their belief or not belief, but how they prosecute people because of their faith, especially people from -- Tibetans and Buddhists are still in jails, and we don't know and you may not know how many of them. And every day, they go to jail because of their belief in God or in what they worship. So what do you hear from them? Year after year, this report comes and you meet and greet here and there and all that. MR. POSNER: Well, you know, I take the view -- first of all, we will continue to raise these issues in China and elsewhere, because they're universal norms; they apply to every country in the world. And there's an obligation of every government to respect those norms. We have continuous discussions as part of a broader engagement with China, but these issues are an important part of that dialogue. And I can't tell you that every time I've had a conversation we've agreed or had satisfying results, but I do believe that raising these issues both publicly and privately serves a number of purposes. It provides assurance to people in the country that we're paying attention, we know what's going on. It reinforces their commitment to move -- to continue working. And in some cases, we have been able to get results, like releases or better conditions. We'll continue to press, even if some of the discussions are difficult. Q: And my other question is on overall religious freedom. (Let's say ?) I've been going through this report and also what you said and secretary said as far as in Pakistan, and also Saudi Arabia. And including in the U.S., or in Saudi Arabia or in Pakistan, if you go in the mosques, the teachings are not about their religion or teachings; it is basically hatred against other religions in the mosques. And also, in Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs and Christians are under attack more and more, as you go through the last year's report. But government officials have not taken any steps against those, even -- including reading these 13 lines on Pakistan. So Pakistan -- like an open society in many ways, and friends of the United States and ally; and also, on comparing with Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, it may be a different story, because in Saudi Arabia they don't allow any non- Muslims to practice anything, but in Pakistan it's a different society. But still, why is it Pakistan has not been -- taken care of taking any steps against those who practice with other religious people? MR. POSNER: Well, I think what I said in my opening comments -- well, we are -- as your comments suggest, or your question, we are concerned about the blasphemy law, about the intolerance in Pakistan, about the murder of Minister Bhatti and Governor Taseer. At the same time, the government has in the last several months taken a few positive steps, and we are working with the government on the assumption that these issues need to be addressed. We are -- we work with the government on a range of things. This is an important subject, and the increasing extremism in that society I think is worrying to everybody. So we are very mindful of the things you raise in both Pakistan and in Saudi Arabia, and these are issues that we're very attentive to and will be more so. Q: One more quickly, if you don't mind. STAFF: Come on, let's give -- Goyal, let's give some other people a chance. Betty (sp). Q: Thank you. You've mentioned engagement as a way of promoting religious tolerance in different countries. What about the countries where you don't have access to, where you don't have any relations, you don't have presence -- such as Iran, for example? MR. POSNER: Well, we are, obviously, very frustrated by a number of things in Iran, including the continued harassment of the Baha'i. There were seven Baha'i leaders who were sentenced to 20 years in jail. The government then reduced it to 10, and now they've upped it again to 20 years. They're eight leaders of one of the Baha'i schools of higher education that are being put on trial. People -- Baha'i kids can't go to the regular universities. So there's a range of things, not only the Baha'i but other minority communities. We raised these issues. We continue raising these issues. We have obviously a difficult relationship with that government or North Korea, other places that are on the list. But I think it is again important for us to be clear about the facts, to hold every government to the same standards. It does reinforce people in those societies who understand and know that the United States government is listening and paying attention. Q: (Off mic) -- in Geneva, but even they apparently have not had any effect. Is there any other mechanisms through which you can get to these countries, such countries? MR. POSNER: Well, I think, with respect to Iran in particular, there is now a special rapporteur that's focused on Iran, who's just beginning his work. And I think that will also play a useful role. It's not just the United States, it's the global community; the Human Rights Council selected that individual. And we're now going to see whether the government lets him in and if -- and what kind of a report he produces and then what the reaction is. 10:36:34 But again, I think there's a drumbeat, and there's a growing view in this world that these issues of human rights and religious freedom are part of what's expected of every government in the global community. Q: Was the OIC itself helpful at all? It's Islamic. MR. POSNER: Well, I think, again -- and Sujay can speak to this as well, I hope, and will -- I think the OIC has helped us change the discussion, which was a very negative discussion of defamation, which was at the Human Rights Council for a decade or so. We were debating endlessly a Pakistan and OIC-promoted resolution that really pitted us against some of the Islamic countries because it focused on ways to restrict free speech. Our view is that free speech and promoting religious tolerance and harmony are consistent. And so what the OIC secretary-general has done and -- Sujay and Secretary Clinton were with him in Istanbul -- is to talk about an alternative, this 1618 resolution, which has now been adopted by the U.N., which says let's go at the problem of religious discrimination, religious intolerance affirmatively. Let's find some practical ways forward. And he's listed about a dozen of them. Those are useful things, and that's partly what we need to be focusing on: an affirmative agenda. MS. JOHNSON COOK: And the resolution that was achieved was the result of 10 years' worth of work, and so it's an ongoing effort. But we're now at the implementation stage. And so Istanbul was a successful trip, and we're going forward with my hosting the experts in December here at the secretary's invitation. So it's ongoing, and so we will not let it go. Thank you. Q: Hi. I wanted to ask you about Israel. There's issues of Christians and Muslims being able to worship freely, and also there's been several attacks on mosques in the West Bank. Have you been speaking to the Israeli government about this? How much responsibility do they hold in trying to protect as an occupying power? MR. POSNER: We do speak to the Israeli government about this and a range of other human rights issues. I've been myself particularly involved since the Goldstone report in dealing with some of the issues of humanitarian access, et cetera in the context of a U.N. resolution. But I would say, I think to put this in a broader frame, at the center of a lot of the tensions in Israel, in the West Bank and Gaza is the absence of a peace process, of a peace process that's yielding a two-state solution. That's what we favor. A lot will be -- a lot of human rights issues are going to be dealt with much more directly and easily once we have that process up and running and once we get a result. STAFF: Go ahead. Q: Thank you. Could you comment on the situation on religious freedom in Georgia in general? And also, I was wondering if you would give us some more details about Uzbekistan (and all ?) the former Soviet states that appear in -- (inaudible). MR. POSNER: I don't have anything, I think, to add to what's in the report on Georgia. 10:39:54 With respect to Uzbekistan, we have had a set of -- I've been to Uzbekistan twice. We had a -- my colleague Tom Melia was part of a bilateral dialogue that occurred last week here with the government of Uzbekistan, and one of the things he raised, and Ambassador Blake, is the issue of religious freedom. We continue to have concerns about both restrictions on the ability of religion -- religious groups -- unregistered groups to participate, to operate openly. I met with a number of religious figures when I was last there who had church services disrupted, some religious leaders arrested. So there really is an ongoing problem there, and we are eager to work with the government to try to improve that record. STAFF: One last question. Go ahead. Q: Hitting Pakistan again, I wondered if you see any progress on the blasphemy law and whether you've considered adding it as a CPC. MR. POSNER: We certainly consider adding any country, and there -- and we are very mindful, as I said in my opening comments, about the -- both misuse of the blasphemy law, the fact that it's been applied so often and the fact that some people have been -- have received severe sentences as a result of it. We are going to continue to work with the government. We've seen some positive steps in the last few months. But I think the message here is we have great concern about the overall situation of extremism and intolerance in Pakistan, and we stand ready to work with the government to try to address that. STAFF: Thank you all.

