NewsTracker Answers for week of Aug. 20, 2012

Q: Ecuador officially granted political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who took refuge at Ecuador's London embassy in June as he faced extradition to Sweden for questioning on sexual assault claims. Where is Ecuador on this map?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Swedish officials criticized Ecuador and denied that Sweden was planning extradite Assange to possibly face the death penalty in . . .

A. Saudi Arabia

B. Russia

C. China

D. United States


D. Assange has not been officially charged with any crime and calls the Swedish case a political move to place him in custody and send him to the United States where he might be charged with espionage. The Wikileaks website has published a mass of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables that embarrassed several governments. Ecuador said neither Britain nor Sweden would promise not to extradite Assange to the United States.


Q: One of the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables said Ecuador's President Rafael Correa was aware of of corruption allegations against a senior police official. That led to the April 2011 expulsion of the U.S. ambassador from Ecuador's capital of . . .

A. Lima

B. Bogota

C. Quito

D. Santiago


C. Washington responded by expelling the Ecuadorean ambassador, but diplomatic relations have since been re-established. Like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, Correa has promised has promised a social revolution to benefit the poor and has not been shy in his criticism of the U.S.


Q: Ecuador said it granted the asylum after British officials threatened to strip the London embassy of diplomatic status and enter the building to arrest Assange. The conflict with Ecuador could worsen Britain's relation's with South America where it also is involved in a dispute over the Falkland Islands. What nation claims the South Atlantic archipelago controlled by Britain?

A. Argentina

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. Diego Garcia


A. In 1982, Britain and Argentina fought a two-month-long undeclared war over the islands that killed 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders. Argentina's claims to the islands 250 miles off its coast have wide support in South America, including Brazil and Chile. Diego Garcia is an Indian Ocean island owned by Britain and home to a U.S. naval base.


Q: British officials have said they will not grant Assange safe passage to travel to Ecuador, so he could be in for a very long stay in the embassy. Catholic Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty spent 15 years in the U.S. embassy in Hungary's capital of . . .

A. Belgrade

B. Budapest

C. Bucharest

D. Belarus


B. Freed from prison in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Mindszenty was granted political asylum at the U.S. embassy after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to restore a communist government.