“What in the World?” Quiz – Week of April 8-14, 2018

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.

The only rule is to use the ‘honor system.’  No answer Googling!

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QUIZ WINNERS FROM LAST WEEK

Patricia Miletich, Nashville, TN

Pratik Yedla, Huntsville, AL

Pete Griffin, Nashville, TN

Laura Landress, Nashville, TN

Charles Bowers, Nashville, TN

Leanne Garland, 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 )

APRIL 2018 MONTHLY PRIZE 

From Cold War to Hot Peace

By Michael McFaul

From one of America’s leading scholars of Russia who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, a revelatory, inside account of U.S.-Russia relations from 1989 to the present

In 2008, when Michael McFaul was asked to leave his perch at Stanford and join an unlikely presidential campaign, he had no idea that he would find himself at the beating heart of one of today’s most contentious and consequential international relationships. As President Barack Obama’s adviser on Russian affairs, McFaul helped craft the United States’ policy known as “reset” that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of U.S.-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president. From the first days of McFaul’s ambassadorship, the Kremlin actively sought to discredit and undermine him, hassling him with tactics that included dispatching protesters to his front gates, slandering him on state media, and tightly surveilling him, his staff, and his family.

From Cold War to Hot Peace is an essential account of the most consequential global confrontation of our time.

About the Author

Michael McFaul is Professor of Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Dr. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

More Information and Ordering

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 April 1-8, 2018

1. South Korea announced that K-Pop band Red Velvet will headline a series of cultural diplomacy concerts in North Korea. Sending a K-Pop band as the thawing of relations between the two Koreas is still incipient is an unusual choice because:

A. North Korean defectors to South Korea often cite K-Pop as their inspiration for fleeing
B. The South Korean army often uses K-Pop for psychological warfare against North Korea
C. K-Pop is a prime symbol of the decadent capitalism that North Korea shields itself from
D. All of the above

Correct Response: D. All of the above
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/asia/north-korea-k-pop-red-velvet.html

2. Ecuador announced this week that it’s cutting off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s communication outside the nation’s London embassy for THIS reason:

A. Assange has been implicated in a multiple-country scandal
B. Assange violated an agreement to refrain from any communication that could interfere with Ecuador’s external relations
C. Assange was caught leaking sensitive information to Russia
D. Assange asked to be incommunicado

Correct Response: B. Assange violated an agreement to refrain from any communication that could interfere with Ecuador’s external relations
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/julian-assange-ecuador-cutting-wikileaks-founder-s-communications-n860841

3. Russia has successfully completed a second test of its most advanced, nuclear-capable ICBM, near the Arctic Circle. Officially named the RS-28 Sarmat, and designed to replace Russia’s stockpile of aging Soviet-era missiles, NATO has given the Sarmat THIS nickname:

A. Hellfire 7
B. Satan 2
C. Whoop-Ass 3
D. Widowmaker 6

Correct Response: B. Satan 2
http://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-tested-nuclear-missile/story?id=54123222

4. For the first time since 1927, pubs in Ireland are allowed to sell THIS on Good Friday:

A. Oranges
B. Steak and Kidney pie
C. Alcohol
D. Leavened bread

Correct Response: C. Alcohol
http://abcnews.go.com/International/irish-pubs-sell-alcohol-good-friday-1st-time/story?id=54118546

5. 16 Palestinians were killed and over 1,000 were injured as six weeks of protest began this week along Gaza’s border with Israel. Known by THIS name, the protests were called for by Hamas and will last through mid May, the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel:

A. March for Freedom
B. Green March
C. March of Return
D. March for Our Lives

Correct Response: C. March of Return
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/30/598219561/seven-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-troops-in-demonstrations-along-gaza-border

6. THIS U.S. city is the latest major metropolitan area to fall victim to a ransomware attack, which has hobbled its computer systems for the last two weeks:

A. Miami
B. Sacramento
C. Seattle
D. Atlanta

Correct Response: D. Atlanta
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/30/597987182/as-atlanta-seeks-to-restore-services-ransomware-attacks-are-on-the-rise

7. Voters in THIS African nation went to the polls to choose their next president in a run-off election that was delayed after allegations of electoral fraud:

A. Sierra Leone
B. South Africa
C. Kenya
D. Angola

Correct Response: A. Sierra Leone
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43595131

8. A firestorm of controversy ignited this week when an Italian newspaper quoted Pope Francis as saying that THIS does not exist:

A. Hell
B. Purgatory
C. Holy trinity
D. Heaven

Correct Response: A. Hell
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43596919

9. The U.S. Department of State issued proposed rules that will require everyone who applies for a visa to enter the United States—a number estimated at 14.7 million per year—to incude THIS as part of the application process:

A. DNA samples
B. Fingerprints
C. Banking records
D. Social media user names

Correct Response: D. Social media user names
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/americas/travelers-visa-social-media.html

10. A French waiter sued the Vancouver restaurant that fired him for being rude, claiming THIS as the basis of his law suit:

A. The firing was a case of age discrimination; the waiter is older than all the other staff
B. The firing was a case of linguistic misunderstanding; he didn’t understand directions from the managers
C. The firing was a case of cultural discrimination; since he’s French, being rude is part of his culture
D. The firing was a case of gender discrimination; the waiter is the only male on staff

Correct Response: C. The firing was a case of cultural discrimination; since he’s French, being rude is part of his culture
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/26/french-waiter-says-firing-for-rudeness-is-discrimination-against-my-culture

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