written about the greatest generation, the 1960s and today. live at noon eastern on c-spa c-span2's book tv. >> born in a north korean work camp, it's the only world chin had ever known. he's also the only one to ever escape from camp 14. >> his first memory at the age of around 4 was going with his mom to a place near where he grew up in the camp to watch somebody get shot. and shootings, public executions in the camp were held every few weeks. and they were a way of punishing people who violated camp rules and of terrorizing the 20,000 to 40,000 people who lived in the camp to obey the rules from then on. >> sunday, author blaine harden on chin's journey out of north korea and learning about society and civilization at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. and may 6th, look for our q & a interview with robert caro, the passage of power, volume four. in the years of lyndon johnson, his multivolume biography of the 36th president. >> and live now to house minority leader nancy pelosi who will speak on preventing student loan interest rates from going up on july 1st. >> today on the floor of the house, we were taking up legislation relating to the interest rates paid by students and their families on student loans. all americans i think agree that the best investment of family and a nation can make is in the education of our children for their own self-fulfillment, but also for the competitiveness of our nation. for this reason in 2007, the democratic majority in the congress passed legislation that would ratchet down the interest rates that the students pay on their loans. it passed in a strong bipartisan way, 77 republicans voted for it, president bush signed the legislation. now that is expiring, and last week, in their budget, the republicans overwhelmingly voted to allow the 6.8% interest rates to come forth. crates in our budget said no, we have to offset that and continue the 3.4% interest rates. this makes a very big difference around the kitchen table of america's families. the republicans lost patience with the idea that we should be reducing the interest rates paid for by students and expressed their dismay. president obama took the issue to the public, explaining why and what the difference this makes in terms of the obligation and the burden that would be on america's families. apparently, he made the issue too hot for the republicans to handle because now today, they are saying okay, we will postpone the increase in interest rates for one year by bringing a bill to the floor. by bringing a bill to the floor that says we will do this but we will only reduce the interest rates by making e ing an aassau women's health, a continuous of their assault on women's health. just before we came to this press availability, the president issued a vote toe threat. the administration issued a statement of administration policy which said that if the president is presented with hr-4628, his seniors would recommend he will veto the bill. and the reason i know is because this prevention fund from which they want to take the money is very important to women's health. here to tell us why is the ranking democrat on the health and human services subcommittee of appropriations, the co-chair of our policy and steering committee, the leadership of congresswoman rosa lee lauro. >> i want to say thank you to the leader and proud to join with congresswoman maloney, congresswoman jackson lee and congresswoman glen moore. essentially, what the republican majority would do is to eliminate all of the funding for the prevention and public health fund. what is the public health, the prevention and public health fund? if provides critical health services as it says to prevent illness. now, it's provided to all americans and inincluding women and children. let us get to the important issues that face women. we would prevent screenings for breast and cervical cancer. that would be the action that they would undertake if this fund is eliminated. in addition to that, this fund helps to prevent coronary heart disease. and that is the leading killer of women in america. t it mitigates osteoporosis, arthritis, mental illness which disproportionately affect women in the united states. if you take a look at children, the fund provides access to immunizations, and in terms of prevention, we know that you say for every dollar spent, you're saving $16 in health care costs. in addition to which this fund would work to prevent birth defects and developmental disabilities. it has a profound effect on what is happening with women's health. you couple this with what they did in last month's budget, and their assault on women, and with the repeal of the health care bill, you would see that, in fact, women would pay more for their coverage than men and their preventive health services would go uncovered without insurance. medicare would be ended as we know it. shifting the costs to seniors, medicaid is shifted to states, and in fact, what that does is slash benefits for seniors. now, i mentioned those programs because, in fact, and excuse me gentlemen, women outlive men. medicare, medicaid are critical issues for women in this nation. now, what the majority would do today with taking the funds here instead of taking it from special interests and closing corporate loopholes was to just pile on on than assault on women's health care. thank you, madame. >> it's important to note that in our democratic proposal that we have put forth, we take -- we pay for this sustaining of the 3.4% avoiding the increase to 6.8% but offsetting the cost by eliminating some of the subsidies on oil on the oil industry. the republicans have said we'll never do that. it's women and children first with us. we're going to assault their initiative in the prevention fund. and so that's important to make that