The chief executive of controversial PR firm Bell Pottinger has jumped ship following accusations the company engaged in a "racially charged" media campaign in South Africa.

James Henderson, who has a 40 per cent stake in the business, resigned on Monday, according to a statement.

The marketing company faces sanction by the UK Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) over a campaign the London-based firm helped to run on behalf of a wealthy family with close ties to South African President Jacob Zuma.

A final decision by the PRCA on whether to uphold a complaint by South Africa's opposition party is expected on Tuesday.

Through its partnership with Oakbay, owned by the Gupta family, Bell Pottinger is alleged to have been involved in a media campaign which condemned opponents of the president as members of the "white monopoly capital."

The geographic location of Afghanistan has always occupied a central role in many geopolitical studies. Donald Trump's reasons for reinforcing US troops in the region are driven by the continuing US need to prevent a complete Eurasian integration among regional powers.

The April peace talks between Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and China seemed to have put an end to the persistent and dominant American presence in the country. In Washington, following fifteen years of war and a series of failures, many had come to the conclusion that the time had come for the United States to return home.

Trump had throughout his electoral campaign criticized the foreign policy of his predecessors, giving the indication that he would be looking to leave Afghanistan once he assumed the presidency.

The road plan for Afghanistan laid out by the April peace talks seemed to offer the prospect of national reconciliation between the Taliban and the central authority in Kabul, assisted by parties with great interest in the country like India and Pakistan, given their geographic proximity, as well as Russia, China and Turkey.

Here's what Syria must do in order to keep ISIS and like-minded terrorists down.

Mohammed Ibrahim Samra, the governor of Deir ez-Zor has stated that the Syrian Arab Army is 24 to 48 hours away from storming the gates of Deir ez-Zor city which for years has been besieged by ISIS.

Furthermore, Deir ez-Zor has subsumed the role as the major ISIS stronghold in Syria as fighters continue to flee the self-proclaimed ISIS capital of Raqqa.


While the United States and its Kurdish proxies who lead the SDF are struggling to break into Raqqa city, which is being held by approximately 2,000 ISIS terrorist fighters, Deir ez-Zor is now home to upwards of 20,000 terrorists who have arrived from liberated regions of both Iraq and Syria.

Texans affected by Hurricane Harvey, including my family and me, appreciate the outpouring of support from across the country. President Donald Trump has even pledged to donate one million dollars to relief efforts. These private donations will be much more valuable than the as much as 100 billion dollars the federal government is expected to spend on relief and recovery. Federal disaster assistance hinders effective recovery efforts, while federal insurance subsidies increase the damage caused by natural disasters.

Federal disaster aid has existed since the early years of the republic. In fact, it was a payment to disaster victims that inspired Davy Crockett's "Not Yours to Give" speech. However, the early federal role was largely limited to sending checks. The federal government did not become involved in managing disaster relief and recovery until the 20th century. America did not even have a federal agency dedicated solely to disaster relief until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by executive order. Yet, Americans somehow managed to rebuild after natural disasters before 1979. For example, the people of Galveston, Texas successfully rebuilt the city following a major hurricane that destroyed the city in 1900.

FEMA's well-documented inefficiencies are the inevitable result of centralizing control over something as complex as disaster recovery in a federal bureaucracy. When I served in Congress, I regularly voted against federal disaster aid for my district. After the votes, I would hear from angry constituents, many of whom would later tell me that after dealing with FEMA they agreed that Texas would be better off without federal "help."

As part of South Korea's response to the latest escalations out of its northern neighbor, the country's defense minister on Monday said it was "worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula" to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict. On Monday, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said that he asked his American counterpart, Jim Mattis, during talks at the Pentagon last week that strategic assets such as U.S. aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and B-52 bombers be sent to South Korea more regularly.

"I told him that it would be good for strategic assets to be sent regularly to the Korean Peninsula and that some South Korean lawmakers and media are strongly pushing for tactical nuclear weapons [to be redeployed]," Song told a parliamentary hearing on North Korea's nuclear test, without disclosing Mattis's response.

A poll that YTN, a cable news channel, commissioned in ­August found that 68 percent of respondents said they supported bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea.

"The redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons is an alternative worth a full review," Song said, echoing a position closely associated with conservatives in South Korea but not with progressives like Moon, who was elected president in May after vowing to engage with the North.