President Obama holds town hall event in backyard of Columbus, Ohio area family house / home -- STIX SLUG: 1030 WH OH PATH 1 RS33 83 AR: 16x9 Disc: 667 *Fed to NY on 5114* 10:46:50 WS of Obama entering with Weithman family 10:47:02 well I'm just thrilled to be here. And iw ant to thank joe and Rhonda and the entire family for being such great hosts.I see the mayor of colombus is here.we got one of the best senators I believe in the united states senate, Sherrod brown is here.give those folks a big round of applause (transcript joined in progress) OBAMA: ... I see the mayor of Columbus is here, a great friend. Somebody who's going to be running, and I hope winning, for the U.S. Senate -- Lee Fisher is here. And Mary Jo Kilroy is here. We got -- we got one of the best senators, I believe, in the United States Senate -- and Sherrod Brown is here. And one of the finest governors in the country, Ted Strickland, is here. So give those folks a big round of applause. (APPLAUSE) 10:47:53 Should we tell them to take off their jackets, too? (LAUGHTER) Take off your jackets, guys. Lighten up a little bit here, geez. This is just a great opportunity for me to have a conversation with you. 10:48:08 And I don't want this to be too formal. What I want to do is have a chance to listen to you, and also answer your questions. What we've tried to do whenever we are in a setting like this is to talk about the things that folks are going through day to day, because, look, I'll be honest with you, sometimes when you're in Washington you get caught up with the particular legislative battles or, you know, the media spin on certain issues, and sometimes you lose touch in terms of what folks are talking about around the kitchen table. 10:48:45 One of the ways that I stay in touch is through events like this, as well as reading letters from constituents and voters all across the country every night. And, obviously, what's on a lot of people's minds right now is the economy. We went through the worst recession that we've had since the Great Depression. And when I was sworn in about 18 months ago, we had already lost several million jobs, and we were about to lose several million more. 10:49:17 We lost 800,000 jobs the month I was sworn in. And so we had to act fast and take some emergency steps to prevent the economy from going back into what could have been a great depression. And we were successful in doing so. We stabilized the economy. We stabilized the financial system. We didn't have a complete meltdown. And whereas we were losing jobs in the private sector when I was first sworn in, we're now gaining jobs and we've gained jobs seven consecutive months in the private sector. The economy was shrinking about 6 percent. The economy is now growing. 10:49:58 So we've made progress. But, let's face it, the progress hasn't been fast enough. And Joe and Rhonda (inaudible) were just talking about the challenges that they've had to go through when Rhonda got laid off. OBAMA: And, by the way, also lost her health insurance in the process, at a time when her son was going through some significant medical needs. So in addition to trying to stop the crisis, what we also wanted to do was make sure that we were helping people get back on their feet. 10:50:34 So something that I'm very pleased with is that Rhonda was able to use the provisions that we passed to help her get COBRA so that she had health insurance, could keep her health insurance at a time when the family was very much in need. And millions of people across the country have been able to keep their health insurance. We've also been trying to help our state and local governments so that they're not having to lay off as many teachers and firefighters and police officers. 10:51:04 And I know that -- I think the mayor and the governor would acknowledge that the help that we've provided them has really helped to plug some big budget holes. And, in addition, what we've been trying to do is to build infrastructure that puts people back to work, but also improves the quality of life in communities like Columbus. So Joe is an architect, and he is now working on a new police station that was funded in part with Recovery Act funds. So all these things have made a difference. But we've still got a long way to go. And so a couple of things that we're focused on right now is, number one, making sure that small businesses are getting help because small businesses, like Joe's architectural firm, are really the key to our economy. 10:51:57 They create two out of every three jobs. And so we want to make sure that they're getting financing. We want to make sure that we are cutting their taxes in certain key areas. One of the things that we've done, for example, is propose that we eliminate capital gains taxes on small businesses so that when they're starting up and they don't have a lot of cash flow, that's exactly the time when they should get a break and they should get some help. We're focusing, as well, on trying to figure out can we build more infrastructure here in Ohio and all across the country that puts people back to work, 10:52:30 not just building roads and bridges, but also building things like high-speed rail or building broadband lines that can connect communities and give people access to the Internet at a time when that's going to be critical in terms of long-term economic development. We're also going to have to look at how do we over the long-term get control of our deficit, and that's obviously something that a lot of people have on their minds. OBAMA: The key is to make sure that we do so in a way that doesn't impede recovery, but rather gives people confidence over the medium and the long term. And I'm -- I'm going to be happy to talk about what we're doing in terms of spending. 10:53:14 But, overall, the main message that I want to deliver before I start taking questions, and I said this to Joe and Rhonda, is slowly but surely we are moving in the right direction. We're on the right track. The economy is getting stronger, but it really suffered a big trauma. And we're not going to get all 8 million jobs that were lost back overnight. It's going to take some time. And businesses are still trying to get more confident out there before they start hiring. And people, consumers, are not going to start spending until they feel a little more confident that the economy is getting stronger. And so what we're trying to do is create sort of a virtuous cycle where people start feeling better and better about the economy. And a lot of it's sort of like recovering from an illness. You get a little bit stronger each day and you take a few more steps each day. And that's where our economy's at right now. What we can't afford to do is to start going backwards and doing some of the same things that got us into trouble in the first place. You know, this is why it's been so important for us to, example -- for example -- to pass something like Wall Street reform, to make sure that we're not creating the same kinds of financial bubbles and the massive leverage and the reckless risks that helped to create this problem in the first place. And I am very proud that we've got somebody like a Sherrod Brown and or a Mary Jo who worked really tirelessly with us in Congress to make sure that we don't have a situation where we've got to bail out banks that have taken reckless risks, that we are monitoring, you know, what's happening in the financial system a lot more carefully, that people -- making sure people aren't cheated when it comes to their mortgages or -- or that there are a bunch of hidden fees in their credit cards that help to create some of the problems that we've seen in the financial systems. 10:55:15 OBAMA: You know, we can't go back to doing things the way we were doing them before. We've got to go forward. That's what we're trying to do. And, hopefully, as we continue over the next several months, the next several years, we're going to see a Columbus and an Ohio and a United States of America that is going to be stronger than it was before this crisis struck. I am absolutely confident of that. But we've got more work to do. All right? So with that, what I want to do is, I just want to open it up; and you guys can ask me questions about anything. And just ignore all these cameras who are here. (LAUGHTER) Pretend they're not there. The only thing I would ask is -- is introduce yourselves so that -- so that I get a chance to know you. Or if you haven't met one of your neighbors, this is a good chance for you to do so. But why don't we start with this gentleman right here? And we've got some mikes. The only reason -- the main reason we're using mikes is so that these folks behind us can hear you. This gentleman right here. QUESTION: Hi, President Obama. I hope I don't pass out while I'm asking this question, so. 10:56:29 My question is actually about health care. My brother is disabled. He is -- and is definitely what I would consider one of the working poor. He -- he will not mature any more as far as mindset of a 12-year-old. Right now he works, you know, washing dishes at a local restaurant. And, unfortunately, because the employer does not offer health care insurance, one whole check -- which is two weeks' worth of work -- has to actually go toward, you know, him just paying for COBRA, which is obviously well out of his budget, but he has to simply because of the various illnesses that he suffers from. 10:57:10 My question is, unfortunately, I'm not able to sit down and read a 2,000-page bill -- or a law, or -- with all the reform that happened with health care. With the present reforms that went into place, how will that help him? And if it doesn't, then how will -- I know that you're not done with health care. How will your -- you know, your -- the latest changes that you want to happen with health care, how will that help them? And thank you for doing such a wonderful job. OBAMA: Well, thank you. 10:57:41 The -- you know, here's how specifically health reform should help your brother. Number one, it gives an incentive to his employer to provide health insurance. OBAMA: Because one of the key components of health care reform was providing employers a 35 percent tax break on the premiums they pay for their employees. All right? So basically it's cutting his potential costs, the employer's potential costs for providing your brother with health insurance, it's cutting it by a third. That's step number one. And there are going to be companies out there that say, "You know what? We want to provide health insurance but we just couldn't afford to do it, but now that it's costing us up to a third less, saving us thousands of dollars, maybe we should go ahead and provide coverage for that." OK? So that is step number one. 10:58:35 Step number two is, if the employer still doesn't provide coverage, over the next couple of years your brother is going to be able to join a pool, what we're calling an exchange, where he can basically buy the same kind of insurance that these members of Congress are buying. And the advantage that he's going to have is that now he's part of a pool of millions of people who are buying it all at the same time, which means they've got leverage the same way big companies are able to lower their costs per employee because the insurance company really wants their business. Well, now your brother could be part of the same pool that these guys are, and that's going to give leverage, which will lower his rates. 