distinction, as well. the other point of this is as congressman delauro said, this is part of many things, including the issue of birth control and contraception that we have seen along the way. i applaud the president, the administration for their statement because it clearly spells out the importance of this prevention fund. and i'll make one other further point. as a -- if you need no other indication of how opposed they are to this prevention fund for women's health, you'll need only note that they only need a piece of it. if they were saying, well we want to pay for it from the women's fund, too bad, that's our priority to pay for the women's fund, but they don't do that. they say we're going to pay for it from the women's fund and the remaining billions of dollars that would be left in the prevention fund we're repealing. we're just eliminating that. hundreds of thousands of people have been screened, are being screened each year. now, already, in this legislation, grants to states are being made, that would all stop. my colleague congresswoman carolyn maloney has made the point, where are the women when the republicans had their hearing on women's health. a woman that we had suggested they said wasn't qualified. just these five men to talk about women's health. our colleague congresswoman gwen moore with us and many of you were there when she took the lead on the violence against women's act advocating for that, which passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way in the senate yesterday. and we're happy about that and congresswoman sheila jackson lee has been a champion on children's issues and women's issues and children are very affect bid that. neej eliminate the fund that does the immunizations when every child's immunization is important to every other child in america. it's a false economy to think that we're saving money or keeping our own kids healthy if we deprive other children of immunization. one last point before we hear your questions is that nothing, nothing brings more to the federal treasury than the education of the american people, early childhood k through 12, higher education, postgraduate, lifetime learning, it all brings money to the treasury. so to say that we're going to go down this path, this one year and take the money from women's health inching our way down the path is simply wrong. with that, my colleagues stand ready 0 join me in taking -- oh, congresswoman laura richardson from california has joined us as well. >> speaker boehner has pointed out there's a precedent for taking money from this fund. if this fund is so important, why was $4 billion, $5 billion taken out as a bargaining chip in the payroll tax? >> good question. all the reason why we shouldn't be taking any more money out of it. we weren't happy that was the only way they would agree to the payroll tax deduction. the fact is, some money has already been taken out, all the more reason to leave the rest of the money in. again, i call your attention to the fact that they don't only take out what they need. they want to eliminate the fund. they tried to do that in december. we stopped them then. >> why do you feel that they keep going back on health care? obviously there are many in their party who don't like the health care law. do you view this as pure politics, they say we can stick it to the health care law in some other way? do you view it in that way? >> no, i view it as a statement of their values. in their budget they make it clear they want to end the medicare guarantee, seniors to pay more as the medicare guarantee is the terminated, seniors to pay more in the meantime is, perhaps $6400 more each year as they give over $400,000 tax break to people making over 1 million dollars a year. i want to yield to congresswoman maloney. she may want to say something about that issue. >> it's interesting that the fund they keep going back to is one that particularly benefits, benefits men too, but it particularly benefits the reproductive health care, child bearing health care preventive health care that is so necessary to women. and i would say it's another example with the president's veto why the president has a 15 to 20-point be gender gap advantage because of his actions like today, standing up for women, children and i'd say all americans. and the republicans have an 18 point gender gap. i would say them have worked very hard torl earn that gender gap. bit by bit, vote by vote, bill by bill, defund by defund, and insult by insult. and we will continue to ask the question, where are the women? and we'd like the women to be in the budget with a special needs that we have for preventive health care, preventive health care actually saves money in the long run, if you can prevent cancer, if you can prevent some type of disease or some type of anything, then you're really investing not only in the health of the individual but the health of the country. so we will continue to look to see, find women at all tables and treat it equally at all tables and with proper funding for their health care. >> madame leader. >> yes, ma'am. >> address the fact that this is happening at the same time that the reauthorization of violence again women [ inaudible question ] . republicans say they're trying to make changes to the bill. they say you know, our -- that you know -- >> you know what? i get your point. the point is that on the floor of this house at this time on this day, the republicans have folded because the president made the issue too hot to handle. that is why the bill is coming to the floor today. it has to come up soon because by july, the interest rates would double. but the reason that it's happening in the same week as the violence against women act passed in the senate is because they folded, they felt the heat of the president going out there and