i. was. at toxic atmosphere bullying and harassment a damning report lays bare the working conditions at the world renowned human rights organization honesty international are following two employees suicides also ahead. as facebook turns fifteen its founder mounts

a defense on these social media platform arguing it's how to collect and empower people across the world. rich nations do not fight endless wars. and from troop drawdowns to bolstering border security and applauding the venezuelan opposition u.s. president delivers a wide ranging a state of the union speech to congress. it's seven o'clock here in moscow and you're watching r.t. international live from a studio with me. welcome to the program. a leading global human rights group is being accused by its own staff of bullying discrimination and the abuse of power amnesty international is one of the world's oldest humanitarian groups but her view of its work place. actress's has revealed

a toxic culture. there are multiple reports of managers belittling staff in meetings deliberately excluding certain staff from reporting or making demeaning menacing comments like yours or you should quit if you see in this position your life will be misery the wellbeing review was launched after two amnesty employees committed suicide within six weeks of each of the last year. as an intern and is said to have developed acute anxiety tearing her time with the humanitarian group. to amnesty for more than thirty years and blame the organization for pressures at work before taking his own life with more on the review to see a joke and. we're facing a situation where this world renowned human rights organization amnesty international is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons following revelations about a quote talk saying work culture in this organization that was discovered by an

independent review carried out by the cantera group consultancy that found that things like bullying public humiliation nepotism discrimination over work are widespread at amnesty international this was discovered following interviews and discussions with as many as seventy percent of staff in the situation has been described as quote a state of emergency or it has to do with the atmosphere and working culture in the organization that is very isolating i've never before worked in the place where everyone works so well alone it's because of a system where everyone they scared stressed and overworked and thus can only focus on their own survival. there was a real culture of bullying right up until i left several years ago particularly of middle managers well this review found also what it described to be as martyrdom

culture because of this reputation and status that amnesty international has throughout the world and according to this review the credibility of this organization could now come under question and the organization the touts protecting human rights as its mission but is itself mired in a conflictual an adversarial culture will lose credibility as organizational rifts and evidence of nepotism and hypocrisy become public knowledge they will be used by the government and other opponents of amnesties work to undercut or dismiss amnesties advocacy around the world fundamentally jeopardizing the organization's mission and journey of some numbers that were provided it was said that as many as over fifty percent of employees feel like they're not valued and as many as thirty nine percent have developed health and or mental issues as a result of the work that they do and in terms of the reaction we've seen from

amnesty we know that they have found these conclusions troubling and have said that they will try to carry out some kind of reforms and all of this of course gets revealed following two suicides of employees of amnesty international that took place back in twenty within six weeks of each other that prompted a series of reviews including this latest one. as facebook turns fifteen its founder has published an impassioned defense of the social media platform ranks a couple of times a scientist been a force for good and has helped to revolutionize the ways in which people communicate it comes as the company faces increasing scrutiny over how it's hard for information as the trunk explains this is an intense fear. yeah mark wouldn't say that for nothing last year personal data mined from nearly eighty seven million facebook users transferred face for data to cambridge and

living in violation of fair use for its data policies the largest security breach in the company's history this is this is a challenge for our cloud companies and i'm really sorry that this happened and it was a big mistake i'm sorry you think having to do so much damage control must have definitely taken its toll on facebook but apart from their fiftieth anniversary mark zuckerberg and co have another great reason to throw a big party not only they didn't lose money actually they've set a record in profit for the final three months of twenty teeing it almost reached seven billion bucks privacy issues illegal datta harvesting and not doing enough about what the russians were up to all attempts to bring the tech giant to account made people on capitol hill realize the many many times that marks our cover has had to apologize and the takeaway for me from that is that we can't rely on

