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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.

Report: Putin Sends Cuba 700,000 Barrels of Fuel Oil

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Categories: ASCF News Energy Independence

Comments: 0

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/07/18/putin-sends-cuba-700000-barrels-fuel-oil/

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

A Liberia-flagged tanker carrying about 700,000 barrels of Russian fuel oil arrived in Cuba last week, the Latin American news website Infobae reported on Sunday, noting that the shipment demonstrated that Moscow was not only supporting Cuba’s communist regime but also finding outlets for oil stock shunned by the West in response to Russia’s latest war with Ukraine.

“The Liberia-flagged Aframax tanker Suvorovsky Prospect arrived in Cuba’s Matanzas port [on July 14] carrying about 700,000 barrels of fuel oil, loaded at Russia’s Ust-Luga port. The cargo is worth some $70 million at market prices,” Reuters reported at the time.

“The vessel is owned by a unit of top Russian shipping conglomerate Sovcomflot, according to maritime database Equasis. Sovcomflot is under British, Canadian and U.S. sanctions and has lost insurance by Western firms for its fleet,” the news agency noted.

Russian oil and fuel are currently sanctioned by the U.S. and Canada. Washington spearheaded a financial sanctions campaign against Russian companies and entities on February 24, hours after Moscow launched its latest war with neighboring Ukraine. The U.S.-led embargo has gained traction among most American allies, with Europe and Britain reportedly planning to impose a moratorium on Russian crude oil imports by the end of the year.

Cuba is a communist-ruled island nation in the Caribbean that has maintained diplomatic connections with Moscow in recent months despite its souring ties with the West. The fruits of this relationship were evident on July 14 when both parties benefitted from Russia’s massive shipment of fuel to Havana.

Cuba’s communist regime has severely mismanaged the country’s government and economy since it seized power on the island in the early 1960s, causing the nation to descend into poverty. The country’s severe lack of funds has affected all sectors, including Cuba’s power industry, which regularly fails to provide sufficient electricity to citizens.

“In recent weeks, Cubans have been experiencing major blackouts, which generated so much tension in the population that the dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel had to go out to explain the situation on television and began a tour of the main thermoelectric plants. Last year these power outages were one of the causes of unusual popular revolts,” Infobae recalled on July 17.

Cuba’s rolling blackouts have plagued the Caribbean island for years due in large part to the state power grid’s infrastructural defects. Russia’s latest fuel oil shipment to Cuba will likely serve as a mere temporary remedy for a much deeper power crisis.

“According to experts, the problem is far from being resolved as it requires a radical recapitalization and modernization of the vulnerable thermoelectric plants, something unthinkable in the current context of crisis,” Infobae noted on Sunday.

“Cuba generates most electricity from fuel oil and its own heavy crude production. Smaller distributed generation plants fueled with diesel help the country complement power generation,” Reuters observed on July 14.

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