saying, we have to -- we cannot allow 3.4 to go to 6.8 for families trying to send their kids to college. so the timing is they're folding. i'm going to yield on the violence against women act to the sponsor in the house of the violence against women act, the co-chair of the women's caucus, congresswoman gwen moore. >> i think the senate passed by a wide margin 68-31 i believe, a reauthorization against violence against women's act that had all the elements in it based on best practices to include provisions that help all women despite their immigration status, despite their gender or sexual orientation. and particularly to provide jurisdiction on native -- on tribal lands where 52% of the assaults, sexual assaults that are committed on tribal lands go without any retribution because the tribal lands downtown have any authority. we think that that bill ought to be brought up in that form, and again, this is a very gendered institution. the congress. and i think that the inability to bring forth that bill here in the house, this is another example of the gender bias against women. when we look at this health care fund that they want to the gouge, it's because health care is one of the issues that women most care about. it has a greater impact on them whether you're talking about medicare, medicaid, food stamps. women -- student loans, pell grants. no matter what you talk about, all these programs that are being gouged in our budget are disproportionately being used by women. and this is just one more example, this, the violence against women act where we are seeing the shear gender bias in this institution against meeting women's needs. so we hope that they bring forth the senate bill and not their so-called clean bill because they don't want to sully their hands with dealing with women who are in the shadows, make immigrant women more invisible, those women who are lesbians and are victims of violent crimes and, of course, those women who find themselves in, you know, facing all kind of violence. we don't want that gender bias to prevail in their version of -- >> i just wanted to be sure the congresswoman is preaching to us all the time that many of the kids who had take -- who take advantage of student loans also need this prevention, so it's a difficult, difficult -- it's like they've rubbed two stone together and they're playing with fire. they ought not to do it. this prevention saves lives. it saves money. and there certainly are plenty other places to go in the budget. for example, their tax breaks for the wealthiest people in america. as we do in our bill, they're set to eliminate some of the subsidies that they have for big oil in their budget and in their priority system. what we're saying here today is stop your assault on women. the depleting, not just using it for the student loan issue, but to go beyond that and say we're eliminating the funding for the prevention fund, a source of much of the resources that the cdc uses for public health and prevention. it's just plain wrong. we salute the president for taking the message to the public in such a strong way. again, making it too hot for the republicans to handle, unfortunately, they came back with what seemed natural to them. let's take the money out of women's health rather than subsidies to big oil. thank you all very much. good morning. thank you. >> house minority leader nancy pelosi and women, democratic congressmen on preventing student loan interest rates from doubling in july. the house is voting later this morning on a student loan bill, and the republican proposed bill would cut a $17 billion prevention and health fund that was created under the affordable care act. house expected to vote later on a student loan bill. now, a senate committee hears testimony fwrofl ugandans abducted by the lord's resistance army. one of them jacob acaye was made famous by the kony 2012 video released by an ngo earlier this year. senators also heard from state and defense department officials and this is about two hours. this hearing of the african fairs subcommittee examining u.s. policy to counter the lord's resist assumptions army. i'd like to welcome senator isakson, senator inhofe, other members of the committee are expected as well as our distinguished witnesses today, principal deputy secretary of state for african affairs donald yamamoto, earl gast and deputy assistant -- secretary of defense for african affairs amanda dory. welcome. our second panel, miss jolly okot, ambassador for invisible children and mr. jacob acaye who share with us their personal experiences of working to help communities in ugandan recover from the lra and their personal experiences of being victimized by the ra, which i think will add some strength and breadth to today's hearing. as we all know for more than two decades, the lord's resistance army has committed brutal attacks against civilians in central africa that resulted in displacement, kidnapping, mutilation and rape. kony and his commanders have abducted thousands of children forcing them to commit terrible acts and today as i mentioned we're privileged and humbled to hear from two victims, jacob and jolly both about their enduring horrific experiences in uganda and their efforts to live forward and to make positive change in the world from that experience. joseph kony epitomizes the worst of mankind and while the lra has left uganda in 2006, it continues to burn a path of destruction through the whole region. as you can see from this chart, in the past four months alone, the lra has committed 132 attacks in three countries. the central african republic, the democratic republic of the congress doe and south sudan. despite an increased u.s. press tones counter them. there continues to be broadened support for stopping kony demonstrated with the overwhelming passage