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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.

Biden Lifts Some Venezuela Sanctions Related to ‘Ports and Airports’

Monday, February 8, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

The U.S. treasury department on Tuesday authorized the socialist regime of dictator Nicol´ås Maduro to conduct “transactions and activities” necessary to operate “ports and airports in Venezuela,” relaxing sanctions placed on the Latin American country by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

“[A]ll transactions and activities involving the Government of Venezuela prohibited by Executive Order (E.O.) 13884 ofAugust 5, 2019, as incorporated into the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations … that are ordinarily incident and necessary to operations or use of ports and airports in Venezuela are authorized,” the U.S Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control wrote in a new General License issued to Venezuela on February 2.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13884 on August 5, 2019, imposing a freeze on all Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. The sanctions were part of a larger campaign by the Trump administration to oust Venezuelan dictator Maduro, who the U.S. considers an illegitimate ruler. The August 2019 executive order banned U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with the Venezuelan government.

“All property and interests in property of the Government of Venezuela that are in the United States … are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in,” the order read.

The February 2 U.S. Treasury general license also allows “transactions and activities that had been prohibited in [U.S.] Executive Order 13850 of November 2018 – amended in January 2019 – involving the [Venezuelan] National Institute of Aquatic Spaces (INEA), or any entity in which this institution owns, directly or indirectly, an interest of 50 percent or more,” the Venezuelan government-sponsored news site TeleSur reported on Tuesday.

The new general license does not authorize “any transaction or activity related to the export or re-export of diluents, directly or indirectly, to Venezuela.”

In contrast to the Biden administration’s action easing sanctions, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on February 3 that one of the department’s main goals over the next four years would be “targeting regime officials and their cronies involved in corruption and human rights abuses.”

President Biden’s new administration aims to collaborate more “with a number of allies and partners to bring about progress towards democracy in Venezuela,” Price told reporters.

“Nicolás Maduro is a dictator,” he added. “The overriding goal of the Biden-Harris administration is to support a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela through free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections,” the State Department spokesman said.

Any prospect of negotiations between Maduro and Biden’s administration remains off the table, according to Price.

Photo: YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty

Link: https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/02/04/biden-lifts-some-venezuela-sanctions-related-to-ports-and-airports/

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