(This interview was very kindly translated by Ghassan Kadi to whom I want to express my deepest gratitude. The Saker)

The Saker: Please introduce yourself to your readers, education, professional experience, military experience, political leanings, religion, etc.

General Htaite: My name is Amine Htaite, I am a retired general in the Lebanese Army, PhD in Law, a lecturer in the Lebanese University and Islamic University in Lebanon. I am the ex-chief of the Central College of Command in the Lebanese Army and I have been in charge of several Lebanese Army battalions, both combat and logistic. Nowadays I conducts strategic, military and legal studies dealing with pertinent issues in the Levant and their international ramifications. In this context, I write two journal articles per week and partake in meetings and discussions and analysis on television, radio discussion panels as well as strategic and technical conferences on a regular basis.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told an audience in Iowa that he would not rule out resuming the use of torture by the US government under some circumstances. He said he believed it was effective in producing critical intelligence.

Bush was speaking before an audience of 250 Republican supporters at St. Ambrose University when asked if he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama's executive order banning torture.

"I don't want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement," Bush told the audience, according to the Associated Press. "When you are president your words matter."

Bush said he believed torture is inappropriate and that he was glad his brother, former President George W. Bush, largely ended the CIA's use of torture before leaving office. He did not address the fact that the use of torture also began under George W. Bush's presidency.

A politician from Finland's conservative Finns Party suggested implanting welfare recipients with satellite-tracking chips following news that some recipients continued receiving payments after leaving the country to join ISIL.

A member of Finland's right-wing Finns Party, Pasi Maenranta, has suggested implanting all recipients of government assistance with satellite-tracked chips if they choose to leave the country.

Maenranta made the proposal after Finnish media revealed that some recipients of government assistance continued to receive payments after leaving the country to join ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Maenranta does not believe that the idea raises privacy concerns because of existing tracking technology in services such as Facebook.

"The law should be changed: To receive payments from Kela [the Social Insurance Institution], one has to tell exact data about your location using your personal code, read by a satellite. It is also possible to implant electronic chips to all going abroad, who for example receive medical welfare from Kela," Maenranta wrote on his Facebook page.

On August 2^nd, the UK's Express reported that British special forces were dressing up as ISIS jihadis and conducting operations in Iraq and Syria. Idiotically describing the tactic as "unorthodox", the Express journalists said that "more than 120 members of the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country". Such a strategy can seem justified to those with only an official understanding of the Middle East conflict - where ISIS are the 'baddies' and Western operatives are the 'goodies' - and a hopelessly naive belief in the benevolence of the British military. But when viewed in the context of actual British military history in 'conflict zones' over the course of the 20th century, this story takes on a much more sinister form.

Staying with the present for a moment, the claim that British special forces are in Iraq and Syria to "fight ISIS" is not credible. More than four years ago the anglo-American warmongers made it abundantly clear that they, in league with their head-chopping royal friends in Saudi Arabia, were determined to unseat Assad, even going as far as to fabricate WMD evidence (a la Saddam Hussein) to justify a NATO attack. When Russian diplomacy thwarted that effort, the US and British 'elite' fell back on the tried and tested 'civil war' of attrition by proxy forces, in an effort to oust Assad.

But Assad, democratically elected by the Syrian people, is reluctant to leave just because Washington, Riyadh, Whitehall and Tel Aviv want him too. And while Russian, Iranian and Lebanese help is still available, it seems that the West's proxy army, aka the 'Syria rebels', are doomed to fight and die forever, or until the West's supply of hired guns (or money) runs out.

Genetically averse to accepting the hard facts of any situation, the US and British 'elites' have recently declared their right to "attack ISIS positions" directly through manned US airstrikes from Turkish bases. The real point of these airstrikes however is revealed in the fact that the US claims the right to attack anyone who threatens the Pentagon-trained 'Syrian rebels', who are primarily fighting against Assad on behalf of the US, British and Saudi regimes. That, of course, is the main point of these airstrikes; a back-door attempt to justify US military attacks on the Syrian government and its military rather than "fighting ISIS". It's reasonable to conclude, therefore, that those British special forces dressed up as ISIS form part of the same strategy and are providing "boots on the ground" to support US airstrikes on Syria positions.

US fighter jets struck Syrian targets in an operation launched against Islamic State militants from the Incirlik airbase in Turkey, the US military confirmed Wednesday. This news comes amid reports of a renewed rebel offensive on Syrian government forces.

Six F-16 strike fighters were deployed to Incirlik Airbase near Adana in southeastern Turkey earlier this week. The US forces stationed there have already been conducting drone operations against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL), but Wednesday's strikes were the first manned missions staged from Turkey under an arrangement reached with the government of President Erdogan in July.

"The United States and Turkey, as members of the 60-plus nation coalition, are committed to the fight against ISIL in the pursuit of peace and stability in the region," said a statement from the US mission to NATO announcing the fighters' deployment on August 9.

No Turkish fighter jets were involved in the strikes, security sources told Reuters. Ankara has been reluctant to take part in the campaign against Islamic State militants, citing "fears of backlash."

Western critics have slammed Ankara's stance, considering that Turkish planes are currently flying bombing sorties against the Kurdish militias based in Syria and Iraq, but not against IS militants on the same territory. Ankara considers the Kurds to be a threat to Turkey's integrity, labeling them as terrorists. However, they have been the only ground force in the region to have any success fighting Islamic State.

