cuckoos in the next the u.s. charges 2 former twitter staff with being saudi spies accusing them of gathering data on thousands of users critical of riyadh. whistleblowers become the new frontline in the political battle being waged in washington as a bill to protect their identities is blocked in the u.s. senate. and tackling hate in hospitals the health trust in england plans to root out racism by threatening to withhold treatment for people who abuse stop. a message to 0 tolerance towards a. level of self control the n.h.s. used to treat people but should treat people. without question a. line

from moscow studio where it's 2 o'clock in the morning you're watching the r.t. international thank you for joining us now the u.s. justice department has charged 2 former twitter employees with spying for saudi arabia prosecutors claim the pair an american citizen and a saudi national used their positions to collect sensitive information about users critical of the kingdom you know discuss the case with down a quarter. well it's 3 people being charged here 2 or former employees at twitter one being a u.s. citizen and the other a saudi citizen and their 3rd accomplice also a saudi citizen now the duo are being accused of using their positions at twitter to access the personal information of thousands of twitter users in the interests of the saudi government and against to be used against critics of the monarchy now on wednesday the justice department filed

a criminal complaint against all 3 involved the defendant did knowingly act in the united states as an agent of a foreign governments acted within the united states on the direction and control of the kingdom of saudi arabia and foreign officials working on behalf of the kingdom of saudi arabia without prior notification as required by law they had access to proprietary and confidential twitter information including information about twitter users including the user provided e-mail addresses birthdates phone numbers and internet protocol addresses now the complaint also said that these 2 former employees didn't have jobs that required them to have access to people's private information now as for their payout they were given a designer watch that was priced at $20000.00 and another at least $300000.00 transferred into secret bank accounts that they had twitter security its users privet see clearly dealt a blow here but to what extent well just recently the american involved he was

arrested in seattle for tampering with 3 twitter accounts but the real damage was done back in 2015 when over 6000 twitter users had their information stolen by the saudi coconspirator who now is all the way back in saudi he's believed to be back in saudi arabia safe and sound i mean this is twitter we're talking about it's it's a major social media platform that's in countries all over the world and it's a serious concern when just to people who weren't even supposed to have the rights to people's private information. can get so much of that when twitter says this is supposed to be confined to a small team of trained professionals we recognize the length this will go into and a minor service company limits access to sensitive account information to a limited group of trains and visit employee. twitter has agreed to cooperate with the investigation and we don't know how long saudi arabia may or may not have been conducting espionage in the united states but what's significant about this case is

that it's the 1st time prosecutors have ever accused saudi arabia of running agents within the united states and another interesting thing about this is that back when these moves were made against the monarchy's critics the current king of saudi arabia was just coming to power after his father died so that's an interesting thing to know so far the saudi embassy has been silent on the issue but it certainly will be interesting to hear what they have to say if they decide to make a statement. ben harris queeny is the chairman of the conservative think tank the group and he told us the immense reach of social media platforms represents a serious threat to society. the extent to which twitter and other similar social media platforms collects such a wide range of data for the pallet these companies that deal with my state somehow this is the power of cults that it exceeds the power of of most governments they

are able to not only know intimate details about their uses laws but also predict their behaviors in often more efficient ways than the uses themselves could pick their behaviors and that obviously has a potential very distinct here and outcome in the future when these organizations operate with the political bias that they clearly then i think that should be concern for all individuals that leave in free speech and free expression of democracy. riyad has also been making headlines in another big story thursday over a video allegedly showing a so-called secret weapons delivery in yemen well of all the details on that story and the possible implications a little later in the program. now u.s. democrats have failed to push through a bill to keep the identity of whistleblowers a secret republican senator rand paul blocked the proposal accusing the democrats

of spreading selective outrage the amendment was designed to bolster the senate's position which is that whistleblowers should be protected from retaliation and their contribution acknowledged it comes as the president's son has tweeted the alleged name of the whistleblower who triggered the trump impeachment inquiry saskia taylor reports on the fate of those who recently dead to speak out in america. for the democrats impeachment must now seem tantalizingly close all they need is the final piece of damning evidence to seal the deal and to senate minority leader chuck schumer he has come out arguing for the protection of whistleblowers all rother of the one intelligence officer who is insider info could make or break the impeachment dream the calls to make public the whistleblowers identity are despicable whistleblowers should be protected period period that's quite the radical departure from his previous comments on those exposing government

abuses and each day that snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist to the merits snowden is a one of the few picked up by the media he chose the path of raising his voice and going clone ball unlike the hundreds of others who chose the path of least resistance you see they quietly launched official complaints hoping for the system to reform but they were out of luck because as a damning report from an intelligence watchdog shows the cia and n.s.a. wouldn't 189 out of 190 cases of whistleblower complaints by had to send you the link but the report was shot down i wonder if mr schumer praised or even remembers all those whistleblowers who ruled against what the name for example rich barlow bring about now living in a trailer in remote montana with his hunting dogs back in the late eighty's bhalo

