A looming election join me Steve Clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society on aljazeera. Hello im daryn jordan this is counting the cost on aljazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week russia seizes control of libyas Biggest Oil Field despite losing ground moscow flounce libya with warplanes and russian. Currency crisis default hyperinflation lebanons economic paralysis devastating exposure so is it time for a marshall fund. Weaponize and data and dissent from ation to manipulate elections hostile nations are using Artificial Intelligence to get past the best media defenses. Well despite being driven out of Eastern Libya by Government Forces backed by turkey warlord he for have to continues to blockade the countrys oil exports and with the support of russian mercenaries is seizing control of the countrys oil fields and its ports starving the country of much needed financial resources. Well have to has always had the support of russia france and the United Arab Emirates but as russia steps up its reach around the mediterranean and africa its increased tensions between moscow and washington the United States military has taken the extraordinary steps of cataloguing and releasing satellite imagery in may 14 make 29 and several su 24 were flown from russia to syria before being flown to libya is thought theyre being piloted by private military contractors Russian PrivateMilitia Group wagner which has close links to the kremlin has about 2000 personnel in country and is said to be supported by other foreign militias the one the group has unable to have to are to seize control of the countrys Biggest Oil Field which produces 300000 barrels a day and russias control of oil fields and ports means the un recognized government in tripoli cant pay its Civil ServantsRussian Private military contractors are active in 16 african nations thats according to africa washington has threatened to sanction have to are it was a u. S. Citizen and a former cia asset after owns property worth more than half a 1000000. 00 in the United States so what is russias end game and caught in the middle of all of this are the libyan people themselves lets bring in francis guinness in tunis hes a north africa analyst and former Financial Times correspondent frances this conflict is turning into a real mess isnt it i mean russia is printing money for have to as Political Base in the east and having lost the battle to tripoli russia now seems to be going after the main Economic Resource which is of course oil. Well i think in a way all this is sad to predictable because when the french took the decision to cheerlead britain and america into libya their intent was to protect the inhabitants of being down there but it quickly turned into an operation to oust gadhafi the problem about that is that nobody had thought through the consequences of ousting or murdering the lady the libyan leader and so other countries got involved to be it it was france britain america or gulf countries what not mercenaries made their appearance very quickly and then we got this division over the last few years between eastern and western libya and so inevitably. Like in like in syria if you will the more the conflict goes on it turns from a local conflict into an International Conflict where every player has their own agenda and now the russians whove used the Syrian Crisis very adroitly to come back into the middle east or to reinforce separate issue and in the middle east which had been weakened after the collapse of the soviet empire the russians a car coming back into libya so francis you mentioned the point about mercenaries in your previous answer we know that russia is providing and using private military contractors in libya from the wagner group we understand the group is active in around 16 african countries hows it being funded do you think. Well the russians are very good at keeping this kind of thing secret theyre not the only one who use proxies but the russians have a powerful state to powerful military and a leader determined to get back into the middle east so it could be funded from indirectly from the state budget it could be funded by one of the oligarchs you know there are any number of ways you could fund this and one must remember of course of the funding will not go through any kind of traceable western Banking System so exactly like you know with iran that have been other cases you tracing the money is of course a way to find out but before you trace the money thats virtually impossible so lets just talk quickly if you can france about some of the key players turkey supports the un backed government and now it has its hands on rights to explore for oil and gas off the coast thats caused a spat because this is disputed territory claimed by greece. Well indeed well the turks of played that card then you know whatever one thinks of tech and theyve played their cards well because what theyve done is that theyve they signed with the government in tripoli at the beginning of the new treaty which read to found the boundaries that seawitch accepted internationally and theyre trying to push their claims on waters closer to cyprus and to different greek islands off the coast of aisha myna and theyre doing this in tripoli as well the advantage for their point of view is that it disrupts current oil bring in operations and even if in tool 3 years time whichever international thora to declare what turkeys trying to push is invalid it has evolved of disrupting current oil search for oil that said this doesnt matter for europe because europe doesnt need to get its particular gas robin oil europe doesnt need the gas but i think that from the beginning theres been a suspicion and colonel qadhafi had said very well before he died that what people were off though was the oil and gas of libya and they are indeed off to algeria and angola and nigeria theyre very very major reserves many of which are not even explored properly so clearly the russians are interested because that gives them extra leverage in the middle east if they can control some of that oil and some of that gas and we have to briefly talk about the United States its getting increasingly annoyed at moscow for supporting Khalifa Haftar is washington then