10:59:25 And the final part of it is, if even with these lower rates, this better deal, he still can't afford it, then we're going to provide some subsidies to help him. So all those things combined should help make sure that your brother is getting health insurance. Now, one of the things that I think people may not be aware of is that although this exchange isn't going to be set up until 2014, because it takes a while, 11:27:22 we've got to set it up right, there are some immediate things that are helping right now. If your child has a preexisting condition, insurance companies, starting this year, will not be able to deny those children coverage, and that's a big deal for a lot of folks whose children may have diabetes or some other illness and right now can't get insurance. OBAMA: Insurance companies are going to have to provide them insurance. That's number one. 11:00:21 Number two, how many -- how many people here have kids who are college age, about to go to college? All right. Well, one of the things that you're going to be able to do is, when those kids get out of college, if they don't get insurance right away, they're going to be able to stay on your insurance until they're 26 years old. That's a big deal because, a lot of times that first job or those first couple of jobs out of college are the ones that don't provide health insurance. So there are a number of changes that are being made right now that will make those of you who have health insurance more secure with the insurance they have. We're eliminating lifetime limits. There's a bunch of fine print on the insurance forms that sometimes have ended up creating real problems for people. Your insurance company decides to drop you right when you get sick, just when you need it most. 11:01:17 Those kinds of practices are over now. And the final aspect of health reform that's important is that, by changing the incentives for how doctors get paid under Medicare and under Medicaid, we're actually encouraging doctors to become more efficient so that, over time, health care costs actually start leveling out a little bit instead of skyrocketing each and every year. Because everybody here who's got health insurance, what's been happening? Your premiums have been going up, co-payments, deductibles; all that's stuff has been going up. So we've got to actually try to control the costs of it, and part of it is just a matter of making sure that we get a better bang for our health care dollar. 11:01:59 So, for example, when you go to a doctor, you know, we're still filling out forms in triplicate on paper. It's the only business there is that -- where you still have a whole bunch of paperwork. And what we're trying to do is to encourage information technologies so that, when you go into a doctor, they can already pull down your medical records electronically. If you take a test, then it's sent to all the -- all the specialists who are involved so you don't end up having to take four or five tests and pay for four or five tests when all you needed was just one. Those are the kinds of things that will take a little bit longer to actually take into effect, but hopefully, over time, are actually going to lower costs. All right. I'm going to go, boy-girl, here, to make sure it's fair. (LAUGHTER) Right here. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) OBAMA: Absolutely. (LAUGHTER) 11:02:50 QUESTION: Mr. President, I'm concerned about the furor lately that's been similar to what's happened in the past but is re-emerging, mostly from the Republican Party but some Democrats, that Social Security needs to be privatized because it's losing money and we're all going to -- it's going to go broke and that sort of thing. How would you comment on that? 11:03:10 OBAMA: I have been adamant in saying that Social Security should not be privatized, and it will not be privatized as long as I'm president. And here's -- here's the reason. (APPLAUSE) I -- I was opposed to it before the financial crisis, and what I said was that the purpose of Social Security is to have that -- that floor, you know, that solid, rock-solid security, so that no matter what else happens, you've always got some income to support you in your retirement. OBAMA: And I've got no problem with people investing in their 401(k)s. And we want to encourage people to invest in private savings accounts. But Social Security has to be separate from that. Now, imagine if Social Security, if a portion of that, had been in the stock market back in 2006 and 2007. I mean, you saw what happened with your 401(k)s. You -- you lost 20, 30, 40 percent of it. Now we've recovered; in part, because of the policies that we put into place to stabilize the situation, the stock market has recovered 60, 70 percent of its value from its peak. 11:04:32 But, you know, if you were really in need last year or the year before and suddenly you see your assets drop by 40 percent, and that's all you're relying on, it would've been a disaster. So here's -- here's the thing: Social Security is not in crisis. What is happening is, is that the population's getting older, which means we've got more retirees per worker than we used to. We're going to have to make some modest adjustments in order to strengthen it. There are some fairly modest changes that could be made without resorting to any newfangled schemes that would continue Social Security for another 75 years, where everybody would get the benefits that they deserve. And what we've done is we've created a fiscal commission of Democrats and Republicans to come up with what would be the best combination to help stabilize Social Security for not just this generation, but the next generation. I am absolutely convinced it can be done. And as I said, I want to encourage people to -- to save more on their own. But I don't want them taking money out of Social Security so that people are putting that into the stock market. OBAMA: You know, there are other ways of doing this. For example, it turns out that if you set up a system with your employer where the employer automatically deducts some of your paycheck and puts it into your 401(k) account, 11:06:15 unless you say you don't want it done, it turns out people save more just naturally. You know, I mean, it's just kind of a psychological thing. If they take it out of your paycheck and they automatically take it out, unless you affirmatively say don't take it out, you'll save more than if they ask you, "Do you want to save?" and then you say, "No, I'm going to keep the money," and then you save less. 11:06:36 So that's just a small change. It's voluntary. But that in and of itself could end up boosting savings rates significantly. So there are a bunch of ways that we can do, make sure that retirement's more secure, but we've got to make sure that Social Security is there -- is there not just for this generation, but for the next one. OK? All right. Gentleman's turn. And by the way, I know that some folks may be hot. And if they are, you know, you guys can always move into the shade. 11:07:07 QUESTION: Mr. President, sir, my name is Aaron McGreevey (ph). I was born and raised in a good blue collar town, in Toledo, Ohio. I grew up in a union family, and I work now for a significant number of pension assets in the labor union market with an investment firm. I think the question I have that most bothers me is what's important to my people out there I talk to. And those two things are, the first, what's going to happen with their pensions, especially those, as you know, in the red and the yellow. The PPA has not exactly been that favorable to them and the PBGC is not a very good option. My father had to take early retirement and he's not receiving the maximum amount after decades of hard work and service that he anticipated. The second part is, I'm not naive enough to think that just the pensions alone can help save workers. We've got 9.5 percent unemployment in this country, at least at last release. And I'm sure, as you know, that's even more -- it's larger than that for the manufacturing industry and us in the Rust Belt -- Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland. 11:07:59 Obviously, we need to put those guys back to work. They need to have manhours out there. How can we create a sustainable, competitive product and an advantage to make us another leader in the manufacturing and labor force industry going forward, not just to get them back to work for a year or two, sir, but to get back to work for the long term so they can grow the market on their own, with their own product and their own work? 11:08:19 OBAMA: Well, look, this is a great question, and it goes to the heart of what our economic strategy has to be. And Senator Brown, Congresswoman Kilroy and others, I know this is their number one concern each and every day -- and certainly this is your governor's number one concern each and every day -- is how do we make sure that we're creating a competitive America in which we aren't just buying things from other countries, we're selling things to other countries; and we're making things here in the United States of America. Let me give you a couple of examples of areas that I think have enormous promise. Number one is the whole clean energy industry. 11:08:59 And Toledo actually is becoming a leader in this, creating good jobs in areas like solar -- building solar panels, wind turbines, advanced battery manufacturing. There is a whole series of huge potential manufacturing industries in which we end up being world leaders and, as a bonus, end up creating a more energy efficient economy that is also good for the environment. 