2022 World Affairs Council of the Year
Network of Independent World Affairs Councils of America
Give to support global affairs awareness programs in the community and in your schools. 
Don’t forget to sign up as a World Affairs Council member (TNWAC.org/join) to be eligible to win the monthly quiz prize.
Check your global affairs awareness with these ten questions taken from the week’s news reports provided via @TNWAC #TNWACquiz.
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Keep up with global current events by following the World Affairs Council on Twitter @TNWAC. #TNWACquiz
QUIZ WINNERS FROM LAST WEEK
Pat Miletich, Nashville, TN
Yezzie Dospil, Nashville, TN
Deb Monroe, Cambridgeshire, UK
Brian Parker, Woodbury, TN
Charles Womack, Cookeville, TN *
*10 of 10. Well done!
If you’re a weekly winner you’ll be entered for the monthly prize drawing but you must be a TNWAC member to win. TNWAC.org/join
Welcome to Colleen Ryan who joins the “What in the World? Weekly Quiz” team that includes Dr. Debbie Barnard, Debbie Monroe and Patrick Ryan. Colleen is a Schwarzman Scholar student at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a member of the TNWAC Advisory Board. Volunteers make the World (Affairs Council) go round!
MARCH 2019 MONTH QUIZ PRIZE
“Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News”
by Clint Watts
A former FBI Special Agent, U.S. Army officer and leading cyber-security expert offers a devastating and essential look at the misinformation campaigns, fake news, and electronic espionage operations that have become the cutting edge of modern warfare—and how we can protect ourselves and our country against them.
Clint Watts electrified the nation when he testified in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Messing with the Enemy, the counterterrorism, cybersecurity and homeland security expert introduces us to a frightening world in which terrorists and cyber criminals don’t hack your computer, they hack your mind. Watts reveals how these malefactors use your social media information and that of your family, friends and colleagues to map your social networks, identify your vulnerabilities, master your fears and harness your preferences.
Thanks to the schemes engineered by social media manipulators using you and your information, business executives have coughed up millions in fraudulent wire transfers, seemingly good kids have joined the Islamic State, and staunch anti-communist Reagan Republicans have cheered the Russian government’s hacking of a Democratic presidential candidate’s e-mails. Watts knows how they do it because he’s mirrored their methods to understand their intentions, combat their actions, and coopt their efforts.
Watts examines a range of social media platforms—from the first Internet forums to the current titans of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—and nefarious actors—from al Qaeda to the Islamic State to the Russian social media troll farm—to illuminate exactly how they use Western social media for their nefarious purposes. He explains how he’s learned, through his successes and his failures, to engage with hackers, terrorists, and even the Russians—and how these interactions have generated methods for fighting back against those that seek to harm people on the Internet. He concludes with a snapshot of how advances in artificial intelligence will make future influence even more effective and dangerous to social media users and democratic governments worldwide. Shocking, funny, and eye-opening, Messing with the Enemy is a deeply urgent guide for living safe and smart in a super-connected world.
About Clint Watts
Clint Watts is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University and a national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. He’s the author of the book Messing With The Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians and Fake News.
His research and writing focuses on terrorism, counterterrorism, social media influence and Russian disinformation. Clint’s tracking of terrorist foreign fighters allowed him to predict the rise of the Islamic State over al Qaeda in 2014. From 2014 – 2016, Clint led a team of researchers who tracked and modeled the rise of Russian influence operations via social media leading up to the U.S. Presidential election of 2016. This research led Clint to testify before four different U.S. Senate committees in 2017 and 2018 regarding Russia’s information warfare campaign against the U.S. and the West.
Clint’s writing has appeared in a range of publications to include the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, Politico, Lawfare, War On The Rocks, World Politics Review and the Huffington Post.
Before becoming a consultant, Clint served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent, as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC), as a consultant to the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB), and as a counterterrorism analyst on a range of programs supporting the U.S. Intelligence Community and U.S. Special Operations Command.
You can follow him on Twitter @selectedwisdom
To get in on the quiz make sure you’re getting TNWAC emails (here’s the free subscription link: http://eepurl.com/gt6dn) and make sure you’re following @TNWAC on Twitter.
We’ll post the answers and the names of the winner(s) in next week’s quiz.