france is throwing its weight behind turkeys efforts to support the g. N. A. T. Well i you know one gets impression from the outside that the americans are playing both sides of the game you know its not very clear but the americans one must remember that as the title of the book which has just come out says the unraveling of you know of american had given me is having all kinds of effect because before they used to be one country america if america really put down its foot everybody will fall into place be it the europeans the gulf states saudi arabia or russia today a very erratic president whos not particularly interested intervenes from time to time and therefore america has lost a lot of clout and in the case of libya particularly when youre in face of a very complex situations when you are playing against players like mr eldo on mr putin who have a very clear endgame whatever one thinks of it american doesnt seem to have an end game except getting out from time to time saying no we dont like this no we dont want this but thats not a policy and the disarray of american policy is causing any number of problems and the other key player francis is france which has been supporting half but is getting increasingly irritated with turkeys involvements but do you think france has backed the wrong horse in this conflict. I think very frankly as a frenchman i think the french you got it totally wrong from the beginning because never forget that president sarkozy went into libya for reasons we still dont understand he went into libya boasted about it used a french writer to proclaim they were going in for freedom and liberty and right human rights and president sarkozy couldnt care less about human rights they went into this as some kind of cowboy film and french diplomacy im afraid in the last few years in my mind is totally ludicrous and there are many criticisms inside france what the hell is france doing supporting have to add is that helping the stabilization of the region in particular france has very close relations with china as a country which im saying at the moment that this is causing enormous problems in tunis economically and in terms of fight against terrorism is causing problems in algeria have the french thought about their interests in north africa the answer seems to be no for us at keyless great to get your thoughts thank you for talking to counting the cost. Now a massive explosion has rocked the lebanese capital beirut leaving many dead and thousands injured the blast has destroyed the countrys main port and left a trail of destruction throughout the city for a country in the midst of a political and economic crisis this couldnt have come at a worse time lebanon defaulted on its debt earlier this year its one of the most indebted countries in the world where the central bank is fast running out of dollars to pay for imports the currency has collapsed and inflation has soared to almost 90 percent in june hyperinflation has pushed up prices by 190 percent poverty is rising and more than a 3rd of the population are out of work. Well lebanon is in talks with the International Monetary fund for a possible 10000000000 dollar bailout its usual back as the middle east has refused to help the country the fear the money will end up in the hands of hezbollah well joining me now via skype from beirut has some of the talent and some is the executive director of the Lebanese Center for policy studies thats an independent think tank focused on governance policy and reform sami look theres so much anger in lebanon that the Political Class and corruption thats literally brought the economy to its knees do you think this terrible explosion is going to be a game changer perhaps for the country. During a task to be a game changer we have no choice we have been trying to reform the system for the last 25 years and no new forms have been made and what we just witnessed this huge explosion show days ago this incompetence is actually a product of a political system that. So incompetent that holds no one accountable and in fact all but look that undermines peoples livelihood and this one not only did not provide them with services actually literally killed people weve got 135 people dead weve got thousands of injured weve got property losses this is huge and we have a system that actually doesnt care to serve peoples welfare and i think this is not a game changer i dont know what will be because people have actually now are suffering this political system actually killing people so i really hope that this actually will steal the end of this system that we have that actually bears no. Cared or old old old who. Cared in terms of providing people their well start order their services some lets just talk about some of the nations that could help you what about those middle east countries like saudi arabia that have in the past given Financial Aid are they likely to step up and provide the billions of dollars that its going to need to stabilize the lebanese economy. Look i dont see that happening what i teach right now that these middle east countries are actually providing humanitarian support and relief medical supplies which is rainy did and i think we really grateful for that but beyond that i dont see that there will be billions of dollars coming in to stabilize the economy you know with and this is struck tranquilly the product of a faded of the system to form itself we have been seeking funds from abroad since 2001 when we 1st went to paris to the paris one conference which has brought a lot of donors together to provide lebanon with money tools sold its economic and financial problems thats almost 20 years ago and since then we have gone through many conferences and seeking International Aid but the political establishment has actually failed to undertake any of these the farms and now we are not somehow going to say that we know that most of the bad debt is held by local banks is it likely that those banks are going to be willing to accept the losses or is there any space to set up some kind of bad debt bank to hold all the debt together look just before the crisis or the explosion took place what lebanon was actually going through is a major battle on how you distribute the last ride the financial losses because now it has been estimated by this government were talking about 80. 