11:09:40 Now, we made at the beginning of my term, the largest investment in clean energy in our history. And so there are plants that are opening up all across the country, creating products made in America that are now being shipped overseas. I'll give you one example, and that's the advanced battery manufacturing industry. These are the batteries that go into electric cars or the batteries that are ending up helping to make sure that if you get solar power or wind power that it can be transmitted in an efficient way. We had 2 percent of the entire market -- 2 percent. By 2015, in five years, we're going to have 40 percent of that market because of the investments that we made. 11:10:25 So one of the advanced battery manufacturing plants that we helped get going was key loans and support and tax breaks. They're now putting those batteries into the Chevy Volt. And you combine it then with an entire new U.S. auto industry that is cleaner and smarter, and has better designs, is making better products. Those are potentially thousands -- tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. And the Midwest is really poised to get a lot of jobs. In a town like Toledo where you still got a lot of skilled workers, they are poised to be able to take off on that. But we've got to continue to support it. 11:11:13 The other area that I've already mentioned is infrastructure. We've got about $2 trillion worth of infrastructure improvements that need to be made all across the country -- roads, bridges, sewer lines, water mains. It's crumbling. The previous generation made all these investments that not only put people to work right away, but also lay the foundation, then, for economic growth in the future. OBAMA: And, you know, we used to always have the best infrastructure, worldwide. Now, you know, if it comes to rail, we certainly don't have the best rail system in the world. Our roads, in a lot of places, aren't the best. Our airports aren't the best. (LAUGHTER) Somebody's laughing. They just got -- obviously went through an airport. So we've got a lot of work to do on infrastructure. And this is an area where I hope we can get some bipartisan agreement. It's hard to get bipartisan agreement these days, but I think the notion that we can put people to work rebuilding America, investing in making stuff here in the United States, that -- by the way, every time you build a road, that's not just putting people to work on the actual construction. All those supplies that go into road building, all those supplies that go into a bridge, all those supplies that go into rail -- that's creating a ripple effect all throughout the economy. 11:12:49 So I think that's a second area of great potential. The last point you made was -- had to do with pensions. Look, the truth be told, the way we were handling pensions, both in private companies and among public employees, a lot of it wasn't that different from some of the stuff that was going on on Wall Street. Because what happened was -- is that these pensions weren't adequately funded. Some of these companies would underfund it and then say, well, we're going to get an 8 percent return or a 10 percent return on our pension funds to make it look like they're adequately funded when they weren't. That contributed to pension funds chasing a lot of risky investments that promised these high returns but, in fact, you know, were built on a house of cards. 11:13:46 So you're going to see a number of pensions in a number of companies that are underfunded. Now, we've got a -- a mechanism at the federal level that provides a certain percentage backup or guarantee for these pension funds if they fail. But we're going to have to, I think, work with these private- sector companies so that -- right now, they become very profitable. You know, companies are making money right now. We were talking earlier about the economy and how it's moving slow. Well, corporate profits are doing just fine. They're holding onto a whole bunch of cash. They're, kind of, sitting on it, waiting to see if they can make more money and more opportunity, but they haven't started hiring yet. One of the things they need to be doing with some of this cash is shoring up their pension funds that are currently underfunded. OK? It's a girl's turn. Yes, right there. 11:14:38 QUESTION: Mr. President, thank you. Tied in with the jobs situation, I think, is the education system, and it seems to be in a crisis now, and people are not being educated to take these jobs that are going to be created. And I wondered what sort of plans you might have for -- for that? OBAMA: That's a great question. Are you -- are you in education? QUESTION: No, I'm a nurse. (LAUGHTER) 11:15:10 OBAMA: Well, that's important, too. QUESTION: Yes. (LAUGHTER) OBAMA: Thanks -- thanks for the care you give to people all day long. I'm a big fan of nurses. So the thing that will probably most determine our success in the 21st century is going to be our education system. I'll just give you a quick statistic. A generation ago, we ranked number one in the number of college graduates. We've now slipped to number 12 in the number of college graduates. That's just in one generation. 11:15:41 That is putting us at a huge competitive disadvantage because, look, companies these days, they can locate anywhere. You've got an Internet line, you can set your company up in India; you can set up your company in the Czech Republic. It doesn't really matter where you are. And so what that means is a lot of companies are going to look for where can they find the best workforce. And we have to make sure that that is in Columbus, Ohio. We've got to make sure that's that in Toledo. We've got to make sure that that's in the United States of America. Now, we still have the best universities and the best colleges on earth, but there are a couple of problems that have come up. First of all, our education starts at K through 12. And we're not doing a good enough job at the K through 12 level, making sure that all our kids are proficient in math and science, in reading and writing. And what we've done is we've set up something called the Race to the Top, where, although a lot of federal money still flows to schools just based on a formula and based on need. OBAMA: We've taken a certain amount of money and we've said, you know what, you've got to compete for this money, and you've got to show us that you've got a plan to improve the education system, to fix low-performing schools, to improve how you train teachers, because teachers are the single most important ingredient in the education system, to collect data to show that you're improving how these kids are learning. And what's happened is, is that states all across the country have actually responded really well. And we've seen the majority of states change their laws to start doing this bottom-up grassroots reform the K-12 system. That's critical. That's number one. Second thing that we've got to solve is that college became unaffordable for a lot of people. And Joe and Rhonda, we were just talking, 11:17:48 we're about the same age, and we got married, I think, the same year, our kids are about the same age. So we've kind of gone through the same stuff. And Michelle and I -- I don't know about you guys, we didn't talk about this -- but Michelle and I, we had a lot of debt when we finished school. It was really expensive. And we -- neither of us came from wealthy families, so we just had to take out a bunch of student loans. It took us about 10 years to pay off our student loans. It was actually higher than our mortgage for most of the time. And I don't want that burden to be placed on kids right now because a lot of them, as a consequence, maybe they decide not to go to college or, if they do, they end up getting off to a really tough start because their pay just is not going to support the amount of debt that they've got. So here's what we did, working with Sherrod, working with Mary Jo, Democrats in Congress. This didn't get a lot of attention, but we actually completely transformed how the government student loan program works. Originally what was happening was all those loans were going through banks and financial intermediaries, and even though the loans were guaranteed by the government so the banks weren't takes any risks, they were skimming off billions of dollars in profits. And we said, well, that doesn't make any sense, if we're guaranteeing it, why don't we just give the loans directly to the students and we'll take all that extra billions of dollars that were going to the banks as profits and we'll give more loans. And as a consequence what we've been able to do is to provide millions of more students additional loans and make college more affordable over time. That's the second thing. 11:19:31 Third thing we've got to do is we've got to focus on community colleges, which are a wonderful asset. Not everybody's going to go to a four-year college. And even if you go to a four-year college you may need to go back and retrain two years or -- for a year or two even while you're working to keep up -- keep pace with new technologies, new developments in your industry. So what we really try to do is -- is to partner with community colleges, figure out how we can strengthen them, put more resources into them, and link them up to businesses who are actually hiring so that they're training people for the jobs that exist as opposed to the jobs that don't. 11:20:10 One of the problems we've had for a lot of young people is they go to college training for a job thinking that their job's -- or thinking there's a job out there, and actually the economy has moved on. And what we need to do is tailor people's education so that they are linked up with businesses who say, "We need this many engineers," or, "We need this kind of technical training," or -- and we'll help design what that training is so that when that person goes to college and they're taking out some of those loans to go to college, they know at the end of the road there's actually going to be a job available to them. Last thing, math, science -- we've really got to emphasize those. That's an area where we've really fallen far behind. And our technological competitiveness is going to depend on how well we do in math and science. All right. O.K. Who we got? Yes, sir. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) (LAUGHTER) 11:21:09 QUESTION: Mr. President, my name is Joe Richard (ph). I am a proud firefighter for the great city of Columbus here in Ohio. (APPLAUSE) Thank you much (ph). (CROSSTALK) OBAMA: Joe -- Joe, did you used to play for Ohio State, man? (LAUGHTER) QUESTION: I must correct you. I was actually part of the national championship team for Eastern Kentucky University. OBAMA: Oh, O.K., all right. That's nice. QUESTION: But a national champion, no less. (LAUGHTER) OBAMA: Well, there you go, O.K. But you look like you could -- we could put you on the line right now. QUESTION: Oh, that's what they all say. (LAUGHTER) But, Mr. President, I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things, as it pertains to the safety and security of our firefighters. 