“What in the World?” Quiz – Week of Feb 11-17, 2018

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the World Affairs Council.

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

Drew Lorelli, Washington, DC

Patricia Miletich, Nashville TN

Charles Womack, Cookeville, TN

David Hillinck, Huntsville, AL

Pete Griffin, Nashville, TN

Deb Monroe, Croxton, UK

Mike Bush, Nashville, TN

Leanne Garland, Nashville, TN

James Naftel, Nashville TN

Julia Lydon, Nashville, TN

Yezzie Dospil, Nashville, TN

Olivia Spray, Nashville, TN

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 )

FEBRUARY 2018 “WHAT IN THE WORLD?” QUIZ PRIZE  *

Putin County: A Journey Into the Real Russia

Anne Garrels

More than twenty years ago, the NPR correspondent Anne Garrels first visited Chelyabinsk, a gritty military-industrial center a thousand miles east of Moscow. The longtime home of the Soviet nuclear program, the Chelyabinsk region contained beautiful lakes, shuttered factories, mysterious closed cities, and some of the most polluted places on earth. Garrels’ goal was to chart the aftershocks of the U.S.S.R.’s collapse by traveling to Russia’s heartland.

Returning again and again, Garrels found that the area’s new freedoms and opportunities were exciting but also traumatic. As the economic collapse of the early 1990s abated, the city of Chelyabinsk became richer and more cosmopolitan, even as official corruption and intolerance for minorities grew more entrenched. Sushi restaurants proliferated; so did shakedowns. In the neighboring countryside, villages crumbled into the ground. Far from the glitz of Moscow, the people of Chelyabinsk were working out their country’s destiny, person by person.

In Putin Country, Garrels crafts an intimate portrait of Middle Russia. We meet upwardly mobile professionals, impassioned activists who champion the rights of orphans and disabled children, and ostentatious mafiosi. We discover surprising subcultures, such as a vibrant underground gay community and a circle of determined Protestant evangelicals. And we watch doctors and teachers trying to cope with inescapable payoffs and institutionalized negligence. As Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on power and war in Ukraine leads to Western sanctions and a lower standard of living, the local population mingles belligerent nationalism with a deep ambivalence about their country’s direction. Through it all, Garrels sympathetically charts an ongoing identity crisis. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union, what is Russia? What kind of pride and cohesion can it offer? Drawing on close friendships sustained over many years, Garrels explains why Putin commands the loyalty of so many Russians, even those who decry the abuses of power they regularly encounter.

Correcting the misconceptions of Putin’s supporters and critics alike, Garrels’ portrait of Russia’s silent majority is both essential and engaging reading at a time when cold war tensions are resurgent.

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 Feb 4-10, 2018

1. India announced that its 2018 budget would contain a program designed to offer THIS to over 100 million families, making it the largest program of its type in the world:

A. Housing
B. Higher Education
C. Healthcare coverage
D. Food assistance

Correct response: C. Healthcare coverage
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42899402

2. After suffering a long-term bout of severe depression, the son of THIS former Latin American leader committed suicide:

A. Alberto Fujimori
B. Vincente Fox
C. Michelle Bachelet
D. Fidel Castro

Correct response: D. Fidel Castro
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42913492

3. The large, sprawling images created in a coastal plain between 500 BCE and 500 CE and known as the Nazca Lines, were damaged this week when a truck driver deliberately drove over them. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is located in which country?

A. Norway
B. Australia
C. North Korea
D. Peru

Correct response: D. Peru
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/americas/perus-nazca-lines-damaged.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

4. The United States will impose a unilateral arms embargo against THIS nation, in an effort to end years of civil war and humanitarian crisis:

A. Yemen
B. Syria
C. South Sudan
D. Sri Lanka

Correct response: C. South Sudan
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-southsudan-arms-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-to-impose-arms-embargo-on-south-sudan-to-end-conflict-sources-idUSKBN1FM0ZE

5. In a bizarre twist to a hotly contested presidential election in Kenya, losing candidate Raila Odinga held his own swearing-in ceremony. In response to Mr. Odinga’s defiance, the government did THIS, despite a court order forbidding it:

A. Declared a general curfew
B. Shut down all media
C. Arrested Mr. Odinga and his entourage
D. Nullified all judicial decisions relating to the election

Correct response: B. Shut down all media
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/02/02/582649991/as-government-ignores-court-order-kenyas-media-blackout-goes-into-4th-day

6. The Polish senate has passed a bill that would make it illegal for someone to state that the nation’s government was complicit with THIS:

A. Syrian refugee crisis
B. Katyn massacre
C. Holocaust
D. World War I

Correct response: C. Holocaust
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/582613489/poland-likely-to-criminalize-claims-of-holocaust-complicity

7. Canada has changed the words of its national anthem in order to make it gender neutral. Which of the following is the title of the Canadian national anthem?

A. “The Maple Leaf Forever”
B. “O Canada”
C. “A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow”
D. “God Save the Queen”

Correct response: B. “O Canada”
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/01/582520660/canadian-national-anthem-revised-with-gender-neutral-language

8. For over two years, and with the full knowledge and approval of Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Israel has been helping the fight Islamic militants—some allied with ISIS—in the Sinai. In which of the following ways has Israel been assisting Egypt?

A. Sending Israeli special forces and Mossad agents to target the militants’ key leaders
B. Sending millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt
C. Providing arms and technical support to the Egyptian army
D. Sending unmarked Israeli planes and drones to carry out airstrikes

Correct response: D. Sending unmarked Israeli planes and drones to carry out airstrikes
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/world/middleeast/israel-airstrikes-sinai-egypt.html

9. Using Light and Digital Ranging, or LiDAR, technology to “digitally deforest” a jungle in northern Guatemala, researchers learned that settlements there were larger, more densely populated, and more highly engineered than once thought. Which of the following pre-Columbian cultures inhabited this part of Central America?

A. Aztec
B. Maya
C. Inca
D. Zapotec

Correct response: B. Maya
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/02/582664327/game-changer-maya-cities-unearthed-in-guatemala-forest-using-lasers

10. After ties were severed between the Vatican and Beijing because of the communist takeover of China, Catholics there and in Hong Kong are uneasy about a potential agreement being hammered out concerning THIS:

A. The appointment of bishops: For decades, official bishops were appointed by the Chinese government, while “underground” bishops were appointed by the Vatican
B. Religious persecution: China is notorious for suppressing religious groups
C. Continued Communist Party control of all policies, including those that cover religion
D. All of the above

Correct response: D. All of the above
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/possible-deal-between-vatican-and-china-alarms-many-catholics/2018/02/02/cacb8976-078c-11e8-aa61-f3391373867e_story.html

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