World Affairs Council of the Desert What in the World? Weekly Quiz – March 6-12, 2023

Russia is making advances against THIS embattled eastern Ukraine city after months of grueling, costly combat despite fierce resistance by Ukrainians. Meanwhile, amid reports that Russian troops have resorted to fighting with shovels, Wagner militia group chief Prigozhin questioned Kremlin support as either “just ordinary bureaucracy or a betrayal.”

After years of pandemic-forced cancellations, Athens recently hosted Carnival celebrations, with scores of young people and college students on a night train that tragically collided with a freight train on their return trip, killing 47 people, the worst train crash in THIS country's history. Anger mounts over the country's dismal rail safety record in the European Union as it remains unclear how the accident would influence voting during its upcoming general election.

There have been reports of toxic gas attacks in 26 girls’ schools in THIS Middle Eastern country with regime retribution suspected over anti-government protests.

Last week THIS nuclear watchdog group reported Iran had enriched uranium to 83.7%, close to weapons grade material, as its Director General Rafael Grossi met with Iranian officials to discuss monitoring of facilities. The restoration of monitoring equipment may not be enough to satisfy Western nations about to discuss Tehran’s nuclear developments.

 

 

The popular chocolate Toblerone will no longer carry the image of the Matterhorn on its packaging after the company moved from THIS Alpine country to Slovakia. Its former home forbids the use of national symbols on milk-based products not produced inside its borders.

Reports from Tallinn indicate the Reform Party’s Kaja Kallas, THIS Baltic state’s prime minister since 2021 and advocate of support to Ukraine, won a convincing victory over a far-right party that sought to end aid to Kyiv.

South Korea and THIS WWII occupier worked out an arrangement for compensation of victims of forced labor, clearing an obstacle to better relations, a move hailed as positive by President Biden.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a security think tank, released a study showing THIS country has a "stunning lead in high-impact research" on 37 out of 44 critical and emerging technologies in the global competition with the US and other Western democracies. The study also showed this country hosts seven of the world's top 10 research institutions.