i. think. a toxic atmosphere of bullying and harassment reportedly working conditions of the world human rights organization international holding two

employees suicide also ahead this hour. as facebook turns fifteen its founder of defense of the social media platform arguing it's help them power people across the world also coming up. great nations do not fight endless wars. from troop drawdowns to string border security and applauding the opposition the u.s. president delivers a wide ranging state of the union speech to congress. twenty four seven news live from moscow this is your r t international my name's unit o'neill hello and welcome this hour our top story a leading global human rights group is being accused by its own stuff of bullying

discrimination and abuse of power international is one of the world's oldest humanitarian groups but a review all of its workplace practices 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 in the wellbeing review was launched after two honesty employees committed suicide within six weeks of each other last year rosalynn mcgregor worked as an inter is said to have developed acute. her time with the humanitarian group researcher a guy who was on the stay for more than thirty years blame the organization for pressures of work before taking his own life with more on the review here's a list to see if true. 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 and 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 terms 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 thousand within six weeks of each other that prompted a series of reviews including this latest one. now as facebook turns fifteen it's been that long its founder host published an impassioned defense of the social media platform mark zuckerberg claims his site has been a force for good help to revolutionize the ways in which people communicate well it all comes as the company faces increasing scrutiny over how its lng users personal

information. this has been an intense year. yeah mark wouldn't say that for nothing last year personal data mined from nearly eighty seven million facebook users transferred facebook data to cambridge analytic are in violation of fair use for its data policy 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 for 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 that 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 mariah jordan the tech giant's director of public policy guess what she worked for the white house administration to anything from the democrat era. there you have it . 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. ok moving on now a tele delegation is in moscow for today peace talks they have claimed the u.s. has value to withdraw its troops from afghanistan by may our correspondent. on the story in the studio earlier. 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 of there was a draft framework agreed on very droll 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 on wednesday we heard from the deputy head of the political branch of the taliban movement based in doha is that the end of april is the time when we should see at least half of america's contingent out of afghanistan let's take a listen. the u.s. is vow to walk us through its military contingent would leave afghanistan starting from early february and to be completed by april two committees will be established both will define the schedule for the withdrawal of the remaining troops taliban is very powerful incredibly 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. weeks you. agreed each other in two points one is all. foreign forces. rolling from afghanistan they seem to have had a positive impact these talks on the after. yes it is of course a positive tendency but there is this cap to citizen as 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 afghanistan politically maybe even rule in the country and i spoken to the member of parliament of kenya some parliament. these peace conference they had of human rights commission and she has told me that

there is a vase part of morden afghani society progressive dynamic part she believes it is not ready to go back to when the taliban was ruling the country because this is quite conservative or a severe this is an islamic for us. at the end of the day they believe it could be quiet 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 us now this is a 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 peas is still not there the situation is still dramatic but please something is going on so we have to wait and see. giving states the u.s. president has the liberty his and you will. dissipate to state of the union address

to a deeply divided congress donald trump spoke at length about critical domestic foreign policy concerns as well as to perceive successes of ministration let's pick through some of the highlights. i loudly pledged a new approach. great nations do not fight endless wars. i we stand with the venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom. and we condemn the brutality of the more dero 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 february twenty seventh and twenty eighth in vietnam it is time to give

our brave warriors in syria a warm welcome home. plenty of applause inside as the president delivered his address protesters gathered near trump tower in new york criticise his administration's the vice policies and mocked the number of his campaign slogans social media while of course he didn't miss out on the speech either did that finding plenty of ways to ridicule the president to those in attendance. america will never be a socialist country. a

new york times opinion piece claims that corruption is in the very nature of russian society we look at the reaction to that article on plenty more besides in ninety seconds time.

as a presidential candidate donald trump lambasted america's endless and wasteful wars but as president he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending ended dancing american empire a full time career why did trump cave and what could be the consequences for him and his president. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

hello again the head of the e.u. consul the count among the pigeons by saying there is a quote special place in hell for people who promoted breaks it with a line let's see how that is going down in the u.k. the breakdown to that story with our correspondent peter oliver who's been looking at cross all the reaction peter bragg's it talks you know there had a sense of the time why you know. if you look into this story it does not bode well for prime minister trees amaze prospects of getting eleventh hour concessions from brussels does it really. we could just be starting to see real free in the patients and tempers of those involved in these breaks that talks as you say you know and

they've been going on for so long now with so little forward movement it's unsurprising really that you see things like we saw on wednesday from the e.u. counsel present donald tusk now he was speaking to the media alongside the irish prime minister. during donnel to scs address to the press well there was no quarter given really he told those that backed breaks that those that put the brakes that campaign forward exactly what he thought of them and where he wants to see them end up being wondering what that special place. in looks like for those who promoted works it was out even a sketch of a plan how to carry it safely. yes of course the reaction to that has been flying and in fact as the two leaders were leaving the stage the prime minister lent over and said you know the british press are going to give you

a lot of stick for that and they have been doing exactly that it's worth pointing out that the president did say those that backed brags that without a plan he didn't say those that voted for breaks it as it's been well quite misreported around the u.k. quite a bit right now from politicians in britain though andreea led them the leader of the house of commons said doll to apologize. the home secretary of the united kingdom said that he was out of order while there's also criticism being coming in from the arch breaks that james reach a could reach more head of the european research group one of the major members a big part of the european research group. because it times through these breaks in the go see asians in these press conferences being the good cop to those that have gone on the attack against britain. it was the turn of junk load younker this time of the european commission president to say that perhaps. well he certainly hadn't seen hell and the closest that he'd come to hell so far was being involved in these

