Arianna Huffington's Pet Peeve: People Bragging About Working 24/7

Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, told ABC News' Benjamin Bell that her biggest pet peeve is "people who pride themselves at working 24/7."

"You know, people who say, 'Oh, I don't need sleep,' 'I can just work around the clock.' And they use this, especially men, as a virility symbol, you know. I was having dinner with a guy recently and he bragged that he only got four hours of sleep the night before. And I didn't say it, but I thought to myself, 'You know what, if you had gotten five this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.' So I think the fact that people brag about how they over-work and they don't notice that this is making them less healthy and less effective is a pet peeve."

Huffington sat down for a web exclusive interview on Sunday, answering viewer questions from Facebook and Twitter, after her appearance on the "This Week" roundtable. She responded to a variety of questions regarding her perspective as a Greek-American, the Huffington Post news site as well as her Saturday Night Live doppelganger and her "real life" love for Seth Meyers.

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Q: Soultana Nolidis: What distinguishes a Greek-American vantage [point] in a sea of diverse views, opinions [and] perspectives?

A: "Well, definitely, the fact that I'm an immigrant in this country. That I've been blessed to live the American dream makes me very sensitive to many issues. Not just immigration issues, but what's happening to the middle class. The fact that right now…the middle class is actually suffering, and…instead of seeing upward mobility, which is a big part of the American dream, we're seeing downward mobility. And that's why everything I said on the show today had to do with prioritizing jobs, prioritizing growth. Because these are like keys for the lives of millions of Americans."

Q: Ilene Angel: Has the enormity of the success of HuffPost changed your view of the media and its responsibility?

Katherine Dobay Edmiston: Why does she lower the tenor of her website with such features as those devoted to catching celebrities revealing their flesh, either accidentally or intentionally?

A: "Well, first of all, we feel that putting our community at the center of everything we do, we've made the Huffington Post very engaging. So the Huffington Post now has almost 50 million unique visitors, is not just about us talking to our readers. It's about listening to our readers and giving them a platform where they can express themselves."

"Also, the Huffington Post is unapologetically a mixture of high-brow and low-brow. We believe that people want a mixture of everything and it's up to them to decide what to click on."

Q: Miguel Gomez: Could Julian Castro mount a challenge against Hillary just like an unknown Illinois [state] senator who also delivered the keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention did?

A: "You know anything is possible. Obviously, Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run, it appears she's already running, would be the presumptive nominee. But as we saw in 2008, the presumptive nominee did not turn out to be the nominee. So it's a long way between now and 2016."

Q: Tom Dwyer: When will she go on 'SNL' and do 'Weekend Update' with [Nasim Pedrad] that does a spot on impersonation of her?

A: "I think she does an amazing impersonation of me. And I also think the writing is so funny. I love Seth Meyers in real life as much as on SNL pretend life. It's a fun, fun segment."

Lightning Round:

Q: Favorite show?

A: "Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus on HBO."

Q: Guilty pleasure?

A: "My guilty pleasure is spending a large part of the weekend in bed-even doing my work sometimes, reading books that have nothing to do with work, and just kind of completely luxuriating without having to get out, get dressed, get makeup or anything like that."

Q: Biggest misperception about you?

A: "The biggest misperception about me is that I have a funny accent."

Viewer questions have been edited, shortened and condensed in some cases.

Arianna Huffington

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U.N. threatens to stop working with Congo army units accused of rape

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has threatened to stop supporting two Congolese army battalions unless soldiers accused of raping scores of women in an eastern town are prosecuted, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

The United Nations said 126 women were raped in Minova in November after Congolese troops fled to the town as so-called M23 rebels briefly captured the nearby provincial capital of Goma.

The senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two Congolese battalions had been told to start prosecuting soldiers accused of raping the women in Minova this month or they would lose the support of U.N. peacekeepers.

"Many rapes were committed. We have investigated, we have identified a number of cases and we demand that the Congolese authorities take action legally against those people," said the official. He did not say how many soldiers had been accused.

"Since nothing sufficient has happened at this stage we have already put two units of the armed forces of Congo on notice that if they do not act promptly we shall cease supporting them," he said. "They have to shape up."