The US had to step back from its policy of regime change in Syria after multiple failures, as the jihadists they allegedly hoped to use as a proxy began posing a threat, Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Kassem, argued in an interview to RT.

For an exclusive interview with RT's Eisa Ali, one of the most senior Hezbollah leaders agreed to meet -with the toughest security precautions in place - in a clandestine location in Beirut. Kassem told RT he believes US President Donald Trump has opted for a less confrontational approach in Syria of late after previous attempts to oust the Syrian government proved futile.

"When they failed by using the military option, or by using the opposition option, or by using their cooperation with the regional Arabic countries that wanted change in Syria in favor of Israel, America adopted a new non-confrontation policy with President [Bashar] Assad because of their inability to do more, and because they know that [Islamic State] is against them as much as they are against the Syrian people," Kassem claimed.

The Israeli Army is launching its largest drill in 20 years, simulating a war with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Tens of thousands of soldiers are expected to take part in the massive exercise, according to military sources.

The 'Light of the Grain' drill, which is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, will last 10 days and will simulate "scenarios we'll be facing in the next confrontation with Hezbollah," a defense source said on Monday, as quoted by AFP.

It will include a scenario of instant escalation, in which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have to defend Israel against multiple infiltrations in the north, Haaretz reported.

That scenario will specifically include 'terrorists' entering moshav Shavei Tzion, 15km from the Lebanese border, while 'Hezbollah' stages an attack by Gesher Benot Yaakov in the Golan Heights.

The 'terrorists' will be using "flags and enemy uniforms, fake weapons, fake explosive belts and more," an army official told the Times of Israel. Such costumes and props are part of a new army program known as 'Red Containers'.

The IDF will also practice an attack on Lebanon and the evacuation of Israeli towns by the border in preparation for heavy missile attacks.

The situation around North Korea is unlikely to be resolved as long as the US is provoking Pyongyang, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday.

It is very difficult to hope that the situation around North Korea will be resolved as long as the United States is not ready to stop provoking Pyongyang, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday.

"We have not received anything from our American colleagues, except for general discussions that 'a political solution is possible, but all other solutions are possible as well,'" Ryabkov said in an interview with RT television.

It's not about the conservative principle of "parity" like the State Department says it is, but about the liberal-progressive one of enforcing "equal outcomes despite equal opportunities."

The State Department issued a surprise announcement yesterday on its website titled "Achieving Parity in Diplomatic Missions," which deserves to be republished in full before explaining why it represents a shameless betrayal of the same conservative principles which pushed Trump into the Presidency:

"The United States has fully implemented the decision by the Government of the Russian Federation to reduce the size of our mission in Russia. We believe this action was unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries.

In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian Government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City. These closures will need to be accomplished by September 2.

With this action both countries will remain with three consulates each. While there will continue to be a disparity in the number of diplomatic and consular annexes, we have chosen to allow the Russian Government to maintain some of its annexes in an effort to arrest the downward spiral in our relationship.

The United States hopes that, having moved toward the Russian Federation's desire for parity, we can avoid further retaliatory actions by both sides and move forward to achieve the stated goal of both of our presidents: improved relations between our two countries and increased cooperation on areas of mutual concern. The United States is prepared to take further action as necessary and as warranted."

The recent abduction of Russian journalist Anna Kurbatova in Kiev and her subsequent deportation by the country's state security service (SBU), on allegations of "smearing" Ukraine, is yet more evidence of the turmoil that has engulfed the country in the wake of the coup which toppled its last legitimately democratically-elected government in 2014.

According to a 2016 report compiled by the global accounting firm Ernst & Young, Ukraine tops the European corruption league, and is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, based on the perception of its citizens in a wide-ranging poll. It is an onerous title the country has held each year since the so-called Euromaidan movement toppled the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych with the active support of Washington and its European allies.

People will recall that one of the main justifications for forcing the Ukrainian president from office back in 2014 was his alleged corruption, with claims that he'd been engaged in the widespread mismanagement of government funds and the disbursement of bribes. Yet corruption at the highest levels of power in Ukraine was endemic prior to Yanukovych's election to the presidency in 2010, while remaining endemic since his forced departure.