worked for the cia now he found himself in a patriotic dye llama when he uncovered what he said amounted to the u.s. helping pakistan become a nuclear power including by selling band technology though he followed protocol he became the victim of a smear come. pain disgraced and discredited barely able to scrape together a living i was disgustingly patriotic and i thought the government is allowing pakistan to develop and spread nuclear weapons and i got destroyed for trying to stop it what about former u.s. marine affronts gayo he thought he'd found a way of reducing the number of u.s. troops dying in iraq as a result of improvised explosive devices all that was needed was a simple swap of patrol vehicles and given that were responsible for over 60 percent of all american losses in the country between 20032008 surely the pentagon

would have been interested the response was more of. an automated response he's not obeying our instructions he's he's gone off the reservation as we often say. and we've got to stop him from doing that and just as it took gail 7 years to restore his reputation it took just a few months to discredit peter van buren raising 24 years of loyal diplomatic service from beer and found himself on the wrong side of the table when he shed light on state department mismanagement i'm waste in iraq what happens when you're thrown out of the government and blacklisted is that you lose your security clearance and it's very difficult to find a grown up job in washington you have to step down a few levels to find a place where they don't care enough about your background to even look into why

you washed up there the list of nameless faceless and unrecognized whistleblowers goes on and who to blame them for choosing to do to free fall their complaints because if you follow and manning will snowden's footsteps sure you might end up with your name on a plaque card and become the face of the fight for transparency but you might also find yourself. bars and while you're sitting in prison think about how your brothers in arms only have a how to one and 190 chance of success whistleblowing protection should actually exist in all countries because it helps the country to have people tell the truth about corrupt officials united states pretends to have allies that protect whistleblowers but they often either don't work or they are deliberately sorted and certainly the government officials do not want anyone ever telling

about things they do illegally the governments are basically wanting to control things and control public opinion they put john kiriakou in prison for telling that for instance is that the cia was torturing so they normally absolutely do not want to protect whistleblowers and they actually hate anyone who tells the truth about their illegal activities about him alongside the washington elite needs to clarify his position on whistleblowers if you are a whistleblower you need to accept that harassment prison self-imposed exile we've just been consigned to the forgotten pages of history are all on the cards are mass of course you happen to be that rab breed of whistle blower who finds himself in the right place at the right time with just the right exposé. in other news this hour u.s. democrats have released $300.00 pages of testimony from the country's top diplomat

in ukraine which they say amounts to damning evidence that donald trump committed an impeachable offense the document details how bill taylor believed there to have been an improper quid pro quo rangelands with kiev he says it was clear to him that the release of hundreds of millions of dollars of financial aid would be dependent upon ukraine launching a corruption investigation into trance potential political rival joe biden this is a deeply credible knowledgeable person and he belatedly realizes that there is a quid pro quo his testimony has been one of the most important for democrats who say it provides the clearest explanation for president trump as ours were demanding at the time this was all going down he texted are we now saying that security assistance or white house meeting are conditioned on investigations conditioned we talk about quid pro quo condition is the key word there that is what prosecutors call a head shot it is right on point. republicans have pushed back against bill taylor's

account though they say that despite the ambassador claiming to have understood very clearly that there was a quid pro quo he actually had no firsthand knowledge of the alleged arrangement tale admits he had not spoken to the u.s. president and that some of his testimony was based on reporting by the new york times the diplomat is due to testify openly before the house intelligence committee next week. well for more on this we can now cross live to political analysts and investors charles alltel thank you for your time but let's start here how weighty charles in your view is ambassador taylor's testimony did we learn anything new from it. well it's a very sad thing to say in 2019 that when you're relying on new york times reporting about an event that you didn't participate in you're these days that's a very dangerous thing to do i think the reporting in analysis of this whole ukraine affair is shameful. save for the work by the intrepid reporter john solomon

who goes back well before 2016 to try to trace the curious relationships among members of the obama administration ultimately including john kerry. and others and joe biden and his son in that country ukraine which you know all countries have corruption but ukraine is very well known for having corrupt influences so to say to pitch the story as it's being pitched in the united states in the mid in the mainstream or lame stream media has trouble wants to investigate his likely political opponent in the 2020 prime general election is outrageous that's not the real story and the real story is that long before that 2020 race shaped up president trump was rightly concerned about corruption in ukraine it did not want to send more or more good american money end up in the corrupt country

