2022 World Affairs Council of the Year
Network of Independent World Affairs Councils of America

“What in the World?” Quiz – Week of July 23-29, 2017

Note: Beginning in July the end of month quiz prize winner will be chosen from among the weekly winners who are members of the Tennessee World Affairs Council  — one more benefit of membership. To become a supporting member of the World Affairs Council visit TNWAC.org/join. Thanks!


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.’

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QUIZ WINNERS FROM LAST WEEK

 Pratik Yedla, Huntsville, AL
John Cooper, Nashville, TN
Charles Bowers, Nashville, TN

JULY “WHAT IN THE WORLD?” QUIZ PRIZE *

More information and ordering

*Must be a TNWAC Member to win.  See www.TNWAC.org/join for membership info.

A dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, who preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike.

Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930’s—Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they’d died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West’s compass set toward freedom as its due north.

It’s not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930’s, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini “men we could do business with,” if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom—that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.

In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age’s necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940’s to triumph over freedom’s enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell’s reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course, and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks’s masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.

About the Author

Thomas E. Ricks is an adviser on national security at the New America Foundation, where he participates in its “Future of War” project. He was previously a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and is a contributing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, for which he writes the prizewinning blog The Best Defense. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, he covered U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, and the number one New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

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 July 16-22, 2017

1. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he hoped dialogue would continue with President Donald Trump following their recent meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit. Where did the two leaders meet?

A. Paris
B. Hamburg
C. Athens
D. Geneva

Correct answer: B. Hamburg
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-trump-idUSKBN19Z1Z7

2. A bill to sanction THESE countries passed in the U.S. Senate by a 98-2 vote on June 15th but it is being held up in the House after efforts to combine it with sanctions against a second country.

A. North Korea and Russia
B. Iran and Syria
C. North Korea and Yemen
D. Russia and Iran

Correct answer: D. Russia and Iran
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-idUSKBN19Z2BL

3. Last week the Washington-based think tank “38 North” released analysis that suggested:

A. North Korea has developed a nuclear warhead capable of being mated to its new ICBM.
B. North Korea is preparing to test a new hydrogen bomb.
C. North Korea may have processed more plutonium than previously thought.
D. North Korea is dispersing its nuclear weapons stockpile to new hardened sites.

Correct answer: C. North Korea may have processed more plutonium than previously thought.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-exclusive-idUSKBN19Z1EN

4. Before there was intervention by Moscow in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea Russian military forces attacked THIS country over the independence of border regions in 2008.

A. Macedonia
B. Ossetia
C. Moldova
D. Georgia

Correct answer: D. Georgia
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/russian-military?utm_medium=social_earned&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=backgrounder&utm_term=russias-military&utm_content=071517

5. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson launched a round of shuttle diplomacy last week to resolve a hardening dispute between Qatar and its GCC partners Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE and Egypt. Tillerson hoped to lessen tensions when he accomplished THIS in Doha, Qatar.

A. Signed a memorandum of understanding with emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani agreeing to expel members of the Muslim brotherhood from Qatar.
B. Signed an agreement to reduce the number of American troops based at the Al Udeid air facility in Qatar.
C. Signed a counterterrorism agreement with Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
D. Signed an agreement with emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani installing a government watchdog to monitor the Al Jazeera satellite news operation.

Correct answer: C. Signed a counterterrorism agreement with Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-us-envoy-meets-saudi-counterpart-gulf-crisis-48583492

6. In a video that went viral last week Australian Broadcasting Company reporter Chris Uhlman pointedly criticized Donald Trump for abdicating the United States’ global leadership role saying the American President was “isolated and friendless” at THIS meeting.

A. Group of Seven meeting in Sicily
B. NATO meeting in Brussels
C. Group of Twenty meeting in Hamburg
D. United Nations Security Council in New York

Correct answer: C. Group of Twenty meeting in Hamburg
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/biggest-threat-to-the-west-australian-journalist-demolishes-trump-after-g20

7. In the afterglow of President Trump’s visit to Paris to celebrate Bastille Day and the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into WWI, French President Macron said he was hopeful that Trump would take a new position on THIS divisive issue. He told a French newspaper “(Trump) told me that he would try to find a solution in the coming months.”

A. Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA)
B. US-European Union Free Trade Agreement
C. Hamburg G-20 Communique on North Korea
D. Paris Climate Accord

Correct answer: D. Paris Climate Accord
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-usa-climatechange-idUSKBN1A00TL

8. Headlines this week were dominated by the evolving story of Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting – along with Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort – with at least two Russians at Trump tower last year fueling speculation about campaign collusion. Who among these people were NOT said to be in the meeting?

A. Emin Agalarov
B. Rinat Akhmetshin
C. Natalia Veselnitskaya
D. None of the above

Correct answer: A. Emin Agalarov
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/rob-goldstone-russia-trump.html?_r=0

9. As Turkey marked one year since an unsuccessful coup to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan its ambassador to the United States asked Washington to use intercepted communications to mount a case for extraditing THIS U.S. resident charged by Ankara as complicit in the revolt.

A. Fethullah Gulen
B. Kemal Kilicdaroglu
C. Ahmet Turk
D. Vasip Sahin

Correct answer: A. Fethullah Gulen
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-gulen-diplomacy-idUSKBN19Z2J6

10. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a campaign rally that she changed her view of the European Union and that it was worth fighting for a stronger Europe because of all of these developments EXCEPT:

A. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union
B. Discussions with US President Trump at the G-7 meeting
C. France’s election of President Emmanuel Macon
D. None of the above

Correct answer: B. Discussions with US President Trump at the G-7 meeting
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-merkel-idUSKBN1A00BZ


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