“What in the World? Weekly Quiz” | August 9-15, 2021

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

CLICK IMAGE FOR QUIZ

Thanks to quiz masters Keira Larson and Patrick Ryan and @TNWAC News Editor Campbell Lahman for this week’s quiz.

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LAST WEEK’S QUIZ WINNERS

Steve Lawrence, Morristown, TN
Sharon Roberson, Brentwood, TN
David Hillinck, Huntsville, AL
Joseph Mendenhall, Bedford, TX
Peter Barclay, Peoria, IL
Tim Stewart, Nashville, TN
Melissa Davis, Nashville, TN
Patricia Paiva, Nashville, TN
Donald McKenzie, Nashville, TN
Kathleen Kowal, Fairview, IL
Allison Sturma, Arlington, VA
Steve Freidberg, Boston, MA
Barbara Gubbin, Jacksonville, FL
Pete Griffin, Nashville, TN
Maureen, Crest Hill, IL
Allan Ramsaur, Nashville, TN

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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 Starvidis, 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. Covid-19 vaccines are urgently needed in poorer countries but shortfalls in getting doses and difficulty reaching people with doses that are available is being seen across the Global South. THIS UN agency is charged with getting vaccines to poorer countries, which will not only protect their citizens but also reduce the danger that new, possibly vaccine resistant, Covid variants will emerge. (#WACquiz)

A. WHO
B. COVAX
C. UNICEF
D. CDC

Correct Response: B. COVAX
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/world/europe/covax-covid-vaccine-problems-africa.html

2. The State Department will begin processing hundreds more “Priority Two” visa applicants from THIS country where having affiliation with the U.S. Government makes them targets for deadly violence. The new pool of applicants adds openings to refuge in the U.S. on top of the “Special Immigration Visa” program available to interpreters and other U.S. Government workers. (#WACquiz)

A. Iraq
B. Qatar
C. Somalia
D. Afghanistan

Correct Response: D. Afghanistan
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thousands-more-afghans-can-resettle-us-refugees-state-dept-2021-08-02/

3. Chinese diplomats gained promises that the Taliban will not allow militants to use Afghan territory to attack inside China. Afghanistan shares a narrow border with China’s Xinjiang province, home to THIS Muslim population said to be subject to genocide according to the U.S. State Department. (#WACquiz)

A. Rohingya
B. Uyghur
C. Tutsis
D. Tigrayans

Correct Response: B. Uyghur
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/world/asia/china-taliban-afghanistan.html

4. President Bush, in a meeting with THIS Prime Minister of Iraq, said the U.S. combat mission in that country would conclude by year’s end but the American military would continue to support Iraq in the fight against ISIS. (WACA WWNU)

A. Mustafa al-Kadhimi
B. Recep Tayyip Erdogan
C. Ayad Allawi
D. Hassan Rouhani

Correct Response: A. Mustafa al-Kadhimi
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-government-and-politics-middle-east-iraq-islamic-state-group-9397d9996703d7416f857165072a0a05

5. Two crewmen were killed in an attack in the North Arabian Sea on THIS tanker managed by an Israeli-owned company. The United States, Britain and Israel charged Iran with the drone strike. (#WACquiz)

A. Mercer Street
B. Lucky Victory
C. Bridgeton
D. Axel Maersk

Correct Response: A. Mercer Street
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-israel-tanker-attack/2021/08/01/d48bae2e-f2bf-11eb-a636-18cac59a98dc_story.html

6. A second missile silo field has been reported under construction in Western China as the Pentagon warned Beijing planned to double its 200 warhead nuclear weapons stockpile. This comes as Russia and the U.S. pursue strategic arms talks, follow on to THIS agreement, that often include reference to Chinese nuclear weapons. (#WACquiz)

A. SALT
B. JCPOA
C. New START
D. SMART

Correct Response: C. New START
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57995185

7. North and South Korea restored “hotline” communications between their governments, that were cut when relations deteriorated in recent years. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and THIS South Korean President reached agreement on the confidence building measure through an exchange of letters. (#WACquiz)

A. Moon Jae-in
B. Yoshihide Suga
C. Park Guen-Hye
D. Kim Jung-ju

Correct Response: A. Moon Jae-in
http://reut.rs/3eWcZjp

8. Kristina Timanovskaya was granted a humanitarian visa after she sought refuge in the Polish Embassy in Tokyo. The Olympic sprinter was forced to the airport to return home by THIS country’s team officials after she criticized them. (#WACquiz)

A. Kyrgyzstan
B. Turkey
C. Russia
D. Belarus

Correct Response: D. Belarus
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/sport/belarus-kristina-timanovskaya-olympics-asylum-intl-hnk/index.html

9. Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani approved laws for the first election of the Shura, or legislative, council in THIS capital, permitting Qataris to vote for two-thirds of the advisory body in October. (#WACquiz)

A. Muscat
B. Abu Dhabi
C. Doha
D. Addis Ababa

Correct Response: C. Doha
http://reut.rs/3rGGI5e

10. Russia’s Prime Minister visited Etorofu Island a month after Moscow passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting the government from giving territory to a foreign state. The island, called Iturup by Russia, is one of four grabbed by Russia in the waning days of World War II and claimed by Japan. The chain is called THIS. (#WACquiz)

A. Kuril Islands
B. Aleutian Islands
C. Bikini Islands
D. Tsushima Islands

Correct Response: A. Kuril Islands
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/07/26/national/etorofu-russia-visit

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