00 to 100000000000. 00 off losses which as at least twice to 3 times the g. D. P. Of the country now the banks are actually refusing to bear any of the losses which i find it shameful so what they have done is that they have chance to government and they have used the parliament and Parliamentary Committee to undermine the governments plan which i think is probably more credible in terms of assessing. In the lawsuit so what the banks are coming to say that the loss im not as bad or as big because they dont want that equity to be touched and this is frankly unfair because that what theyre doing now is pushing all the losses on citizens and average and not income people and to actually bad the losses a few years of mismanagement ok they have also benefits from some what about the i. M. F. Are they still the bank of last resort or are they the only game in town frankly yes we have been left with no option lebanon probably should have sought and i am after all the way earlier they tried to go to this International Conference as i mentioned in 200132007 but they failed to undertake to undertake any of 30 forms now we actually need the liquidity to inject liquidity into into the system and in fact there is no other option because no other country in the world to give billions of dollars as they have done before because lebanon and the political establishment they have failed to do with god in fact what they have done is actually keep themselves and power so right now we are just not sure but to eat they have mysterious in fact. Programs and what i would argue that we need to negotiate very well with i am asked for a program and conditions that actually favor or accused not hurt the average citizens and in fact there are many people who are actually the one percent who made a lot of money and billions of dollars who just used to share the burden of the cause and that should be at the heart of the i dont have Program Summit let me get a final thought from you i mean does lebanon do you think need some kind of marshal plan to rebuild the capital and do you think lenders should control the monies that it doesnt fall into the hands of Political Parties like hezbollah etc if thats a sticking point. Look lebanon doesnt need a march for a plan but not with the current Political Parties and stop missions that are in power and that includes all the parties not only hezbollah that have been responsibly and must be held accountable for their mismanagement of the country for the last 25 years so yes we do need that but not under the conditions or when these people or a simple at party that are in power because they have failed miserably and actually managing the country and they have not realized this they keep on blaming each other as if each one is trying to solve the problem well actually thats not true they must be held accountable and i think we are left with not option but for the lebanese people to actually democratically overthrow this government and these Political Parties and my last thought on the people should have the courage to actually not step out and actually vote them out of office because they have been borked ok i have been both through elections they have been scary fied theyve been forced to fight vote for them as well so i think this is the time but i dont get these people actually step up and say we have the courage to vote them off so we can rebuild the country some say youre talking about ordinary lebanese people voting out the Political Classes but who is capable of stepping up to take over then. Oh look there are several groups actually emerged in the last few years that are actually organizing preparing their programs and coordinating together so i dont think theres a shortage of people or organizations that can take over and im not going to name any because in fact its a part of the process but there are alternatives of their people that are credible honest you know capable to actually run the country and then the of people who could do so you know so the but right that we actually you know get out of the sphere that you know if i dont vote for this leader or that leader you know im going to be actually negatively affected and thats how people are straight to vote them out of office because they need the protection and the reason they need the protection is because the simple of the markets have undermined the state and undermined the rest a law that actually make people feel like they need to stick to these leaders to have their rights protected this actually this nonsense this is what we need to liberate ourselves from to build the state to build a state that actually he built to protect citizens not to be hostage all clients to this that means and leaders that have actually in poverty trust and more recently killed us and this political establishment has shown after years and years now with this explosion that theyre not just constable i have nor sponsibility or an able to be held responsible to govern the country ok keep us safe to keep us to take it to bring our money back from the banks you know that has been stolen as deposits and thats actually it shows you how ok political elite and existing system is not capable to serve people ok somehow tell a very good to get your thoughts thank you very much indeed for talking to counting the cost thank you now who would have thought that liberal countries would have created the very tools that foreign powers would use to undermine them or thora tearing regimes have used facebook and twitter to influence elections and referendums around the world russian. Has been using propaganda and this Information Warfare for the past decade special counsel Robert Muller indicted Russias Internet Research Agency for using social media posts data driven messaging and analysis to influence the 2016 us president ial election separately the Oxford Internet institute found evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns in 48. 00 countries in 2018 it also found that Political Parties and government spent more than 500000000. 