Here’s last week’s questions and answers:
WHAT IN THE WORLD? QUIZ
WEEK OF March 11-17, 2019
1. THIS North African nation has seen growing protests since its current president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, announced in February that he plans to run for a fifth term. Mr. Bouteflika, 82, rarely appears in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013, and has been president of the nation in question since 1999:
A. Tunisia
B. Mauritania
C. Libya
D. Algeria
Correct Response: D. Algeria
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/08/algeria-protests-grow-at-presidents-decision-to-stand-for-fifth-term
2. Thailand’s Constitutional Court voted unanimously to dissolve opposition party Thai Raksa Chart from upcoming elections, citing THIS principle reason:
A. Thai Raksa Chart is aligned with ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra
B. Thai Raksa Chart defied tradition by running the current king’s sister as a candidate
C. Thai Raksa Chart is adamantly in favor of dissolving the monarchy
D. Thai Raksa Chart was found guilty of election fraud
Correct Response: B. Thai Raksa Chart defied tradition by running the current king’s sister as a candidate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/thai-constitutional-court-dissolves-political-party-after-princess-debacle/2019/03/07/2458194c-400c-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html?utm_term=.3b2fd2905931
3. The Chinese company Huawei filed suit against the U.S. government in Texas to challenge a law that prohibits U.S. government agencies from purchasing its products. Huawei leads the world in the production of WHICH product:
A. Military vehicles
B. Telecommunications equipment
C. Spyware
D. Drones
Correct Response: B. Telecommunications equipment
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/tech/huawei-suing-united-states/index.html
4. A French court gave Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, a six-month suspended sentence after finding him guilty of THIS crime:
A. Tax evasion
B. Making threats against President Emmanuel Macron
C. Extending sanctuary to 5 undocumented immigrants slated for deportation
D. Failing to report a priest in his diocese who had sexually abused children decades before
Correct Response: D. Failing to report a priest in his diocese who had sexually abused children decades before
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-03-07/french-cardinal-found-guilty-of-not-reporting-child-sex-abuse
5. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro declared the ambassador from THIS country persona non grata and expelled him after the diplomat joined others in welcoming opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s at the airport in Caracas:
A. Germany
B. Canada
C. Brazil
D. Italy
Correct Response: A. Germany
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/germany-slams-nicolas-maduros-venezuela-over-ambassador-expulsion/ar-BBUufaW
6. The United States Supreme Court ruled that THIS international organization can be sued if its investments in foreign development projects harm local communities:
A. United Nations
B. Red Cross
C. World Bank
D. World Health Organization
Correct Response: C. World Bank
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/07/699437482/supreme-court-rules-that-world-bank-can-be-sued
7. Entertainment giant Netflix acquired the rights to create the first screen adaptation of the 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The novel’s author, THIS Nobel Prize winner, was notoriously skeptical of adapting the sprawling work to screen, and demanded that any screenplay be in Spanish, the original language of the novel:
A. Mario Vargas Llosa
B. Octavio Paz
C. Pablo Neruda
D. Gabrial García Márquez
Correct Response: D. Gabrial García Márquez
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/07/netflix-to-adapt-one-hundred-years-of-solitude-by-gabriel-garcia-marquez
8. A report by cybersecurity experts shows that China has hacked several universities worldwide, including MIT and the University of Hawaii, to steal information related to THIS particular technology:
A. Maritime technology developed for military use
B. Desalinization technology
C. Bioengineering technology that focuses on developing strains of “super fruits”
D. All of the above
Correct Response: A. Maritime technology developed for military use
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-hackers-target-universities-in-pursuit-of-maritime-military-secrets-11551781800
9. Satellite images released two days after the most recent US-North Korea summit ended show that North Korea is rebuilding THIS facility, an installation that it had previously pledged to dismantle:
A. A missile production facility
B. A uranium enrichment facility
C. A rocket launch site
D. A nuclear testing site
Correct Response: C. A rocket launch site
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47465082
10. Farmers in India have used firecrackers and loudspeakers to deter THESE opium-addicted creatures from raiding their cash crops, but to no avail. Farmers who grow opium for painkillers and other medications in the Madhya Pradesh region must hold costly licenses to do so; many fear that the constant raids on their fields will wreck their livelihoods:
A. Parrots
B. Cobras
C. Elephants
D. Monkeys
Correct Response: A. Parrots
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6743175/Polly-wants-crack-Parrots-addicted-OPIUM-wreak-havoc-Indian-farms-ravage-crops.html
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