tells me you mentioned that. you mentioned that and let's get back to this that the sourcing of this testimony because taylor testified that his knowledge on the phone call between trump and the ukrainian president was gain from the new york times and that he didn't himself speak directly with president trump did you did you find that surprising have you seen many instances of that happening before in your in your career in watching politics and why is so much being made of a testimony based on new york times reporting. i think this is outrageous and shameful behavior on the part of the democrats i mean what the founders were concerned about if you study our history and rightly so or was that you would trivialize you would use political differences policy differences to remove the president of the united states via the impeachment an interest senate trial process it's been used to date very sparingly and you do it has been

a bipartisan process in the house in the clinton case many democrats voted to impeach in the house the trial was lengthy new gingrich is the speaker that of the house of representatives of 4 of bill clinton and bill clinton's team every benefit of the doubt every courtesy in that process ultimately he was not convicted in the senate in contrast that with this case here is being run not the judiciary committee because the chairman of the judiciary committee is a laughingstock but in the intelligence committee which rightly doesn't have primary jurisdiction over the impeachment issue so the democrats i actually think you know of course the new york times or the mainstream press will spin this as an advance i think this is actually. shaping up as a diabolical chapter in the democratic party history that is going to wound grievously the democrats in the 2020 alexion that i let's talk about what happens next and we've already got these 300 pages of testimony next week supposed to speak to the house judiciary committee could there be any further revelations from

a testimony that he gives that you think. of course i mean there could be more stuff that will come out but again this is why this process is so heinous the process is being rigged to sell and there are a tive there has not been a specific crime alleged yet this is not the way justice is supposed to happen in the united states of america you're supposed to have evidence of crimes what you have evidence of crimes you convene a grand juries and you go for it and you try to get a grand jury to issue an indictment is the basic process of where's the crime donald trump was making sure there's a treaty with ukraine that requires donald trump think any president to make sure that money we send in the ukraine is not wasted in stolen that's what he was trying to do he was trying to make sure what i hear so for that we didn't burn more money on foreign aid he should be praised for that and instead the democrats having not

having failed miserably with the russian witchhunt are now trying to come up with a ukrainian which and it's not going to wash with the american people thanks feel and fights and time investor employees go analyst charles or tell. what now in other news one hospital in the u.k. says it may deny treatment to people it's stuff consider racist i'll tell you more about that when we come back after this short break. join me every thursday on the alex i'm unsure and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

welcome back patients who abuse stuff at

a hospital in western england could now receive lengthy banned from using the national health service for the north bristol health trust has lost a red card to racism campaign which could see treatment refused when it is safe to do so. the point to avoid is the question we are seeing in the moment we really do need to use it to safeguard all star and work with colleagues of the 6 of us mark or to be able to show their safe. or the campaign aims to cut house a wide range of abuse the hospital staff face aside from racism the n.h.s. will apply a 0 tolerance policy to sexism and offensive language and also inappropriate behavior malicious allegations and intentional damage to property patients found to be in abusive but found to be abusive will encounter sports like disciplinary system a warning or yellow card will be given on the 1st incident a 2nd time and patients get a red card meaning that treatment will be withdrawn once a patient's condition is safe well here's some of the reaction we got to that plan

from the national secretary for the english democrats party stephen morris and wayman bennett of the stand up to racism pressure group. my mother was a nurse for for most of her life for the n.h.s. and nothing was done about the abuse that she see faced and there's no reason why she should have put up with the abuse of the nursing people in very serious conditions i think a message to tolerance towards it would lead to a level of self control and h.s. is there to treat people they should treat people. without question the issues of sexism racism is a massive can of worms because obviously the hospitals could be in breach of the only quality because obviously a female that he wants to be treated by a female will not be allowed to because it will be deemed a sexist or if you have certain religious views you won't be allowed because it be deemed racist or sexist in some form that if you're racist you will have a problem with this because you think it's

a normal discourse of normal wear behavior some framed in some ridiculous notion that you've got a freedom to insult and abuse people want to lock them up is in serious actually most of these people who find that one step behavior is deemed unacceptable people realize they can no longer behave like that is not true that just clogging up the court system we say people should be prosecuted but you don't want to prosecute it because your actual word was it would only call got the court system somebody who may have a feel philosophical or religious belief about being treated by women are being treated by a certain person then they have their philosophical and religious beliefs have to be also respected and if that the n.h.s. are not going to respect their views then they're going to fall foul of the courts the n.h.s. was built on immigrant a migrant labor from all over the world or the actual she was the many people yes in and my god oh here we go you have no idea as a bill that said on the please don't use that because it wasn't built just on that

