Middle East
What are the five top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, in the Middle East?
What are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, and Hebrew.
Buddhism originated in ancient India. The teaching of Buddhism was based on insight into suffering and the end of suffering by this philosopher, mediator, and spiritual leader.
Who is Siddhartha Gautama.
This multibillion dollar project is described by The Guardian as, "a state-backed campaign for global dominance, a stimulus package for a slowing economy, and a massive marketing campaign for something that was already happening – Chinese investment around the world." It is critiqued as a form of economic imperialism.
What is the Belt and Road Initiative.
The literal meaning of this word is "heading to a place for the sake of visiting." It is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims.
What is Hajj.
This Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was the target of a U.S. drone strike in January of this year.
Qasem Soleimani
This Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement and military organization in Afghanistan, who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have negotiated a proposal for a seven-day reduction in violence, an important step toward ending the nearly 19-year-old war in Afghanistan.
Taliban
What major desert forms a border between India and Pakistan?
The Thar Desert
Are the three fundamentals of this official state ideology of North Korea. It has been criticized as a mechanism for sustaining the totalitarian rule of the North Korean regime and justifying the oppression of the North Korean people.
What is Juche.
Muslims pray 5 times a day. The first prayer is called what?
What is Maghrib?
The 2019-2020 protests in Chile were caused by rise in public transport fares, rising cost of living, income inequality, privatization, political corruption, and the neoliberal system. The protests are considered the worst civil unrest having occurred in Chile since the end of this person's military dictatorship.
Augusto Pinochet
The region is where settled farming first emerged as people started the process of clearance and modification of natural vegetation in order to grow newly domesticated plants as crops. It has been called the "cradle of civilization."
What is the Fertile Crescent.
What was the earliest South Asian empire?
What is Mauryan.
In December of 2019, there was an outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The Wuhan strain of the coronavirus has been identified as a new strain of Betacoronavirus with about 70% genetic similarity to the outbreak of this strain in 2002.
What is Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
This city is known as the City of the 1000 Minarets.
This Ojibwe activist passed through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport TSA and was told by an agent that she had to have her braids patted down. The TSA agent pulled them behind her shoulders, laughed, and said "giddy-up!" as she snapped her braids like reins.
Tara Houska
This agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence with the conclusion of World War I. The British- and French-controlled countries were divided by this line.
What is Sykes-Picot?
Present naturally in groundwater across the globe but especially prevalent here, high exposure to arsenic could lead to increased rates of cancer and infant mortality as well as decreased intelligence quotient for affected children. Solar power is helping to bring safe water to thousands of this country's coastal residents without access to grid electricity.
What is Bangladesh.
This is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation, specializing in advanced electronics technology. In 2015, it was the sixth-largest personal computer vendor in the world.
What is Acer.
This person was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the end of the 2,500 year old Persian monarchy
Who is Ruhollah Khomeini or Ayatollah Khomeini.
This President fell in his bathroom and was hospitalized the day before Christmas of 2019.
Who is Jair Bolsonaro.
Edward Said used this quotation from this British politician's "Tancred" as an epigram for his book, "Orientalism": "The East is a career."
Who is Benjamin Disraeli?
One of this movement's most salient features was the mass participation of female villagers. It was a forest conservation movement in India and began in 1970's and went on to become a rallying point for many future environmental movements all over the world.
What is Chipko?
This book is one of the foundational texts of taoism. It is the same name as the philosopher who wrote it. In this book, the philosopher wonders if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.
What is Zhuangzi or Chuang Tzu.
Muslims make up a majority of the population in how many countries?
What is 49.
Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivia, resigned in November following what he called as a military coup. This person, who has been described as being right-ing and anti-Morales, is now the de facto interim president.
Jeanine Áñez