NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 29, 2014

Q: Protesters demanding to freely choose their next leader were met by tear gas, pepper spray and arrests in the streets of Hong Kong over the weekend. Hong Kong is in which nation on this map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Communist Party leaders in China are concerned about calls for democracy spreading to cities on the mainland, threatening their grip on power. In 1989, student protests for democracy were crushed in China's capital . . .

A. Seoul

B. Beijing

C. Shanghai

D. Taipei

B. The protests in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square calling for democracy were  forcibly suppressed with heavy loss of life on June 4, 1989. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Q: Promising a great deal of autonomy for the 426-square-mile region and rights including freedom of assembly and free speech, Beijing regained control of Hong Kong in 1997 from which country?

A. Japan

B. Russia

C. United Kingdom

D. United States

C. Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842 after it was occupied during a war to force China to allow British merchants to import and sell opium to the Chinese. China's leaders have said Hong Kong voters can elect their leader in 2017 – but only from candidates approved by Beijing.

Q: The “Occupy Central” demonstrations have been opposed by tycoons in the international financial center. Hong Kong first became a top trading port because of its outstanding deepwater harbor on which body or water?

A. South China Sea

B. East China Sea

C. Yellow Sea

D. Taiwan Strait

A. Hong Kong is surrounded by the South China Sea on the east, south, and west, and borders the Guangdong city of Shenzhen to the north over the Shenzhen River. It consists of Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, and over 200 offshore islands.

Q: Like the U.S. “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations, Hong Kong's “Occupy Central” protest targets a financial district. China ranks second behind the United States in which category?

A. Size of economy

B. Number of billionaires

C. Number of prisoners

D. All of the above

D. China has more than four times the population of the United States in about the same geographic area. China's economy has grown fast in the last three decades after starting far behind the United States.