this is ridiculous if somebody says i don't want to be treated by some of these black or asian there's no reason to respect that at all been a race isn't a philosophical view it's just plain wrong only those peace. believe it should be tolerated actually resists any kind of basic principles. because all the way it. prosecuted you're talking about people under normal circumstances these are not normal circumstances when people go into a in a. in pain they wanted us so these an absolute wide range of circumstances just to say can you come down a bit the can ask you like the situation you want to use a little coward to tell people off i say let's go and prosecuted you didn't want to do that because you said it blocked up the court systems are not against prosecute them i think it's easier it's easier for health professionals to give people a warning about their behavior and challenge it without necessarily bringing in the police and the courts i think the people who are a racist need to be challenge to and has to be done in such a way as they can simply understand that their behavior is unacceptable what you

need to do is make sure you get them treated get them out reports and then get prosecuted if need be afterwards very simple if you start issuing your card records in the hospitals that's going that's going to a people more. c.n.n. has published leaked video which it says shows american made weapons being delivered to the saudi led coalition in yemen and this comes as concern builds if the united states' role in fueling the conflict which by some estimates has claimed 100000 lives. weapons arriving in yemen that is even a u.s. lawmaker has an urgent briefing from secretary of state mike demanding all and says on how the weapons that it shows the port of aden which is under control of the saudi led coalition and u.s. made military vehicles being unloaded there now so far we have heard from the

pentagon which has not confirmed the accuracy of this video this is what we've heard we cannot comment on the new potential ongoing investigations of claims of anti use violations now u.s. law does stipulate that weapons that are exported are required to have end use monitoring to make sure they're not being used for the violation of human rights or the killing of civilians however the kingdom of saudi arabia does maintain that it is not killing civilians in yemen that it is simply fighting a war against the who is the forces however there are many international bodies and observers that strongly disagree with that assessment and say that civilians are dying in yemen let's review some of what has taken place since the saudi led military campaign in yemen began.

now there is widespread disapproval of saudi arabia's activities in yemen in the united states and there have been multiple attempts by the u.s. congress to stop the sale of weapons to saudi arabia and 2019 there was the war powers resolution which was approved by the u.s. house and senate however it was vetoed by u.s. president donald trump and in july of 2019 there were a trio of congressional resolution aimed at banning the billions of dollars worth of weapons that are sold to saudi arabia the united arab emirates and other countries and that was also vetoed by donald trump so this new video us seems to show u.s. made weapons and military vehicles being unloaded at the port of aden handed over

to saudi forces and that is something that many americans and members of congress don't approve but that the president of the united states has made clear he wishes to continue. well that's they are now i'm words on a low quit and i'll be back and around 30 minutes time with more news from around the world see them. thanks thanks. thanks thanks thanks carol i am. welcome to the alex salmond show where with the starting gun fire to the u.k. general election we look at how the political process has dealt with some issues beyond bricks it over the last 3 years with the entire political bank with absorbed by breaks that some one piece at westminster still managed to pursue issues close

to the hearts of the. today we'll look at animal rights and in particular this is a law which is regulated the sale of popular t.v. that might abraham explains have a campaign developed across the parties to make a legislative change and why that change makes a difference we used every tool available and more to finally get this loosies laura over the line which which we achieved last year and genuinely can't thank every parliamentarian celebrity member of the public and now for making that happen but 1st to your views on our political pundits take on the upcoming general election campaign this is how our famous panel reviewed the starting gun of the election i predict overall majority for the conservatives and the size of that majority is dependent on one binary question does he do a deal with the ranks of party nights or for hours or not if he does the deal big majority if he doesn't he'll scrape through this consider the conservatives are

going to lose their seats in scotland they're going to lose quite a lot of seats in the south to the lib dems and possibly include the oxbridge constituency occupied by the prime minister seriously forecasting the prime minister himself is in danger here absolutely i think he is i think going to be they're going to lose seats in london are going to lose seats in the southwest they're going to lose seats in scotland the question then the whether that the mythical working class vote the brits vote in concert up in the northeast and in the midlands they're going to come over abandon labor and go on to the conservatives let's see it's a massive gamble i think at the end we'll get to a positive result from the point of view there simply will get a big increase in seats and we'll get a mandate for a new independence referendum and now for your responses to the program terry says peter or bob is excellent never really saw much of him before i must admit his

ballance insight mama refreshing perhaps a show of his own is coming perhaps as early. and then donald gillis says hello alec looking forward to your insight in the political shambles that is breaks it and james believe something of the same theme says great sure again we are on the titanic and we need a lifeboat linhardt bottle said scotland's christmas for failing to the christmas election the best present ever get ready. and finally from roofie dixon no fan of the prime minister she says back doored bought us dollars just the scale of scotland a lot of people he runs away every time he's in our country but from the christmas election back to an issue which has been progress this year despite the domination of the european debate cruelty to animals is an issue close to the hearts of m.p.'s constituents and therefore is one of the relatively few issues.