Morocco Ukraine relations: Morocco sending tanks to Ukraine - first African country to do so

This week, Morocco made a move that seemed to indicate increasing warmth toward Europe. 

Morocco became the first African country to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. The country is delivering 20 renovated T-72B main battle tanks to the eastern European country.

The move is a significant change from Morocco's previously neutral stance on the Russia invasion of Ukraine as well as a clear turn towards Europe and the US. In the March 2022 vote at the United Nations that rejected Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Morocco and other African nations abstained.

According to an article by the Algerian news outlet, MENA Defense, Morocco had already agreed to send the tanks to Ukraine in April last year during a meeting at the German military base Ramstein. In return, the US had apparently promised to provide financial and military support.

Read more at: https://www.dw.com

Ukraine: Russian invasion: Germany and US agree on tank deliveries to Ukraine

The United States says it will send M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv as international reluctance to send modern military hardware to Ukraine's battlefront begins to erode.

The announcement follows Germany's confirmation on Wednesday that it will supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks and allow its partners to do the same.

This is being seen at the first stage in a coordinated effort by the West to provide more heavy weapons to Ukraine.

Read more at: https://www.euronews.com

US Economy getting worse and worse: Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 11-Year Bull Run Ends

The longest-ever bull market for U.S. stocks ended Wednesday 11 March.

The downturn, marked by a 20% decline from the most recent high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, heightens fears that the economic expansion that began following the financial crises.will get wose and worse.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,464 points, or 5.86%, on Wednesday, as investor anxiety over the coronavirus outbreak pushed the index into a bear market for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also slipped by 4.89% and 4.7%, respectively.

Among the worst stock performers Wednesday was Boeing, which saw shares plummeted more than 13%. The company, already struggling due to 737 Max controversies, announced Wednesday it was implementing a hiring freeze, citing the "global disruption generated by the COVID-19 coronavirus."

EU-Digest

USA-China Relations: The Great Negotiator's Strategy Fails Again As Wall Street Tanks And Trump says he'll put 10% tariffs on remaining China imports - by P. Wiseman, K. Frekking and J. Boak

President Donald Trump intensified pressure Thursday on China to reach a trade deal by saying he will impose 10% tariffs Sept. 1 on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports he hasn’t already taxed.

The move immediately sent stock prices sinking.

The president has already imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese products, and Beijing has retaliated by taxing $110 billion in U.S. goods.

U.S. consumers will likely feel the pain if Trump proceeds with the new tariffs.

Trump’s earlier tariffs had been designed to minimize the impact on ordinary Americans by focusing on industrial goods. But the new tariffs will hit a vast range of consumer products from cellphones to silk scarves.

The president’s announcement via Twitter came as a surprise, in part because the White House on Wednesday had said Beijing confirmed that it planned to increase its purchases of American farm products.

That word came just as U.S. and Chinese negotiators were ending a 12th round of trade talks in Shanghai, which the White House called “constructive.”

Though the negotiations concluded without any sign of a deal, they are scheduled to resume next month in Washington.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had been up nearly 300 points earlier in the day, was down nearly 200 points after Trump’s tweets announcing the new tariffs.

The Dow closed for the day down 280 points — more than 1 percent.

 Read more: Trump says he'll put 10% tariffs on remaining China imports

The Digest Group
Almere-Digest
EU-Digest
Insure-Digest 
Turkish-Digest 

For additional information, including advertising rates - e-mail:Freeplanet@protonmail.com

German Military: Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Spurs New German Tank Design - by Kelsey D. Atherton

Germany’s parliament just submitted a budget request to develop a new tank. Nestled inside the budget committee report is the call for a Leopard III development program, to create a new “Kampfpanzer” or battle tank. Spotted at Defence Blog, the proposal to develop a new tank program as part of medium-term military planning is a sign that all’s not quiet in Europe.

It is impossible to see German tank developments without hearing the echoes of history. While Great Britain invented the tank, between the World Wars Germany was the first country to really seize on the revolutionary potential that the armor offered a military.

Germany’s rapid advances in the early days of World War II were spearheaded by aggressive tanks, and it took the Allies years to drive them back from positions they conquered in months. But at the Battle of Kursk in 1943, Germany found their more advanced tanks ground down by Soviet defenses and defeated by a Russian armored counter-attack.

In the Cold War, NATO expected a Soviet land invasion of Western Europe to start with Western Germany, and then come through a pair of narrow, lowland corridors known as the “Fulda Gap.”

The CIA also estimated that tanks deployed by Russia and its Soviet allies in Central Europe outnumbered NATO tanks by almost 3-to-1. Fortunately, the modern world is much different than that of 1945 through 1989, thanks to the fall of Soviet Russia and the reunification of a Germany that had been divided into two opposing halves expected to annihilate each other in a new World War.

Read more: Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Spurs New German Tank Design | Popular Science

Russia and Ukraine's mystery tanks - by Jonathan Marcus

The Russian government has strenuously denied that any of its tanks crossed the border into Ukraine.

But now Nato has released satellite imagery, linked to existing video material, which appears to give added weight to assertions from the Ukrainian authorities that the tanks used by separatist forces that crossed into its country just a few days ago were indeed supplied by the Russians.

There is no doubt that the mystery tanks were on the road inside Ukraine.

Two of them were seen driving through the town of Makiivka, near Donetsk, and another was seen in Snizhne, further east.

Nato has provided two pictures from open-source video that show the T-64 tanks at the two locations.

Read More: BBC News - Russia and Ukraine's mystery tanks