C. The French government blasted U.S. leaders over a report that the NSA had gathered 70 million digital communications inside France in a single month. Germany is bordered by France and Luxembourg to the southwest, Belgium and the Netherlands to the northwest, Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east and Austria and Switzerland to the south.

Q: Chancellor Merkel called President Obama over the incident, and the U.S. ambassador was summoned in Berlin. Who elects Germany's chancellor?

A. Parliament

B. Federal Council

C. The public

D. Electoral College

---

A. The chancellor is elected by Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, and is the head of government exercising executive power, similar to a prime minister. Washington assured Merkel that her calls were not being monitored and would not be in future, but it said nothing about any past eavesdropping.

---

Q: President Obama pledged to Merkel that U.S. intelligence operations were under scrutiny. Earlier, he made the same assurances to the leaders of France, Mexico and South America's largest nation . . .

A. Argentina

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. Venezuela

---

B. Last month, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff postponed a state visit to the United States after reports that the NSA had intercepted messages from Rousseff, her aides and the state oil company, Petrobras. Brazil is three times larger than Argentina, the second largest nation in South America.

---

Q: The NSA revelations are straining U.S. relations with an array of nations including major trading partners Germany and Brazil, the largest economies in Europe and South America. Which nation recently replaced the United States as Brazil's top trading partner?

A. Argentina

B. Britain

C. China

D. Russia

---

C. China has the world's second-largest economy and it is expected to surpass the United States as the largest. The report about NSA spying has threatened to unravel years of U.S. efforts to blunt the growing influence of China in Brazil.

---