11:21:46 QUESTION: I want to share with you some good news as it pertains to the stimulus and the SAFER Act for which you championed and signed off on. Locally and from the state's standpoint, we had some firefighter jobs in jeopardies, up in the hundreds. The stimulus package -- I know the state was strapped with its commitment and what it had to do with those monies. Some of those areas we weren't able to be supported -- supported in. But because of your administration signing off on the SAFER Act, which is Staffing, Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, you provided over $300 million last year and upped that to over $400 million this year that had allowed for the jobs in Ohio to come back -- the firefighters, rather, on the jobs to come back and get their jobs back. 11:22:37 In addition to that, the FIRE (ph) Act has provided safer equipment for us. We -- don't want to sound cliches, but I'm just your average Joe. But what we do as firefighters, we want to make a significant difference to our citizens here in our community as well as our lives. That SAFER Act and that FIRE Act has provided us significant equipment -- money funding, rather, for significant equipment, fire -- face pieces, self-contained breathing apparatus, things of those natures. So we come to say how proud we are to be able to afford it -- to be able to afford that opportunity to secure our firefighters. The international president has sent an appreciative thank you, and we would hope that you would find -- I know your busy schedule -- somewhere around this country -- Cincinnati, Akron, Elyria, Niles -- have brought back firefighters because of the SAFER Act, And if anywhere along your schedule you have the opportunity as a symbolic gesture of support to stop into those stations, thank those firefighters, we would greatly appreciate that. OBAMA: Well, the -- thank you. And as I said, you guys put your lives on the line each and every day. We wanted to make sure that public safety was not being threatened as a consequence of the recession. We've done that. We've helped to support not just firefighters, but also police officers, teachers, other vital services. We're going to continue to support you. And, again, we're very grateful for everything you do. And if this is your lovely wife here, we're grateful to her, too, because she's got to -- she's got to put up with you... (LAUGHTER) ... you know, running off into fires and putting yourself in danger. And I'm sure that makes her a little bit stressed once in a while. But I'm sure she's very proud of you. OK. Anybody else? Yes? Go ahead. Here, we've got -- we got a microphone over here. QUESTION: Hi, Mr. President. My name is Pam Cohen (ph), and I was actually recently laid off of a position working at our local community college helping dislocated workers get back and get retrained. QUESTION: But the position was funded on workforce investment dollars and the funding ended. As I look for a new position in social services, one of my concerns is I'm having trouble finding a position that pays enough so that I can pay my bills and also send my daughter to quality child care. So I was wondering if there is anything that's been done to reduce child care costs in Washington? 11:25:14 OBAMA: Well, we have a child care credit in place. We'd like to make it stronger. This is one of those back-and-forths we've been having with the Republicans, because we actually think it is a good idea, and they don't. (LAUGHTER) But -- but I think that giving families support who have to work each and every day is absolutely critical. Now, there's some companies that are starting to get smart about providing child care on-site for their employees, which makes a huge difference. It's a huge relief. But those are usually bigger companies, and some of the smaller companies or small businesses don't have that capacity. You know, the bottom line is, we just have got to make sure that we're providing you more support, primarily through a tax credit mechanism. This is something that we have incorporated in the past in our budget. We haven't gotten everything that we'd like done on it. It will be something that we continue to try to work on a bipartisan basis to get the cost of child care down. There's another component of this, though, and that's also boosting the quality of child care. You know, kids learn more from the age of zero to three than they do probably for the rest of their lives. And this goes to the earlier question about education. We want to get them off to a good start, knowing their colors and their numbers and their letters and just knowing how to sit still. And a high-quality child care environment can help on that front. But that means that child care workers, for example, have to be paid a decent wage and get decent training. And we've been working -- you know, we set up, actually, a task force that is trying to lift up best practices. You know, who is really doing a great job in creating high- quality health care, or child care, at an affordable rate and then trying to teach other states and other cities and, you know, other communities how to replicate some of that great progress that's been made. There are some terrific progress out there, but they're still too far and few between. OK? All right. I've got time for two more questions. Yes, sir, right here? QUESTION: My name's Mike O'Reilly, and I work for a company that just is benefiting from some stimulus money here in Columbus. And it's -- it's keeping me and my crews afloat for a while, but what we really need is a stronger housing market here in Columbus. We need to be building new roads and making houses affordable for people. They need to get out there, buying. They need to be able to get the loans and -- what's up with that? (LAUGHTER) OBAMA: Well -- well, remember I told you that it's going to take some time for this economy to come back? 11:28:13 One of the reasons it's going to take time for this economy to come back is the housing market is still a big drag on the economy as a whole, is we built a lot of homes over the previous five, seven, 10 years. OBAMA: Every year, about 1.4 million families are formed that are ready to buy a new house or need -- need someplace to live. And what happened over the previous four, five, seven years during this housing bubble was we were building 2 million homes a year when only 1.4 million were being absorbed. And then, the bubble burst. And now we're only building 400,000. And all that inventory that's, you know, happened during the housing bubble, it's still out there. So some states are worse than others. You go to places like Nevada or Arizona, or Florida, California, you know, their inventory of unsold homes was so high that it is just going to take a whole bunch of years to absorb all that housing stock. Now, what we can do is to help people who are currently in their homes stay in their homes. We can strengthen the economy overall so that new family that just formed, you know, they feel confident enough to say, "You know, what? It's time, honey, for us to go out and take the plunge and start looking." And right now they're kind of holding back the way a lot of people are still holding back because there's uncertainty in the market. And we've initiated through the Treasury Department a number of programs like that to help support the housing market generally. But I want to be, you know, honest with you. It is going to take some time for us to absorb this over -- this inventory that was just too high. And there's no really quick way to do it. Because we're talking about a $5 trillion market. And we can't plug that big hole in terms of all the housing that needs to be absorbed. We're not going to be able to subsidize, you know, all that overcapacity right now. What we can do is just stabilize it, and then improve the economy overall. What we're going to do is get back to the point where we're building 1.4 million homes a year instead of 400,000. And that's a huge difference. So the industry is going to come back. The question is, can we just nudge it a little bit more? And the most important thing we can do now is to improve the economy overall so that people start feeling a little more confidence. All right? 11:31:13 I've got time for one more. You had a question? Here, you can use mine. (LAUGHTER) QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Nadine Eggleston (ph). QUESTION: I'm the practice manager at an ophthalmology practice at the Eye Center of Columbus downtown. It is a great facility that the city of Columbus helped us get in place. There are over 30 ophthalmologists providing specialty care in separate practices, a state-of-the-art ambulatory surgery center. We see tens of thousands of patients a year. And I think we do a very efficient job of providing quality care. Over 300 people employed. So I'm kind of on both sides of health care. When I started working for this practice 25 years ago, we are now getting reimbursed one-third of what we got paid for -- I'm just going to pick cataract surgery -- yet our operating costs continue to go up. My boss is kind enough to provide health care costs entirely for all of his employees. 11:32:13 How does he continue to do that when Medicare continues to reduce what they're paying, and there's the threat of more cuts coming, and the private insurance companies follow suit. OBAMA: Well, it's a great question. And let me talk about Medicare generally. 11:32:36 Medicare, I think, is one of the cornerstones of our social safety net. I mean, the basic idea is you've been working all your life, you retire, just like you've got Social Security that you can count on, you've also got health care that you can count on. You're not going to go bankrupt just because you get sick. But in the same way that Social Security has to be tweaked because the population's getting older, we've got to refresh and renew Medicare to make sure that it's going to be there for the next generation as well. And the key problems are not just that more people as they retire are going to be part of Medicare. The big problem is just health care inflation generally. The costs of health care keep on skyrocketing. 