of the lord' resistance army disarmament and recovery act which made it u.s. policy to work with regional governments to remove kony from the battlefield and protect civilians. there's support for the recent deployment of 100 u.s. military advisers which yesterday, president obama in a speech at the holocaust museum announced would continue in their mission to train regional militaries. support for this issue is so strong, six of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including the two senators with me joined last week in releasing a video about the senate's long-standing commitment to countering the lra that i would make to make mart of these proceedings. with the consent of the other senators i had hoped at this point we would show that video for the benefit of this hearing toda today. >> last months, tens of millions of americans have stepped up to take up a humanitarian crisis on the other side of the world. the level of interest unprecedented and it hasn't gone unnoticed. i'm u.s. senator chris coons from delaware, the chair of the african affairs sub met that meets here in this room on capitol hill. in hearings held senators have for many years tackled issues of justice, war, peace, and america's role in the world. and in particular, how to tackle the ongoing crimes against humanity committed by the lra and their leader joseph kony. it's work a broad coalition of congressmen and senators have worked on for many years. joseph cony have wreaked havoc in uganda for more than 25 years. he is now thought to be somewhere in the central african republic, possibly the south sudan. he has been separated somewhat from his soldiers which a good sign. >> the cony 2012 campaign was the first they heard of the lra's terrible prophet. but many in washington have been trying for years to get the world to notice and to act. >> i saw a report way back in 1997 by human rights coalition. it talked about the abduction of children bill heavily armed ugandan group called the lord's resistance army. >> i was working in uganda when i found out that up north in the area, this guy named joseph kony had been for about 20 years mutilating kids. >> i remember knowing about it specifically on 2004 when i in fact traveled to uganda for the express purpose of looking into the terrible orphan situation and also seeing what i could do about the lra running ramp and the at times through that country. >> he would go out to the vils and kidnap and abduct children. turned the girls into prostitutes and then make soldiers out of boys. once the kids learned how to kill people, they had to go back to their vils and kill their parents and siblings. if they didn't, they cut their lips and noses off. >> it is beyond comprehension that this single man with a relatively small group of followers has been able to just run havoc through this part of the world. >> i've heard of a lot of tragedies all over the world and in many places in africa, eastern congo, sudan, darfur, but this was one of the worst in terms of the brutality. >> in 2009, frustrated by the lack of progress being made by regional forces, senator michael introduced s-1067, the lord's resistance army disarmament and northern uganda recovery act to make it the policy of the united states to working with governments in the region to stop the lra and help central africa recover. >> we will have to remember, this isn't just about invading or military action especially by the united states. it has to do with diplomatic efforts with intelligence, and it has to do was restoring the lives and the situation of the people in the area affected, especially northern uganda. >> senator feingold's bill, the recovery act was passed in 2010 was a real break through. >> at a time when there's so much partisanship, this is an issue we had bipartisan.support and it passed relatively easy, signed by president obama. >> senator feingold's bill laid the groundwork for president obama's decision last fall to send 100 u.s. military advisers to central africa to help arm forces for uganda, the democratic republic of congress co, south sudan and the central african public to hunt down the lra. >> on my trip two weeks ago, i met with some of the special advisers that are united states personnel nrnl u dan da advising the republic of sudan and uganda. they're adding a great bit of ability to the troops over there. we are currently working with the defense department and state department, other agencies to try to figure out what we can do and how we can be more effective and we're going to continue to work with the state department and others in an effort to provide the focus on this issue. >> it may take time. you have to understand the area where he is thought to be is a densely venltative foal and. there are no roads. there are no it poles. there are no lights at night. he's separated himself from a lot of his followers. so tracking him is difficult. >> they're getting very, very close. hopefully this will be the year. >> president obama, congress and our u.s. soldiers in the field aren't the only americans determined to help stop the lra. the cony 2012 cane has inspired millions of young people to get involved in a humanitarian cause for the first time. >> things that i heard about 1997, finally the rest of the world's hearing about them. they're hearing about them because of students and citizens across america hog have taken the time to watch and learn and share information about cony. >> i'm proud of our young people in america hog are so compassionate about the african children and people and i'm proud to be part of the united states senate trying to make sure he's caught. >> last month we introduced a resolution in the senate. in it we condemn joseph kony and the lord's resistance army for
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