NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 27, 2023

Q: Seeking opportunity in the British economy, thousands of young Albanians have risked crossing the English Channel in small boats or inflatable dinghies to seek work in the United Kingdom (UK). Where is the small Balkan nation of Albania on the Mediterranean Sea and northeast of Greece?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Albania is one of the poorer nations in Europe, but which of its neighbors is the continent’s poorest?

A. Greece

B. Kosovo

C. Montenegro

D. North Macedonia

B. Kosovo has a gross domestic product (GDP) per person of $11,900 a year, according to the CIA World Factbook. Albania does a bit better at $14,500 a person, but that’s only a third of the $45,000 in the UK. Albania is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south.

Q: Britain is attractive to Albanians because it has a better economy and higher-paying jobs than neighboring countries such as Greece or Italy. The overall British economy is how much larger than Albania’s?

A. 15 times larger

B. 25 times larger

C. 55 times larger

D. 75 times larger

D. With a GDP of more than $3 trillion, the UK’s economy is about 75 times larger than Albania’s $40 billion GDP, according to the CIA World Factbook. At $24.8 trillion, China has the world’s largest GDP, or the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. The United States is the second-largest with a $21.1 trillion GDP.

Q: One Albanian official said young people are leaving because of low wages and the difficulty of building “a comfortable family life.” With a median age of 34.3 years, is Albania’s population older or younger than the UK?

A. Older

B. Younger

B. The median age in Britain is 40.6 years, which is actually younger than many other European nations. Albania has the second-youngest population in Europe after its neighbor Kosovo, with a median age of 30.5 years. In comparison, hte median age in the United States is 38.5 years.

Q: What is now Albania has been ruled by several empires over the centuries – Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. What was the last foreign nation to occupy Albania?

A. Germany

B. Greece

C. Italy

D. Soviet Union

A. In World War II, Albania was occupied first by Italy and then by Germany. Albanian communists took over the country at the end of the war in 1945. Albania was a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union until 1991, but it was not occupied.