self-regulation that facebook is not going to regulate itself and that we have to pass some laws well for now realizing and saying that way too often hasn't led to much action is facebook really being regulated the answer is no and with all that big money could they care less well to keep enjoying that comfort at least for now they once hired some very smart and influential people like joe kaplan as the president said in his remarks president the president the president laid out in his speech yes here's george w. bush and here's mr kaplan he used to have an important job in the second bush administration and here you can see what he's up to now being called facebook's policy boss who else would be behind shoulder at all these troublesome government hearings. now that is him again alongside the riot

jordan the tech giants director of public policy guess what she worked for the white house administration to anything from the democrat era there you have it a nice room on he was once in charge of writing what president obama says here they are an american century. welcoming. of everybody who was spiers to do something oh that was emotional well nowadays his dealing with economic and social impact issues at facebook and that's just a few such career twist examples it helps to know people. i mean even better if the people you know no more right people. and delegation of the taliban is in moscow for two day peace talks claiming the u.s.

has vowed to withdraw half its troops from afghanistan by may i discussed this earlier with our correspondent. taliban represents is here in the russian capital how are the talks progressing well first of all we have to say of the taliban movement has come here to moscow after they had intensive talks with the american side particularly with the u.s. special representative for afghanistan reconciliation mr heller's out and we heard following these meetings from mr howard's out that there was a draft framework agreed on a very controlled withdrawal from afghanistan we also heard from american president on trump that america is ready to pull out its troops from this country but the deadline was never mentioned finally and wednesday we heard from the deputy head of the political branch of the taliban movement based in doha that the end of april is the time when we should see at least half of america's contingent out of ghana stan

let's take a listen. the u.s. is about to walk us. through june would leave afghanistan starting from early february to be completed and. the two communities will be established both will define the schedule for the withdrawal of the remaining troops taliban is very powerful credibly influential on the ground and they are according to various sources controlling more land in afghanistan than the official government so of course this is a forest everybody should consider and no one can ignore their main condition has always been and remains a complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from the territory of their country. i mean you can believe. you're with. each other in two points one is. all.

of they seem to have had a positive impact these talks on the afghan conflict yes it is of course a positive tendency but there is a cap to says in this well because not everybody shares this optimism about these peaceful africa because it is clear that after everything is over the taliban one. probably will play a very important role in the future of ghana stand politically maybe even rule in the country and i spoken to a member of parliament of ghana some parliament. these peace conference they had of human rights commission and she has told me that there is a vast part of morden afghani society progressive dynamic part she believes that is not ready to go back to when the tally burnet was ruling the country because this is quite conservative or is clear this is an islamic for us so at the

end of the day believe it could be quiet control for sure so they don't want to go back this is one of the concerns and another concern is of course the security situation on the ground the talks i go in with the u.s. for is now this conference in moscow but we see. the taliban continue their attacks on the country's army so people are still dying there so. i mean the p's is still not there the situation is still dramatic but at least something is going on so we have to wait and see. because president has delivered his annual highly anticipated state of the union address to a deeply divided congress donald trump spoke at length about critical domestic and foreign policy concerns as well as the perceived successes of his administration here are some of the highlights of the speech. i loudly pledged a new approach. great nations do not fight endless wars.

i we stand with the venezuelan people their noble quest for freedom and we condemn the brutality of the more darrow regime the united states is developing a state of the art missile defense system under my administration we will never apologize for advancing america's interests chairman kim and i will meet again on feb twenty seventh and twenty eighth in vietnam it is time to give our brave warriors in syria a warm welcome home. as the president delivered his address protesters gathered near trump tower in new york they criticized his administration's divisive policies and mocked trump's campaign slogans social media didn't miss out on the speech

either finding plenty of ways to mock the president and those in attendance to take a look. america will never be a socialist country. i. still

to come this hour a danish national has been given a six year sentence for his affiliation to russia and that story and plenty more after this break. you know world big partisan movie lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks.

seem wrong well. all. you have to seep out is the attic. and indeed. the trail. went on find themselves worlds apart. just in the common ground. welcome back to the program in new york times opinion piece earlier this week has claimed controversially that corruption is hardwired into russian society and in its very nature corruption is in russia's d.n.a.

