Current Events Quiz, Fall 2002
Much to the dismay of many Internet users, what search engine was blocked by the Chinese government for a few weeks in September?
- Google is very popular among Chinese speakers because its searches are shown in simple Chinese characters. Additionally, sites are cached on Google's U.S. servers, allowing censored material to be read. Access to Google was restored in mid September.
In September six Americans of Yemeni descent were arrested for their alleged ties to al-Qaeda. What is their hometown?
- The six men, who grew up in the Buffalo suburb, are known to have travelled to Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.
In 2002 East Timor, the world's newest country, became a United Nations member state. What other country joined the UN in 2002?
- Switzerland, famous for its neutrality, chose to join the UN, but has still not joined the European Union. Comoros became a UN member in 1975; Tuvalu became a member in 2000.
The first world leader to support U.S. president George W. Bush in his campaign against Iraq was:
- Blair has supported Bush in using force against Iraq since August, and in September presented his "case against Iraq" to the British Parliament.
The North Korean government revealed it kidnapped 13 civilians from what country in the 1970s and 1980s?
- In normalization talks with Japanese president Junichiro Koizumi, North Korea's president Kim Jung Il admitted to the kidnappings. The Japanese civilians were taken and forced to teach Korean spies Japanese culture and language. The Koreans claim that eight of the kidnapped died in natural disasters or from disease. This has caused outrage among Japanese citizens.
President Bush invoked this Act of Congress, ending an eleven-day lockout of dock workers at West Coast ports:
- Invoking the Taft-Hartley Act has established an injunction against any strike or lockout at West Coast ports and requires federal mediators to help resolve the dispute between dock workers and port employers. The lockout is estimated to have caused the U.S. economy one billion dollars each day.
Internal divisions between southern Christians and northern Muslims in September led to civil unrest in what West African country?
- Hundreds died when violence broke out in the Ivorian commercial capital, Abijan, on September 19. There is still no resolution to the crisis and a full-scale war seems imminent.
What country has just returned more than 50,000 square miles of land to its indigenous peoples?
- Australian aborigines of the Martu tribe were granted a land mass four times the size of Belgium in Australia's Northern Territory. This is the largest piece of land granted Aborigines since land claims began in 1992.
This country's president survived an assassination attempt in September 2002.
- On September 5 a member of a Kandahar-area security detail shot at Afghan president Hamad Karzai, missing him by inches. On the same day, a car bomb exploded in Kabul, killing at least 25 people.
In October Mozambique celebrated ten years of peace. The 1992 peace accords ended a sixteen-year civil war, which followed its gaining of independence from what country?
- Mozambique was a Portuguese colony for 470 years and gained its independence in 1975.
