“What in the World? Weekly Quiz” | August 2-8, 2021

A global affairs awareness service provided by the
Tennessee World Affairs Council

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Thanks to quiz master Patrick Ryan for this week’s quiz.

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LAST WEEK’S QUIZ WINNERS

Kathleen Kowal, Farmington, IL
Maura O’Brien, Richmond, VA
Judy Hollinger, Houston, TX
S.K., Schenectady, NY
Basil G. Smith, Jacksonville, FL
Rob Cousin, Nashville, TN
Tim Stewart, Nashville, TN
Pete Griffin, Nashville, TN
Katie Grandelli, Washington, DC
Sheri Sellmeyer, Nashville, TN
Peter Sharadin, Blandon, PA
Connie Tomczyk, Peoria, IL
Steve Lawrence, Morristown, TN
Charles Bowers, Nashville, TN
Don Samford, Eureka, IL
Gary Everton, Nashville, TN
Bernie Drake, Peoria, IL
Kathy Ingleson, Brentwood, TN
Barb Drake, Peoria, IL
Barbara Gubbin, Jacksonville, FL
Jim Shepherd, Nashville, TN

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July 2021 – Quiz Prize Winner

Tim Stewart

MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman

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Be a member to be eligible for the quiz prize.

August 2021 – Quiz Prize

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Starvidid, USN

From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034—and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.

On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt’s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America’s faith in its military’s strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.

So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America’s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters–Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians–as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.

Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors’ years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

 

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1. The Delta variant of the coronavirus is threatening populations around the world with a more virulent illness spreading more quickly, increasing infections mostly among the unvaccinated. The Delta variant was first identified in THIS Asian country that hit a daily infection rate last week of over 41,000 pushing the total infections to over 31 million.

A. China
B. Japan
C. India
D. Brazil

Correct Response: C. India
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/how-delta-variant-upends-assumptions-about-coronavirus-2021-07-26/

2. The President of THIS Mahgreb nation that was the spark for the 2011 Arab Spring sacked the government and parliament in a political move that opponents called a coup.

A. Tunisia
B. Algeria
C. Mozambique
D. Ghana

Correct Response: A. Tunisia
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/tunisian-president-relieves-prime-minister-his-post-2021-07-25

3. The prospects for a Taliban return to power in Kabul in the absence of American troops, may put the government in THIS capital in a difficult position. It has played a “double game” of inspiring and supporting the Taliban for two decades while working to maintain stable relations with Washington and the international community.

A. Islamabad
B. Moscow
C. Dushanbe
D. Tehran

Correct Response: A. Islamabad
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-07-22/pakistans-pyrrhic-victory-afghanistan

4. A Pride parade in Budapest turned into a protest against policies of THIS right-wing President’s government especially a law, condemned by the EU, that critics say conflates homosexuality with pedophilia.

A. Emmanuel Macron
B. Viktor Orban
C. Andrzej Duda
D. Zuzana Caputova

Correct Response: B. Viktor Orban
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-europe-government-and-politics-hungary-laws-77a68d4e70e1ecc4c402ed9ee5da17fe

5. Beijing rejected a proposal by THIS organization for the second phase of an investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. The plan included the hypothesis that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory.

A. CDC
B. WHO
C. UNHCR
D. EU

Correct Response: B. WHO
http://reut.rs/3zq311U

6. Newly elected President Raisi faces new challenges from violent unrest that began as water protests in the southwest Khuzestan province and it coupled with backlash against economic woes made worse by U.S. sanctions. Protests have reached THIS capital city.

A. Rangoon
B. Islamabad
C. Tehran
D. Addis Ababa

Correct Response: C. Tehran
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/world/middleeast/iran-protests-drought-violence.html

7. The government of Boris Johnson has demanded new negotiations with the EU over the post-Brexit border situation for THIS territory. EU leaders in Brussels promptly said no.

A. Scotland
B. Wales
C. Northern Ireland
D. Falkland Islands

Correct Response: C. Northern Ireland
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-demands-eu-agree-new-nireland-brexit-deal-2021-07-21

8. The Biden Administration is reviewing policy toward THIS country in the wake of unrest there. The U.S. may change rules for residents there to get visas at home rather than in a third country like Mexico and to allow remittances to family and friends so long as there are assurances against government confiscation.

A. Venezuela
B. Haiti
C. Colombia
D. Cuba

Correct Response: D. Cuba
https://thehill.com/policy/international/563908-biden-takes-steps-to-review-Cuba-policy-after-protests

9. The world’s fastest ground transportation system was introduced last week in THIS country. The new MagLev (magnetic levitation) train is capable of speeds up to about 600 kph (370 mph) and will cut a ten-hour train trip in this country to about two and a half hours. A short-distance MagLev line has been operational between an airport and major urban city center.

A. France
B. Japan
C. China
D. Germany

Correct Response: C. China
https://www.railway-technology.com/news/china-fastest-maglev-transportation-system/

10. Xi Jinping was in Lhasa to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the so-called “liberation” of THIS nation by China. Following annexation in the 1950s the opposition launched a failed effort to regain power leading to the exile of the Dalai Lama to Dharamsala, India.

A. Bhutan
B. Tibet
C. Taiwan
D. Myanmar

Correct Response: B. Tibet
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/23/xi-visits-tibet/

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