sharing is not the russian way. the piece is accompanied by a menacing photo of a blood amir putin number of russian words are thrown in for dramatic effect to including those winning lies and disinformation one however has been mistranslated as it means compromising material and not compromise the article and some of its more spurious claims was met with harsh criticism from a number of journalists and readers of the publication imagine a new york times op ed care's real estate corruption is in the jewish d.n.a. but as long as we're talking about russians this kind of group xenophobia is totally fine corruption is in russia's d.n.a. this is racism masquerading as analysis it also undermines the author's argument because if true who can blame the lawyer scary photo by the way this photo in the article are reminiscent of the hearst papers enough rogue and hysterical war fever drummed up to sell papers before the spanish-american war it is designed to build

up hatred and not knowledge. and it's not the first time and rushes that critics have made reference to genetics either a former u.s. national intelligence director once said that russians are genetically driven to co-opt and manipulate the media analyst lionel tells us he thinks that the new york times piece is outrageous. i don't even know the adjectives the words shocking disgusting deplorable racist let me make this very very clear if you had replaced the term russian with any other ethnicity nationality group of people there would have been. just a cavalcade an avalanche of attacks you would have been indicted for that bar russia. that goes without jay that so kay i never thought i could say this we always say well this hits a new low lower journalistic. no dear

a new chasm of the this has no depth this is the black hole of journalism this is so much so so consumed so. the gravity is so intense that light the scape truth can't escape i mean this is for lab or gas tank. a performance on piece county shang at a gallery in washington d.c. has provoked an angry reaction from president trump's family has labeled it as sexist it's called vacuuming and runs for two hours every evening at the flashpoint gallery the piece features a mouthful dressed up to look like a funk a tramp pushing a vacuum cleaner back and forth across a pink collar fit nearby is a pile of bread crumbs visitors are invited to throw them onto the carpet so the if i can double can clean them up. ah

the left has no respect for women i'm deliverable not only is this disgraceful and humiliating towards a banker but this is humiliating to the woman the has been hired to impersonate him on her what kind of society have we become. no seriously this is a thing and yet another example of progressive privilege art exhibit invites people to throw trash vacuum a new van could trump lookalike before ivanka trump stepped into her role at the white house she developed her brand as a businesswoman working mother she is funded to the art exhibit by saying that while some women prefer to knock each other down she believes they should be supporting each other the gallery for its part says the piece is a visual celebration of contemporary feminine icon and encourages people to question their relationship with her we were joined by two commentators to discuss how appropriate the performance is. i think a lot of americans see this as very very political i mean and they're entitled to

their opinion and i think everybody needs a voice. but the one good thing i have to say is i think our stimulates conversation and it stimulates to it stimulates debate what i find interesting is that the artist made this very ambiguous seems that the trumped arrangement centrum has gone overboard and certainly if they had done this with michelle obama i'd like to see the art communities and the left's reaction to them putting michelle obama for example with a vacuum cleaner hand vacuuming crumbs i don't think it would have gone over quite as well with the regressive left but they love you were used to the hypocrisy on that side of the aisle so anyone i would say who want to cut evocate down is doing it most likely because they're jealous and i can see why because yvonne because an incredibly successful talent to take a bull competent american woman i mean i think it's acceptable because first of all if anybody in the trumpet is ministration is a public persona so i think once you once you have that sort of platform and you

are a public persona and you actually are also a government official anything anything goes i mean you know anybody can. you know say whatever they want to about shoe and i think art is a really good way. to stimulate ideas so i think everybody sort of fair game in this here is a situation where you know to me the piece looks like. she's like this one nine hundred fifty s. housewife with no voice no will i think has done a masterful job of complimenting her father's very pro woman administration again lending women opportunities they've never had in the history of the world not just the history of america but in the history of the world more women today are successful more women today are employed more women today own companies under the trump administrator. because of the regulations. a russian quarter sentence