11:33:25 Now, the way we've been dealing with it, which I think is the wrong way to deal with it, is basically under-reimbursing our providers. The right way to deal with it is to work with the providers to figure out how can we make the system less wasteful, more efficient overall? OBAMA: And that way, we're paying, you know, your boss -- you know, if he's spending a dollar on care, he's getting reimbursed a dollar. But we're also making sure that the care he's providing is exactly what the person needs, and high quality for -- for a better price. And that's part of what health care reform was all about. I'll just give you a couple examples. One of the things that we were doing in Medicare was we were giving tens of billions of dollars of subsidies to insurance companies, under the Medicare Advantage plan, even though that plan wasn't shown to make seniors any healthier than regular old Medicare. So we said, all right, we're not going to end Medicare Advantage, but we are going to have some competitive bidding and we're going to force the insurance companies to show us, well, what exactly -- what value are you adding; how are you helping to make these seniors healthier? And if you're not helping, then you shouldn't be getting paid. We should be giving that money to the doctor and the nurse and the other people who are actually providing care, not the insurance companies. Well, you know, there was a lot of hue and cry about this. But it was absolutely the right thing to do, because 11:34:53 now we just found out the actuaries for Medicare said the changes we've already made has extended the life of the Medicare trust fund for another 12 years, which is, by the way, the longest it's ever been extended as a consequence of a reform effort. So we've made Medicare stronger just with some of the changes that we've already been -- we've already made. But you're absolutely right that we're going to have to keep on making these changes to continue to make it stronger. And that will affect not just Medicare; it will affect the entire health care system because there is no doctor out there who doesn't see Medicare as the 800-pound gorilla. If Medicare is saying you've got to improve your quality and efficiency, then they will because they've got a lot of Medicare patients. But they also have a lot of regular patients. OBAMA: So hospitals, doctors, everybody starts getting more efficient as Medicare gets more efficient. The key is making sure that we're not just cutting benefits. And, frankly, this is an argument that I have with my friends in the Republican Party sometimes. One big change that some of them have advocated is to voucherize the Medicare system. Basically, instead of, once you have Medicare, you knowing that you can take that and go get care anywhere you want, we would just give you -- all right, here's whatever it is, $6,000 or $7,000 or whatever, you go shop and figure out what kind of best deal you can get. The problem is, is that if Medicare costs keep -- if health care costs keep on going up, but your voucher doesn't keep going up, you're going to be in trouble, 11:36:27 and suddenly you've got seniors who find themselves way short of what they need in terms of providing care. We've got to change how the health care system actually operates, and that means more prevention -- more preventive care. It means better -- that we reimburse people for checkups. It means we reimburse doctors when they're consulting with people, you know, on things like smoking cessation and weight control and exercise. There are a whole bunch of things that can make us healthier, reduce our costs overall, but, unfortunately, the system doesn't incentivize them right now. We need to change that. OK? All right. Anybody have any last burning question? That was technically the last, but this has to be like one that you're just, "Man, I really need an answer for." QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) OBAMA: OK. Go ahead. QUESTION: It's a -- it's a very general question here. QUESTION: My name's Colin O'Reilly (ph). That's my dad, Mike. I work on Wall Street. I was wondering what kind of changes we can expect to see in the reform in the next couple years. OBAMA: Well, the -- here's the essential components of Wall Street reform that we set up. 11:37:39 Number one is that we've got a -- we had a system in which there was huge amounts of leverage that banks can take. And what leverage means is, if they've got a dollar in deposits, they were making a $40 bet using that $1. Which when times are good means you're making a lot of money, right? You putting $1 down of your own money and you got $40, and when the market's going up, you're making out like a bandit. But when the market goes down, when it starts deleveraging, you're in trouble. And that's basically what happened with Lehman's and a lot of these other companies. So one thing that we've said is that we've got to have for -- for big firms that are -- what we call systemic -- that if they go down, the whole system could go down with them -- we've got to have a better check and say, "You know what? You've got to control a little bit how you're -- how you work in terms of leverage. You've got to have enough capital, actual money, to cover the bets that you're placing so that you're not putting the whole system at risk." That's number one. Number two, there's a whole derivatives market out there which, frankly, even the bankers don't completely understand. But you've got trillions of dollars -- and if you work on Wall Street, you're familiar, obviously, with the derivatives market. I mean, you've got trillions of dollars that are basically outside of the regulated banking system, 11:39:07 and people didn't know who's making bets on what. OBAMA: A lot of these subprime loans that were being given out, a lot of these no-interest -- you know, you can buy your house, you don't put any money down, you don't pay any interest, you got this beautiful house. And naturally people, you know, were thinking, well, this sounds great. But what they weren't looking at was, OK, there's a balloon payment five years down, you know, this is only going to work if your housing -- the value of your house keeps on appreciating, and if it stops appreciating suddenly it's not going to work anymore. People hadn't thought through all those -- all those ramifications, and that had an effect on the whole system. So what we've said is, we're going to have a strong consumer finance protection agency whose only job is to look after you when it comes to financial products. And, you know, Joe, Rhonda and I were just talking about how it was only seven, eight years ago when Michelle and I were trying to figure out our student loans, how are we going to invest for the kids' college education. We had, you know -- at the end of the month, I'd be getting my credit card bills. I'm a pretty smart guy, but you open up some of those credit card, you don't know what's going on. You don't read all that fine print. You just look at the statement. Well, as an example of the kinds of things that this new agency are going to be enforcing, we've already passed a law, thanks again to Mary Jo and Sherrod, we've already passed a law that says a credit card can't raise the interest rates on existing balances. 11:42:31 So they can't, you know, attract you with a zero percent interest, you run up a $3,000 balance, and then suddenly they send you your next statement, it says, oh, you know, your interest went up to 29 percent. You can't do that. I mean, they -- they'll still be able to say we're going to raise your interest rate to 29 percent, but that can only be on the balances going forward. It can't be on the money that you borrowed where you thought it was a zero percent. Well, that's an example of straightforward, honest dealing that we're going to be expecting. We think the financial markets will still make money; the banks can still make money, but they've got to make money the old-fashioned way, which is loan money to small businesses who, you know, are providing services to the community, you know, loan money to Joe for his architectural firm and he's going to make sure you pay him back. Loan people for mortgages but make sure that you've done the due diligence so that you're not tricking them into something they can't afford. Make sure that it's something that you can afford. Right? There are just a bunch of basic, common-sense reforms that we're putting in place that will allow the market to function -- because the free market is the best system ever devised for creating wealth, but there have got to be some rules of the road so that you're making money not by gaming the system but by providing a better product or a better service. All right? 11:43:57 Well, listen. I want to thank all of you for spending the time. I know it got a little warm, and you guys just hung in there like troupers. I want to make sure that, you know, I thank, once again, Ted Strickland, Sherrod Brown, Mayor Michael Coleman, your lieutenant governor, and I believe the next United States senator, Lee Fisher, and Mary Jo Kilroy, for being here. And obviously, I want to thank Joe and Rhonda Whiteman and the whole Whiteman family for sharing their backyard. And, you know, we're going to have to make sure that we're helping -- their lawn, here, it got trampled on, a little bit. 11:44:36 I hope you guys are not stepping in the corn. (LAUGHTER) Michelle, by the way, would be very proud to see that you've got -- you've got the vegetable garden working. All right? (LAUGHTER) Give them a big round of applause, everybody. (APPLAUSE) Thank you very much. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) END .ETX 11:45:08 I just want you to know that the weithmans made me be the O in OHIO 11:46:32 WS of Obama gladhanding with group 11:48:55 MS of Obama taking picture President Obama hosts discussion in backyard of family Rhonda and Joe Weithman in Columbus, Ohio suburb. Columbus mayor Michael Coleman, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, Ohio governor Ted Strickland, and Lt. Gov Lee Fisher are also in attendance. SLUGGED: 1030 WH OHIO PATH 1 RS33 82 AR: 16X9 DISC# **FED TO NY ON 5114** 11:55:07 Wide of audience sitting in lawn chairs. 11:55:22 Walk on, President is accompanied by local family. 11:55:46 LS Obama standing with mic, pan and zoom to audience members. 11:56:47 Strickland and Coleman take off their jackets in heat. 11:57:20 Pan LS Obama standing, addressing audience 11:57:42 LS Obama, zoom out to audience view 11:58:22 Pan from press pool to audience 11:58: Various audience views. Some angles have spectators in wheel chairs. 11:59:12 Obama partially obscured by audience, zoom to VIP's in audience (Coleman, Strickland, etc.) 12:00:23 FS Obama speaking to audience - head on. 12:01:47 Audience members sitting on lawn chairs. CU on male audience member. 12:02:24 President takes question from audience member 12:03:55 FS Obama answering question 12:04:29 WS of audience listening. 12:05:11 CU on audience member 12:05:30 Pan audience to Obama 12:05:40 Various WS Obama surrounded by audience. 12:05:55 Ted Strickland and Michael Coleman in audience 12:06:36 VIP's in audience. CU's of Kilroy interspersed. 12:09:41 More VIP's in audience 12:10:38 WS Obama + audience 12:11:07 Press cameras 12:11:31 WS Obama + audience 12:11:49 Good shot of family sitting together on picnic table 12:12:29 FS Obama taking question. 12:13:21 CU on Mary Jo Kilroy in audience 12:14:00 Obama seen from behind ropeline (rope in view) 12:15:24 Press cameras, pan to WS Obama 12:15:55 Audience member asks question, pan to Obama responding 12:16:58 WS Obama - pan and zoom to audience member asking question 12:17:37 FS President answering question 12:18:46 MS Female audience member asking question, pan to WS Obama answering 12:20:08 WS Obama and audience.

HD1080p: Dolly shot of a mid-adult female mechanic smiling and looking at the camera while repairing a car in a garage.