breaks that talks in the first place. i could. only believe. it. i believe it now. there was a little bit of business done on the wednesday as well in brussels we heard from john close younkers saying that there the irish prime minister as well saying that there would be no more renegotiations on the irish backstop that idea is that to resume a was going to be able to ask for a the ability for the united kingdom to unilaterally pull out of that backstop that wasn't going to happen to resume a arrives in brussels on thursday for talks with junk load young and other e.u. leaders there's only fifty one days to go until break this fall had a bit of a laugh on wednesday at donald tusk and what he's had to say still no further on

for a solution. it doesn't appear so our r.t. europe correspondent peter all of our breaking down the story for us thanks pete. a new york times opinion piece earlier this week claimed controversy that corruption is hundred wired into russian society and indeed in its very nature. corruption is in russia's d.n.a. sharing is not the russian wait well the pace is accompanied by a menacing photo of them or put a number of russian words are thrown in for a dramatic effect to including those meaning lollies and decision from ation one however has been mistranslated as it means compromising material not compromise the article and some of its more spurious claims was met with harsh criticism from a number of journalists on readers of the public imagine a new york times op ed casual stating corruption is in the jewish d.n.a.

but as long as we're talking about russians these kind of groups 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 volodya scary photo by the way this photo and the article are reminiscent of the hearst papers ina phobic and hysterical war fever drummed up to sell papers before the spanish-american war it is designed to build up hatred and not knowledge it perhaps should be pointed out that it's not the first time rush's critics have made reference to genetics either a former u.s. national intelligence director once said the russians are genetically driven to co-opt and manipulate legal and media analysts lying or believes the new york times piece simply is outrageous. i don't even know the adjectives though the word shocking disgusting deplorable races 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 a just a cavalcade an avalanche of attacks you would have been indicted for that by russians. that goes without take that so k. i never thought i could say this we always say well this hits a new low new lower journalistic. netgear or a 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 hitting scape truth can't escape i mean this is a lab or gas staying. a man who spent fourteen years in one of the world's toughest prisons with its ever being charged with a crime has described life in guantanamo. months or or a day for you was jailed when he was just nineteen he talks about what he endured

there in today's going underground here on r.t. . imagine a boy at nineteen years old was shipped to guantanamo to a know where it was like a cemetery was like we were going to live or not dead but we were in like and between life and death. so when we get there i like from two thousand and especially when you get that come back straight in comes out to be one of the until i was a three when them tradition started applying some. techniques to interrogate detainees and it was like hill really. is what some detainees lose their minds break down i mean i was nineteen years old i didn't know why i was there and in the probably the lone state we are i thought that he disconnected to the to the world outside i was afraid. no one's going to have been totally without like they're going to kill us because we. are the situation we were before

as if the cia or at the head of the commission which i thought is doing ok they go and try to get us and get us and they were telling us that they said that we are don't you guys what do you want them to see they told us yes he said that the world they're not brought you here we are working for the purpose of interrogation to get information what do you want to see. you know the full program can also be phoned i was always on our web page love is on their midweek news roundup for another on our to international but do stay close for more great program starting in moments. like these gone into a nihilistic feed. i think and. the traveling across america to find what makes america the charlotte. american

hero this is a point in which elements done so we always are on the edge of something. else are really important because. we're starting last which is the beginning heading east into the swamp we're going into the belly of the beast and i think i want to leave now doesn't get me morganton on this may be completely different but the mystery. buddha of them so much. good who moved. much of those who couldn't supply. who would go. with the. we'll show you the snippy with the

police those who look good the. more muslim also is the also the do films for the good girls. don't go to school so look but to distribute belonging to show each story should go. to start ups to take it to need to fill it with the littlest thanks to look it is it's. just testing understand just need to mash to try to stop the president to be introduced to. those who have to choose to post listening to snippets almost when you look because that is the cousin with you saying this approach to them should this nation shouldn't be you should cut off the one who's doing business with.

ratings and salutation. so watchers what exactly is our state of the union here in the good old united states of america i'm guessing by now you've probably heard about a million and one polished perfect responses to that. not only from our great brand name in chief president donald trump but for most of congress as well regardless of their red or blue gang affiliations. the state of the state is great the economy is growing we've got the lowest unemployment rates and decades our military is strong brave just too powerful our enemies have been driven before us and quiver with fear at the very mention of the red white and blue but if it weren't for the republicans blah blah blah our border the democrats blah blah blah or for russia china iran

north korea illegal sugar bernie boomers rolling hills we'd be the most bestest perfect nation in the history of the world in the universe that we already are but just even more perfect than perfect. but are we. you see the big thorn in the hyperbole bubble our elected officials live in is the reality of the united states that the rest of us live in the reality that was recently highlighted by the economic advocacy group prosperity now recently reported the quote forty percent of american households lack a basic level of savings these liquid asset poor households don't have enough savings to make ends meet at the poverty level for three months if their income was interrupted my friends that translates to the sobering back that today in the supreme supposedly one of the richest greatest countries in the world forty percent of its citizens are just one missed paycheck away from true poverty.

that is not a prosperous great nation far from it that is a nation on the brink of collapse whose leaders refuse to take their heads out of the sand and their corporate hands out of our pockets which means it's time for all of us to start watching the hawks. as. to. what they like that i got. i. welcome everyone to watching the. role and i'm sad at the other and i like many americans a paycheck away from it's not

a joke i mean it really is that we people think that's the you know i guess people who have huge savings.