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in December that alleged human rights abuses were committed in and around Minova between November 20 and November 30, including the 126 rapes and the killing of two civilians. Nesirky said at the time that two soldiers were charged with rape, while seven more were charged with looting.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, has a mandate to protect civilians and supports operations by the Congolese army. There are more than 17,000 troops in Congo - a country the size of Western Europe.

Peacekeepers have been stretched thin by the M23 rebellion in the resource-rich east of Congo and the U.N. Security Council is considering creating a special intervention force, which one senior council diplomat has said would be able to "search and destroy" the M23 rebels and other armed groups in the country.

M23 began taking parts of eastern Congo early last year, accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 peace deal. That deal ended a previous rebellion and led to the rebels' integration into the army, but they have since deserted.

African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated accord late last month aimed at ending two decades of conflict in eastern Congo and paving the way for the intervention force.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Yahoo memo sparks debate on pros and cons of working at home

LONDON (Reuters) - An internal memo at Yahoo Inc introducing a ban on working from home has sparked a debate on whether remote working leads to greater productivity and job satisfaction or kills creativity and is just a chance to slack off.

Working remotely has become commonplace due to technology and has been welcomed particularly by people with young families or those facing long and expensive commutes.

Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labour show nearly 25 percent of full-time workers did some work at home in 2010.

A survey by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) found 59 percent of UK companies in 2011 offered some kind of teleworking, a jump from 13 percent in 2006, with small companies leading the trend to help cut office costs.

But Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer has ruled that staff can no longer work from home from June this year, as outlined in the widely leaked internal memo which appeared on newspaper websites and online forums on Tuesday.

"Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussion, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home," said the memo attributed to Yahoo human resources head Jacqueline Reses.

Asked about the memo, a Yahoo spokesman said the company does not comment on internal matters.

Mayer, 37, who returned to work two weeks after the birth of her first child last year, was brought to Yahoo from Google to revive the company's diminishing fortunes.

Her decision to clamp down on remote working met a wall of criticism from proponents of a flexible workplace to improve the work-life balance, boost motivation, and keep women at work.

"It's incredibly disappointing," said Jennifer Owens, spokeswoman for website Working Mother, adding most women were delighted when a pregnant Mayer took over the helm of Yahoo.

"Her plan ... is to lead her workforce back to the last century by banning work-from-home policies across the company."

STEP BACKWARDS

Richard Branson, head of Virgin Group, said the move by Yahoo! undermined the trust that staff would get their work done wherever, without supervision, as working is no longer 9-5.

"This seems a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever," Branson wrote in a blog on the Virgin website.

"If you provide the right technology to keep in touch, maintain regular communication and get the right balance between remote and office working, people will be motivated to work responsibly, quickly and with high quality."

Britain's BT Group, one of the first UK companies to adopt teleworking, said about 69,000 of its 89,000 staff were equipped to work flexibly of which about 9,400 are home workers.

The company said this led to benefits like accommodation savings, increased productivity and reduced sick absence, adding 99 percent of women returned to BT after maternity leave.

"Our flexible working policies can also achieve a better balance between work and family commitments, which can be especially important for those with young families or caring responsibilities," a BT spokesman said.

Flexible working was cited in a careerbuilder.com survey released last month as one of the most important factors in job satisfaction and staying with a company.

The Harris Interactive survey of 3,900 U.S. workers between November 1 and 30 last year found 59 percent said flexible schedules were important and 33 percent cited the ability to work from home over having an office or a company car.

Guy Bailey, CBI's head of employee relations, said flexibility can be a real win-win for companies and their staff, acting as a recruitment and retention tool for businesses and letting staff balance their working and home lives.

"However, it needs to work for both parties, so home-working arrangements will understandably vary from company to company," he told Reuters.

A 2011 survey of 1,500 workers in 15 European nations commissioned by Microsoft Corp found only 52 percent of people trust colleagues to work productively away from the office.

This was reflected in comments by some former employees of Yahoo who backed Mayer, saying she was making the right call because many employees were abusing the system.

Several unnamed ex-employees told the website Business Insider that Yahoo's large remote workforce led to "people slacking off like crazy, not being available, and spending a lot of time on non-Yahoo projects."

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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