00 on ways to manipulate Public Opinion of a social media since 2010 and data is such a crucial area of contention and president trumps decision to ban the popular ticktock the u. S. Fears that user data could be handed over to the Chinese Government well lets bring in sean gourley hes c. E. O. And founder of Silicon Valley based prime a primer is an Artificial Intelligence startup that can summarize reams of data in just seconds sure it seems that dissin from ation is really going high tech isnt it and countries are deploying all sorts of Artificial Intelligence and bots that can work around social media defenses how much of an issue is that. I think can cross the really important scientific milestone in the last 12 months where were now able to generate both images videos and text thats indistinguishable from what a human can produce so machines are now indistinguishable from humans and that gets people who have a desire to manipulate populations realty to do that at a super human scale alyssas look forward sure if we can do this years u. S. President ial election how concerned are you when are you seeing an increase in dissin from asian from other state actors. Yeah look weve seen i think the 1st experiments in 26 train have now its all a very very profession. Actions that take into account not just social media but go through all sorts of different Media Channels and this would kind of characterize this is a mythic elation a crisis them to this is been effectively weaponized and its now being deployed to good effect and so were going to see impact in this for the next election to show all the any lessons that we can learn from the 2016 election that we can pull through to 2020 yeah look i think i think the 1st here is that the technology in 26 thing was very very primitive we now are at a place where you can order might a lot of these things and what that means is that you and i a test messages that have been generated by machines and couple that with pictures that are being generated by machines and you can id to set the scale of millions to really find targeted messages that are going to appeal to each kind of individual on a on a very very customized isis so weve seen that i think you know the technology is going to increase and in terms of defenses i think you know the major defense that weve got is just educating the population that they are going to base a step to poke so large scale manipulation campaigns show lets just talk about the british if we can for a 2nd because we dont know for sure if there was any interference in the u. K. s briggs it campaign does it worry you though that there was no real public concern no effort by the British Government to launch an inquiry into this but we do know that it was a large volume of tweets coming out on social media that were generated by thoughts very very large number of it and we know that that likely was from an outside site aca. You know i do think this should have pain and best advice and this i mean the reality is if youre a democracy in this well to dying evaluated freedom of speech and you dont want to censor information you are going to be susceptible to manipulation attacks at the kind that weve seen in the us elections and im sure. You know were going to keep saying so you know this is something that democracies need to take very very seriously yeah and sean i mean it does pose the question doesnt it i mean do Intelligence Services have the resources to tackle these attempts to subvert liberal democracies do you think you know look theres a nice symmetry here if you look at this from the perspective that the return on investment its actually a very very cheap attack that yields huge kind of disruption and the reality here is that you know it has to be defended against in the same way as she did going to get any other attack on a democracy from kinetic weapons were going to have to sign with these kind of information weapons and you know its something that you know that france is now kind of working up to is taking very seriously until just to get a final thought from you how do we know as individuals that were being targeted i think its safe to assume that you are and its your responsibility as a citizen of a democratic country to do everything you can say educate yourself around that i think its also a responsibility for the platforms that a serving of everything in their power to make sure that youve got the context the information that sitting in front of you i think the bottom line is its both on the platforms and its on us as individual citizens to do our homework all right sean go to great to get your thoughts thanks for talking to counting the cost thank you and that is our show for this week but remember you can get in touch with us via twitter and use the hash tag j c t c when you do all you can drop us an email counting the cost of aljazeera dot net is our address. But theres more for you online at al jazeera dot com slash c. T. C. That will take you straight to a page which has individual reports links and entire episodes for you to catch up on. And thats it for this edition of counting the cost im Darren Jordan from the home team here thanks for joining us the news and aljazeera is next. Capturing a moment in time. Snapshots of all the lives. Of the stories one the people are afraid to talk and there is one track and then providing a glimpse into someone elses world new up pursuing in the dream or off your life inspiring documentaries from impassioned filmmakers. Witness on aljazeera. We understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. So no matter what you see aljazeera will bring you the news and Current Affairs that matter to you. Aljazeera. Exploited men used to kill. Him burning the would take to make the charcoal that feels the fantasy that forged the steel. Didnt make choose the trade that exploits the man. Penetrates Global Market slavery a 21st century evil continues to charcoal slaves on aljazeera. Claims that saudi arabias crown prince ordered a hitman to kill a former intelligence agent in canada the u. S. Calls their intended target a valued partner. I know about this and this is all to syria live from doha also coming up deflecting the blame in beirut has residents criticized lebanons leaders for the deadly port blast the president suggests it could have been caused by a missile or a bomb. Ripped apart after skidding off the runway at least 14 people are killed