Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

China Replaces Kenya Envoy for Belt and Road Damage Control

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Categories: ASCF News National Preparedness Economic Security

Comments: 0

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2020/09/07/china-replaces-kenya-envoy-belt-road-damage-control/

China sent a new ambassador to Kenya in an effort to overhaul its public image amid increasing local scrutiny over Nairobi’s debt obligations to Beijing, the country’s Daily Nation reported this weekend.

Ambassador Zhou Pingjian arrived in Kenya on August 31 and presented his credentials to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta two days later on September 2. The official gesture, which confirms the new ambassador’s authority, was fast-tracked as part of “a swift changeover” at Nairobi’s Chinese Embassy just over a year after the previous ambassador’s arrival, local newspaper Daily Nation reported on Saturday.

Zhou was previously stationed in Abuja, Nigeria, where he served as the country’s Chinese ambassador since 2016. While there, local media referred to Zhou as a “street diplomat” for his propensity to mingle with ordinary locals and attend public functions.

In Kenya, Zhou replaces Ambassador Wu Peng, credited with “launching social media accounts for the Chinese Embassy [in Nairobi], which the mission used to refute any perceived ‘fake news,'” according to the newspaper. Wu began his term as ambassador to Kenya in March 2019.

While presenting his credentials on September 2 at Nairobi’s State House, the Kenyan president’s official residence, Zhou vowed that “China will continue supporting Kenya’s development programs” under his ambassadorship.

Zhou has entered Kenya amid mounting local skepticism of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in the country. Through its BRI, China offers to develop infrastructure projects in developing nations through predatory loans that often trap the host countries in crippling debt to Beijing. This in turn allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to wield tremendous influence over the debtor nation. Observers worry that the burdensome BRI loans Kenya has signed on to through the deal may have long-term negative effects on the nation’s economy.

Just over two months ago, a Kenyan appellate court ruled that a joint contract between the Kenya Railways Corporation and the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to construct a $3.2 billion railway project in Kenya was a “violation of procurement rules.” As a public works project, the railway should have been conditional upon a “fair, competitive, and transparent procurement process,” the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) argued. Instead, the SGR contract was “single-sourced without being put up for tender” with Kenyan taxpayers forced to repay associated loans, LSK attorneys claimed. China’s Exim Bank financed the project’s loan; critics say that the SGR’s loan conditions “exposed Kenya’s assets in case of default.”

Both the Kenyan and Chinese governments have denied that the SGR deal was unfair to Kenya or posed any threat to the country’s economic future. The SGR could still push forward despite the legal hiccup in June if the Kenyan government or CRBC decide to challenge the appellate court’s ruling. Prior to the ruling, two-thirds of the railway project had already been completed and considered operational.

Kenya’s new ambassador, Zhou, left Nigeria amid a political storm there over “a $400 million loan from China Exim Bank over fears the country would be unable to repay,” according to the Daily Nation, meaning Zhou has experience dealing with negative publicity over Chinese-funded loans in Africa. Nigeria is China’s third-largest trading partner in Africa after South Africa and Angola.

Photo: Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Kyodo News - Pool/Getty

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