2022 World Affairs Council of the Year
Network of Independent World Affairs Councils of America
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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
Jane Dillard-Eggers, Brentwood, TN
Charles Bowers, Nashville, TN
Deb Monroe, Croxton, Cambridgeshire, UK
Ryan Sachs, Nashville, TN
Christine Li, Nashville, TN
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
FEBRUARY 2019 MONTHLY QUIZ PRIZE WINNER
Pat Miletich, Nashville, TN
Congratulations!
COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME
FAMILY MEMBERSHIP FOR ONE YEAR
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 February 25-March 3, 2019
1. After demanding that European nations repatriate their citizens who left to join ISIS in Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump is now refusing to allow Hoda Muthana, a young woman who grew up in THIS state, to return to the U.S.:
A. Tennessee
B. Alabama
C. Georgia
D. Kentucky
Correct Response: B. Alabama
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/21/696537248/alabama-woman-joined-isis-cant-come-back-trump-says
2. On the eve of a deadline set by parliamentary opposition leader Juan Guaidó to allow emergency food and aid to enter Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro has closed the border with THIS country. The closure will make getting supplies to Venezuelans much harder, and adds to rising tensions between Mr. Maduro and those who oppose him, both within Venezuela, and internationally:
A. Paraguay
B. Colombia
C. Guyana
D. Brazil
Correct Response: D. Brazil
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/22/696940060/venezuelas-maduro-orders-closure-of-brazilian-border
3. Two former employees of the German gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch received suspended jail terms. The two are guilty of having violated German law by shipping over 5,000 assault rifles and smaller firearms to conflict-ridden areas in THIS country:
A. Syria
B. Yemen
C. Mexico
D. Congo
Correct Response: C. Mexico
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47316445
4. With a name that translates from Hebrew as “in the beginning,” the Beresheet rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral this week, headed to the moon. What makes the Beresheet mission special?
A. It’s the first Israeli lunar mission
B. It’s the first privately funded lunar mission
C. Only four nations have launched successful lunar missions
D. All of the above
Correct Response: D. All of the above
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47313486
5. Because its population of THIS once-endangered animal has expanded by 53 percent over the last five years, Botswana’s government is now considering lifting a moratorium on trophy hunting. Conservationists often cite Botswana’s moratorium as an example of effective wildlife policy:
A. Rhinos
B. Elephants
C. Hippos
D. Giraffes
Correct Response: B. Elephants
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/22/696992009/botswana-weighs-lifting-hunting-ban-with-eye-on-diminishing-elephant-population
6. Yet another major fire has swept through THIS city, capital of Bangladesh. Volatile chemicals are blamed for helping the fire spread, destroying large sections of the city’s old quarter, and claiming at least 70 lives:
A. Patna
B. Lhasa
C. Dhaka
D. Dumka
Correct Response: C. Dhaka
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/21/696530562/bangladesh-fire-kills-at-least-70-people
7. In an effort to eliminate digital tracking, lawmakers in THIS country have banned members of the military from using smartphones, or from social media posts about their military service:
A. China
B. Saudi Arabia
C. Russia
D. Israel
Correct Response: C. Russia
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/world/europe/russia-military-social-media-ban.html
8. After vandals defaced tombs in a cemetery in Alsace, and gilets jaunes protestors harangued a prominent intellectual with hate speech, tens of thousands of people in France took to the streets to protest THIS:
A. The gilets jaunes
B. The French government’s lax hate-speech laws
C. Emmanuel Macron
D. Anti-semitism
Correct Response: D. Anti-semitism
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/19/antisemitism-protest-marches-to-take-place-across-france
9. One woman died and 28 other customers fell ill after eating at RiFF, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Valencia, Spain; the restaurant closed indefinitely as authorities investigate the source of the illness. This type of incident is highly unusual for an establishment that had earned a Michelin star, one of the most prestigious achievements in the culinary world. What is the maximum number of Michelin stars that a restaurant can get?
A. Two
B. Three
C. Four
D. Five
Correct Response: B. Three
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/world/europe/spain-restaurant-poisoning-death.html
10. Organizers for the 2024 Olympics in Paris want to include THIS as a competitive sport:
A. Breakdancing
B. Parkour
C. Mixed martial arts
D. Cricket
Correct Response: A. Breakdancing
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/22/697009844/breakdancing-in-the-olympics-paris-2024-organizers-say-oui-garcon
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