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.

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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.

Hezbollah head prefers China to IMF for Lebanon bailout

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Economic Security

Comments: 0

China is prepared to invest in key infrastructure projects in Lebanon should the crisis-hit country embrace the East, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced Tuesday night.

“Chinese companies are ready to inject money into this country,” he said in a speech on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

One of the most important and quickly-realizable projects would be the revival of Lebanon’s coastal railway, from Naqoura on the southern border with Israel to Tripoli on the northern border with Syria, according to Nasrallah.

“If this happened, it would bring money to the country, bring investment, create job opportunities, allow heavy transport, and so on,” the Shiite leader said.

China has long expressed interest in Lebanon’s northern port of Tripoli as a link for its Belt and Road Initiative, involving a railway that would be key to the reconstruction of Syria.

It has thus far steered away from any major investment, however, amid ratcheting US sanctions on Damascus.

The Chinese embassy in Lebanon was not immediately available for comment on Nasrallah’s statements.

Nasrallah condemned a new round of expanded US sanctions under the Ceasar Act, but suggested these would not halt Chinese investment in Lebanon, if the Lebanese were ready to reach out to Beijing.

The Chinese are poised, Nasrallah said, to construct a new electricity plant for Lebanon.

Lebanon’s electricity sector is notoriously wasteful, polluting and corrupt, wracking up well over US$1 billion in debt each year while failing to provide more than half a day of power in most of the country.

The Hezbollah leader pointed to Iran as a logical source for Lebanon’s energy needs, and one which would be amenable to a barter system insulated from the US Treasury.

“I say to the Lebanese people, there are alternatives,” he emphasized.

Beijing, Nasrallah argued, could offer more rapid and likely funding for Lebanon than a sought-after $10 billion IMF bailout, which is expected to take more than a year to negotiate – if it is accepted.

Nasrallah’s call to look East echoes guidance that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei offered Islamic Republic officials following the breakdown of the nuclear treaty with world powers.

Unlike Iran, however, Lebanon is not a pariah state – until now – in the eyes of the US government. While hawks in Congress have long called for an end to support for the Lebanese armed forces, such calls have not been heeded, including by the Trump administration.

Hezbollah also remains pragmatic, most recently accepting the national consensus that IMF negotiations would be in the country’s best interest given the dire economic situation.

Lebanon in the past nine months has seen the unraveling of its longstanding US dollar peg and the instituting of de facto capital controls, cutting off the relatively well off from their deposits, crippling business and leaving the middle class and poor struggling to cope with skyrocketing prices.

The Institute of International Finance, a global association of financial institutions, tracked roughly $30 billion in capital outflows between the start of the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.

In March, Lebanon defaulted on a $1.2 billion Eurobond payment, choosing to save its remaining reserves for critical imports amid zero, and possibly sub-zero, economic growth.

Photo: An image grab taken from Hezbollah's al-Manar TV on March 20, 2020, shows Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's powerful Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, delivering an address from an undisclosed location in Lebanon. Photo: AFP

Link: https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/hezbollah-head-prefers-china-to-imf-for-lebanon-bailout/

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