danish national donors christianson to six years in prison for his affiliation to the jehovah's witnesses the religious group was banned in russia in twenty seventeen and has since been treated as an extremist organization the danish foreign minister has expressed his concern. deeply concerned by the sentencing of dennis christensen again calling on russia to respect freedom of religion the danish m.f.a. will continue to follow closely and assisted in its christensen should he decide to appeal this forty six year old jehovah's witness dennis christensen was arrested back in may two thousand and seventeen in the russian city of aureole and it was just a month after the russian law determined this us based jehovah's witness religion to be an extremist organization now the new law was tied to a number of incidences in which the religions followers for beta blood transfusions to their children ultimately leading to the death of several terminally ill children so the supreme court ordered the group to disband and confiscation of its

property although christensen continued to use it to raise funds and to distribute literature so he was there for the first to be arrested under this new law and today his six year sentence makes the first conviction under the law as well and many western human rights organizations have already called for christensen's release the verdict against dennis christensen is a disgrace it's shocking that in post soviet russia authorities are putting people through their ordeal of a criminal investigation and prison for nothing more than that peacefully practice in their faith his case is emblematic of the grave human rights violations including the rights to freedom of expression peaceful assembly and religion in the country now we've yet to hear many reactions from russian officials as the whole ordeal is generally less talked about in russia but the kremlin spokes person dmitri peskov said that there clearly were reasons for the arrest although he was unaware of the details now back in december when russian president vladimir putin

said that religious organizations should not be labeled extremist groups and that the matter needs to be looked into further so we'll bring you the details as this developing story further continues. a man who spent. fourteen years in one of the world's toughest prisons without ever being charged with a crime has described life in guantanamo as hell mansour our day fee was jailed when he was just nineteen he talks about what he endured in today's going underground here on r.t. imagine a boy at nineteen years old was shipped to guantanamo to know where it was like a cemetery was like we were we were not alive or not dead but we were in like in between life and death. so when we get there i like from for there was apparently especially when you get that come back straight in comes out to be one of the. three with tradition started applying some. torture techniques to interrogate

detainees and it was like hill really. what some deniz lost their minds break down i mean like i was nineteen years old i didn't know why i was there and in the front lawn state we are i thought that he described it to the world outside i was really afraid confused as. you know was going to have been totally without like they're going to kill us because we. the situation we were before as the cia or at the petition with that is going ok they're going to get those men think of us and they were telling us that they said that we are going to kill guys and. they told us yes you said the world not brought you here we work you for the purpose of interrogation to get information with you on the seat. as our news this hour even an o'neil will take of around thirty minutes time with more but make sure you stay with us now for a documentary called a plastic surgery coca-cola is hidden secret.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see that. the swarm see the mood of them so morning. good viewers who are local was before. much of those who heard it's a preview lou we're going to do so soon we will. we will we're going to. move. move. move show you this new video of the liberal media a look or a good. movie muslim also his girls will give you films for good girls.

to go to school so look look your simu belong here to show the story to you should go. to starbucks to. get to meet until it was a little missed don't see a look it is it's. just testing understand statistics it's the mashed old truck stop the president and please control this product until it's. socially of producers to go to school to snuff it almost when you look at that as the girls are with you sir your supporters to your shoe station shooting star you should cook door for the one who's do you do the ripples through. you know world of big partisan movies

a lot and. it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. on film begins in hawaii in the middle of the pacific ocean in spite of the island's remote location it is also foreman that going to the epidemic of the

twenty first century plastic. in the. plastic pollution is littering beaches and endangering certain species of animals no matter how remote or out of reach. but. in this new bar a tree in the north of the occupied ago scientists study marine animals not plastic at least in theory. no idea what that is. that it's certainly plastic. jessica peril man is a biologist accustomed to finding plastic in fish stomachs she has started a very unique connection. casually often.