During talks this week with Saudi Arabia and the Syrian opposition, Russian officials called for a political deal to lay the basis for the stabilization of Syria, proposing the formation of a new national unity government involving elements of the Assad regime, the Syrian opposition, and Kurdish and Iraqi forces.

"The talks focused on coordinating all those who are already fighting terrorists so that they put their main focus on fighting terrorism and leave for later settling scores between themselves," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in public remarks after discussions with the Saudi leadership.

Russia's intervention would aim to "help all Syrians unite over the core task of preserving their country, ensuring stability and preventing it from becoming a hotbed of terrorism and other threats," Lavrov said.

"We agreed to continue thinking about steps that should be taken to create a suitable environment to resume dialogue between the Syrian government and all other Syrian groups," Lavrov said, referring to discussions with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir earlier this week.

An NDP candidate whose controversial comments about Israel and Canada were featured on a Conservative attack website has resigned.

On Monday, NDP senior campaign adviser Brad Lavigne confirmed Morgan Wheeldon had been given the boot:

"Our position on the conflict in the Middle East is clear, as Tom Mulcair expressed clearly in the debate. Mr. Wheeldon's comments are not in line with that policy and he is no longer our candidate. We were made aware of some information that had not previously been disclosed. When we approached Mr. Wheeldon with this information he submitted his resignation."

The Huffington Post Canada has learned that Morgan Wheeldon, who was set to run for the NDP in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings - Hants, handed his resignation on Sunday after the party asked him to resign or be fired. His name has vanished from the national party's website and his own website has been stripped of its content.

Judy Swift, the riding president, told HuffPost: "We don't have any comment on that right now."

Wheeldon's campaign manager, Ramona Jennex, said he had offered his resignation, but she declined to elaborate.

"What I do know so far is that there has been an issue that has been brought forward, and Morgan is in the process now of making a decision on which way the campaign will go," she said.

Wheeldon is featured on a Conservative Party of Canada website calling Israel's action against Palestinians a war crime — comments he made on a Facebook post in August 2014.

Who would've thought it would come to this? Certainly not the Obama Administration, and their brilliant geo-political think-tank neo-conservative strategists. John Kerry's brilliant "win-win" proposal of last September during his September 11 Jeddah meeting with ailing Saudi King Abdullah was simple: Do a rerun of the highly successful State Department-Saudi deal in 1986 when Washington persuaded the Saudis to flood the world market at a time of over-supply in order to collapse oil prices worldwide, a kind of "oil shock in reverse." In 1986 was successful in helping to break the back of a faltering Soviet Union highly dependent on dollar oil export revenues for maintaining its grip on power.

So, though it was not made public, Kerry and Abdullah agreed on September 11, 2014 that the Saudis would use their oil muscle to bring Putin's Russia to their knees today.

It seemed brilliant at the time no doubt.

Translated by Kristina Rus

The level of the shadow economy in Ukraine in the first quarter of 2015 increased by 5 percentage points (PP) compared with the corresponding period of 2014 — to 47% of the total official GDP.

Such preliminary calculations were made by the Economic Development Ministry on its website on Friday, August 14.

"The loss of confidence of economic actors in the improvement of the economic and political situation in the near future caused them to actively use the schemes of income concealment, including such as increasing write-offs and losses", — notes the agency.

Giving away your organs sounds noble, but have doctors blurred the line between life and death?

Corrections & Amplifications

The article below quotes Robert Truog, professor of medical ethics, anesthesia and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, about the possible pain felt by an organ donor who has been declared brain dead. Mr. Teresi writes that Dr. Truog "compared the topic of pain in an organ donor to an argument over 'whether it is OK to kick a rock.' " A review of Mr. Teresi's notes after the publication of the essay reflects that Dr. Truog, when asked whether a donor feels pain, said "it's like kicking a rock." Dr. Truog, however, denies that he used the analogy. "I can tell you in the strongest possible terms that I am certain I never said anything like this." In a separate issue, recipients of single-organ transplants—heart, intestine, kidney, liver, single and double lung and pancreas—are charged an average $470,000, ranging from $288,000 for a kidney transplant to $1.2 million for an intestine transplant, according to consulting firm Milliman. A previous version of this article incorrectly said that average recipients are charged $750,000 for a transplant, and that at an average 3.3 organs, that is more than $2 million per body.

The last time I renewed my driver's license, the clerk at the DMV asked if she should check me off as an organ donor. I said no. She looked at me and asked again. I said, "No. Just check the box that says, 'I am a heartless, selfish bastard.'"

Becoming an organ donor seems like a win-win situation. Some 3.3 people on the transplant waiting list will have their lives extended by your gift (3.3 is the average yield of solid organs per donor). You're a hero, and at no real cost, apparently.

But what are you giving up when you check the donor box on your license? Your organs, of course—but much more. You're also giving up your right to informed consent. Doctors don't have to tell you or your relatives what they will do to your body during an organ harvest operation because you'll be dead, with no legal rights.

The most likely donors are victims of head trauma (from, say, a car or motorcycle accident), spontaneous bleeding in the head, or an aneurysm—patients who can be ruled dead based on brain-death criteria. But brain deaths are estimated to be just around 1% of the total. Everyone else dies from failure of the heart, circulation and breathing, which leads the organs to deteriorate quickly.

The current criteria on brain death were set by a Harvard Medical School committee in 1968, at a time when organ transplantation was making great strides. In 1981, the Uniform Determination of Death Act made brain death a legal form of death in all 50 states.