Videoconference from Haiti with Lt. General Ken Keen, commander of Joint Task Force Haiti HAITI CAM X74/RS-22 Slugged: 1000 DOD BRIEF X74 DISC#: 991 AR: 4X3 LAPAN: General Keen, it's Colonel Dave Lapan here at the Pentagon. How do you hear me, sir? KEEN: I hear you fine. How do you hear me? LAPAN: Loud and clear here, sir. If you're ready, we'll go ahead and kick it off. KEEN: I'm ready. LAPAN: OK. 10:02:18 Good morning. We're privileged to have with us today from Haiti, Lieutenant General Ken Keen. General Keen is the deputy commander, U.S. Southern Command, and currently the commander of Joint Task Force Unified Response. General Keen, I'll kick it to you for any opening remarks that you'd like to make, and then we'll start the questions. KEEN: OK. Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the opportunity to join you today and update you on the efforts under way by the international community here in Haiti. I know you join me in extending our condolences to the Haitian people. Our hearts and prayers continue to be with Haiti's citizens during this tragic time. All of us here in Haiti and across the globe partnered in this recovery effort share an uncommon passion and commitment to do all we can to help the government of Haiti and the Haitian people recovery from this tragedy. We are employing all our resources as fast as we can, and we continue to make progress here every day. Every day is better than the previous day, and I expect tomorrow to be better than today. We are working in partnership with the United Nations and the international community. We enjoy 10:03:07 incredible teamwork with and for all contributing partners and the people of Haiti. In fact, early on the morning of 24 January in Cite Soleil, we operated a joint food distribution point. This was done in conjunction with the Brazilian battalion assigned to the United Nation. Cite Soleil was and still is in dire need of relief. It was one of the toughest neighborhoods in this city for years. Our soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division handed out over 14,400 meals-ready-to-eat and over 19,700 bottles of water, all done in about a six-hour period to a peaceful yet anxious crowd. Other developments include the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, continues it operations in communities west of Port-au-Prince. The communities include the towns of Petit Goave and Leogane which last week, you'll recall, were in dire need of support. It is estimated that 10:04:09 10,000 people in these areas have been killed and 400,000 have been displaced. I was there yesterday visiting our Marines who are working jointly with the Sri Lankan soldiers assigned to the United Nations supporting the United States Agency for International Development and other international organizations, so that much-needed relief supplies are provided to these areas. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team from the 82nd Airborne Division is now over 3,000 strong and continues its operations here in Port-au- Prince. And yesterday their medics prepared 22 Haitians for aero- medevacuation. The hospital ship the United States Naval Ship Comfort is here offshore providing fantastic medical support. To date, the Comfort has taken aboard 387 patients. It's important to note that all of the Haitian patients were screened and selected by the Haitian Ministry of Health. KEEN: One-hundred and one surgeries have been performed aboard the hospital ship. The pharmacy on board this amazing floating hospital has filled over 11,800 prescriptions. History was made onboard the Comfort when her staff delivered its first baby. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune arrived last Saturday and immediately went into operation off the coast of Gonaives. We currently have over 4,700 boots on the ground and over 10,700 afloat, for an aggregate strength of over 15,400 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and Coast Guard. Our airmen number 550 and continue to run the airport operations, controlling both helicopters and 10:05:54 airplanes. Over the last 24 hours they've landed over 200 aircraft. Our Navy and Coast Guard have 20 ships operating off the coast of Haiti in support of relief operations. As of this morning, in support of humanitarian efforts, we have delivered over 1.0 million bottles of water and 1.0 million MREs to the people of Haiti since this operation started. That's only what the joint task force has delivered. The security situation here in Haiti remains relatively calm. Distribution points remain relatively orderly throughout our efforts, both here in the city and out in the outlying areas. We have had extremely positive feedback from all of those that we reach out and touch. The United Nations security forces continue to address the emerging security requirements with great agility and responsiveness. General Floriano Peixoto, the Brazilian commander who is in charge of the 14-nation United Nations forces here, is aggressively employing his forces to maintain the secure environment that enables us to continue our primary focus on humanitarian aid distribution. Medical relief capacity has grown since last week, with the arrival of several international field hospitals and surgical teams. Currently, portable hospitals from nine nations, including the United States, are involved in medical support. These countries are Argentina, Israel, Russia, Portugal, Turkey, Colombia, France and Brazil. We have doctors working in these hospitals from around the world, to include Mexico and Japan. KEEN: Thank you very much. At this time, I'll take any of your questions. QUESTION: I wanted to ask you -- you said in the past that troops will stay as long as they're needed, but how long do you think that that might be? And have you started to plan for the inevitable redeployment of these troops? KEEN: OK, thank you for the question. Well, our response here, both from the international community, but particularly from the United States military, is in reaction to the emergency needs to save lives and focus on humanitarian assistance. We are working with the United States Agency for International Development and the international community. As they build up their capacity to provide that much-needed assistance, the need for our military forces will decrease. And we are talking to them as they build the capacity to do must that. Obviously, along with USAID, the United Nations and other nongovernment organizations such as the World Food Programme, as they look at building their capacity to delivery much-needed humanitarian aid, we will be able to scale back our assistance. But right now, our focus is on providing just emergency relief that is so desperately needed. QUESTION: Just following up on that, yesterday at a conference in Montreal, the Haitian representative said that it would take five to 10 years before Haiti could be rebuilt to where it was before the earthquake. So just to be clear, you don't see an actual U.S. military presence there for that five to 10 years? You think that would be more NGOs and State Department organizations? KEEN: Well, I think it has been said that the government in Haiti, in conjunction with the international community, is developing a recovery plan, a reconstruction plan that will take, as you mentioned, a number of years. KEEN: But I think as the -- our role here is providing this immediate need for this emergency assistance and supporting USAID as they go forward and develop that plan and transitioning these tasks that we're currently doing over to them. 10:10:02 And we're all focused on that, but we have to see, as we develop the situation and as they build their capacity. We are already seeing much of that capacity being looked at, whether it be in the area of delivering water or even in the area of medical assistance. For example, a hospital that we are looking at building and creating in order to address the medical needs is a 5,000-man -- bed hospital that is needed desperately to take patients off of the Comfort and from other hospitals for post-surgical care. They're not -- in order to allow the hospitals that are currently addressing the needs to treat these critical care patients, we need a place to put those that need care before they're, obviously, released. We need to build that capacity. We are working with NGOs, both within (ph) the United Nations, to staff that hospital. And we, obviously, can enable that process by helping them get it started. But it's across the board, whether it's delivery of food, delivery of water, building their medical capacity. And as the NGOs and the international community build up their capability and they develop these plans, the requirements for not just the United States military, but other militaries, such as Canada, France and others who are here providing much-needed assistance, will no longer be needed. QUESTION: Can I ask one other? You also -- when you mentioned the number of U.S. forces afloat and ashore, it seems like the numbers are lower than the briefing that we had with General Fraser last week indicated. We were told that there would be closer to about 20,000 by the end of the weekend. Can you explain -- where's the discrepancy there? It seems like there's about 5,000 fewer troops now -- U.S. troops, than we had anticipated. KEEN: Well, we still have troops coming. In our support realm, for example, we have the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command of the U.S. Army coming here. They have less than 10 percent of their forces on the ground here right now, but it's growing rapidly. We expect over the next 45-48 hours to 72 hours to see upwards of over 20 companies from the sustainment area arriving with much-needed equipment. And that's the logistical pieces to be put in place. So our capability on the ground is still growing as we are able to continue to do what we're doing. KEEN: So we will see the number of troops rise and fall based upon the conditions on the ground and as we determine what capabilities that we no longer need or capabilities that we need that maybe were not initially forecasted. But we very much are remaining flexible and agile to work with the international community to determine who can provide what critical needs in order to continue providing the much-needed relief to the people of Haiti. QUESTION: You had mentioned a 5,000-bed hospital is needed to start transferring patients off the Comfort. How long will it take to build this hospital? KEEN: That's a very good question, and we are looking at that. We are anticipating to at least get the seeds of that hospital up within the next week or so, but that will begin small and then grow from there. We are hoping to be able to at least start with a 250-man centerpiece of that and we have the equipment 10:13:49 that is either -- has arrived within the last 12 to 24 hours or will be arriving shortly. Again, the manning of that hospital, we are turning to NGOs and they are responding in terms of being able to manage the hospital and then be able to staff the hospital. We are enabling that by working with the international community to procure tentage and all the things that you can imagine you need in order to build a hospital of that magnitude. We have the best surgeons and medical personnel looking at this, again, planning it, along with the minister of health and the United Nations. The government immediately gave us access to a large piece of the land that could be used effectively to not just take patients off the Comfort, but that is a principal source of patients that we want to do because obviously the capability of the Comfort we want to continue to see a flow of patients that need that critical care that the Comfort offers and then take patients off of her that do not need that any longer, in order to maximize the utility of the Comfort, but also from these other hospitals that I mentioned that have patients that could be cared for before their released. That's what this particular hospital would provide us. So to get her to 5,000-bed capacity, I don't have the analysis yet provided by everyone to determine that, nor all the resources. But I expect to see the seeds of that hospital up and operating within the next several weeks. QUESTION: Just a quick follow up. SOUTHCOM is saying there are about 13,000 troops afloat for a total number of 17,800. When you gave your numbers this morning, were you including the 24th MEU? KEEN: Yes. My numbers, again, are including the 24th MEU. If there are discrepancies between my numbers and SOUTHCOM's, I'll certainly take that back and rectify it. It could be based upon the reporting dates that we report numbers. As you know, we track these very closely, but we have cut-off dates for certain -- or cut- off times each day for certain numbers. KEEN: So the discrepancy could be based upon when we selected our data. But, yes, my numbers certainly include the 24th MEU. QUESTION: Going in, were you concerned about the impact of sending in so many armed troops with all their vehicles and their camouflage uniforms and so on? Was there any actual impact of that? Or what steps did you take to ameliorate what could be the impact of that? And to what do you attribute the relative lack of violence of any kind, especially in those conditions with still-scarce resources being distributed? KEEN: Well, I attribute the lack of violence, as you mentioned, one, to the -- to the great resilience of the Haitian people, their patience and understanding that the world is coming to help them. At the same time, I also certainly give credit to General Peixoto and all the 17 nations that make up the United Nations. They have been out there every day. And you have to remember, when this earthquake hit, it struck everyone, and it struck the United Nations headquarters and General Peixoto's staff as well, and he lost a number of soldiers. But they immediately went into action. I met with his deputy commander within hours after first light after the earthquake, and he had troops out on -- out doing patrolling. Obviously they were trying to account for their personnel, like everyone else. But he has done everything I think is necessary to ensure that we have a safe and secure environment, which enables all of us, all the nations who have military here, as well as the NGOs, to go about and do the best job we cn to focus on providing humanitarian assistance. With respect to your question about concern for the presence of our military personnel, all I can say is, we have been welcomed with open arms wherever we go. Every day I go out and visit our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, I walk among the Haitians, and they are very welcoming us. We have had no security incidents with our particular forces. We obviously take great precaution, and we have translators down to platoon level if at all possible, and 10:18:44 in most cases we have sufficient translators to get them to platoon level, if not lower, both French and Creole, so that we can communicate effectively with the -- with the civic leaders, explain to them what we're doing so they understand what we're there for and what we're trying to accomplish. KEEN: In many cases, it is the civic leaders who are organizing the distribution point and we're simply enabling the NGOs and the civic leaders to provide this much-needed aid. So it's a partnership in really going about doing our job. And as we go around the city and we travel in our Humvees and other vehicles, we do it as cautiously as possible and as least intrusive as possible. But, obviously, with the mission in mind. Obviously, helicopters -- helicopter operations have to be of great concern -- where we're operating, to ensure the safety of not only our crews but certainly the people on the ground. And that is a key component about where we land the helicopters, ensuring that it's safe and doesn't provide a disturbance on the ground, and explaining to the populace. So those are the type of measures that we are taking here. QUESTION: General, just returning to the hospital question again, I just wanted to be clear, who -- who is actually going to build that hospital? Is that a U.S. military project? And, if so -- or is that, kind of, a contractor project? And, if so, where -- where is the money coming from there? And also, how long do you anticipate the Comfort, the Nassau and the Bataan to be there, to be taking patients, as you start this hospital project? KEEN: Well, your second question first: We are going to be here as long as we're needed. And I go back to how long we're going to be needed is based upon how soon we're able to build up the capacity of the United Nations, USAID, a capability to get means in here to take care of the medical needs of the populace: water, food, those type of things. Plans are in place to put mechanisms to sustain providing water, food and medical assistance, but it's going to take time, obviously, to get those -- those things in place. 10:21:16 With respect to your second question -- or first question on the hospital, this is truly a joint venture. Obviously, we're taking the lead of the minister of health who has been very aggressive in working with us and the United Nations -- again, working alongside the United Nations, a medical cluster that really determines the needs and requirements along with the government of Haiti. We have some capabilities, such as a core of the hospital capability, being principally equipment that we can put on the ground to start the seed of that and then working with the United Nations and USAID to contract to build the tentage or other structures that are needed to actually build a hospital. KEEN: I mean, food is being delivered right now, but it's being delivered pretty much in terms of where we can get to and where we can distribute. It's not being -- there's no distribution points that are set up that are being sustained where every day a family member can depend upon a particular location providing food and water. So these 15 points will be set up. Every day we'll feed 15,000 people. If a family member -- it will be a female family member comes in -- she will get sufficient supplies for her and five members of her family to last two weeks. And therefore if you do the math and calculate it, as they come through, over two weeks 10:26:07 you're able to sustain and feed the -- those that are in need within the Port-au- Prince area. And so we need to sustain that, that's sort of the -- that phase of it. The next phase, the World Food Programme, working with USAID and other NGOs, is to move to how do you get off of the MREs or the humanitarian rations and get them on dry food or set up some type of sustainable kitchen. So that is being looked at as well, how do you move beyond this for a sustainable mechanism and plan to feed the population. We are also working with them to look at other areas outside Port-au-Prince that have been affected that need -- that need the same service. You can take the same thing. Each -- water is a little bit different, but clearly water is another basic necessity and just sanitation issue. 10:27:03 So the United Nations cluster, whether it be the food cluster or the medical cluster or the water and sanitation cluster, all are working feverishly hard to put in place these long-term sustainment. As those come up and operate and we are able to turn over the operation of those to NGOs who build the capacity to transport the food, et cetera, that's when our forces will no longer be needed and we can look at where we go from there. QUESTION: I'm sorry, one more follow-up on this hospital; I'm a little unclear about. Did you -- has it -- have you determined where it's going to be? And then did you answer Mike's question about who was paying for it exactly? QUESTION: Is it U.N. money, or... KEEN: I'm sorry. I'm not sure I heard your question correctly. If I understood it, who determined the location of these distribution points? And the answer to that is the government of Haiti in the form of their minister of agriculture, in concert with the World Food Programme. And they have -- based upon their experiences in other locations, they picked those based upon where the population densities are at. QUESTION: Thank you for that. I have one other question, actually, about the hospital. Is where is that going to be located? Have you determined that yet? And then, also, who's -- who is paying for that, ultimately? I think Mike asked you earlier, but I'm still not quite clear on that. KEEN: The hospital -- the location of the hospital was picked based upon proximity to where the Comfort is. We needed it in fairly close proximity to the shore. But we also needed it in a location where we had, obviously, access through a road network -- so the -- and enough land to put it up. 10:29:00 So a location that's been selected in concert with the government is approximately 10 miles north of Cite Soleil, if you're familiar with the area around Port-au-Prince. The -- as far as the paying of the cost of the hospital, that is being done, I believe, in concert with the United Nations. But don't quote me on that. Quite frankly, I have not been in discussions to the detail to determine where all the costs for the hospital. But each nation, for example, we're providing a piece of that. That's coming with our normal deployment of assistance. So we're bearing the cost of getting this thing up in terms of putting some equipment in there to get it started and, obviously, all the things that we initially support. But the overall cost of the operating a hospital, I think is being looked at, obviously, between the United Nations and the -- through the various donor countries that are providing assistance here. LAPAN: All right, General. Thank you. I know that you're pressed for time. You've got lots on your plate. So if you'd like to make any closing remarks, I'll send it back to you. KEEN: OK. Well, thank you very much. I think it goes without saying, but the Haitians are really, in my interaction with them, the most resilient people I've ever seen. As a nation, they have endured much in the past. And with the international and interagency team support we have here, we're providing, at their invitation, this nation will endure. This is a Creole saying, and roughly paraphrased, it goes something like this: The hands of many make 10:30:57 the weight not so heavy. KEEN: Here in Haiti, we are joined with an incredible dedicated team of teams, with many hands committed to help Haiti to lift the Haitian people out of this tragedy. This cannot be done by any one nation and it cannot be done without the dedication and commitment of volunteers around the world, the international organizations that do this, as well as the nongovernment organizations. It's truly -- we seek to have a unity of effort in everything that we do. We have -- the Joint Task Force Haiti has created a Facebook fan page. I welcome all of you to join that fan page and we will seek to keep you informed of what we're doing here. Please join us. We'll provide the latest updates and photos of the operation. And thank you very much for having me this morning. LAPAN: Thank you, General. END .ETX

HD1080p: Dolly shot of a mid-adult mechanic explaining expenses for car repair to a young female customer in the auto repair shop.

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