NewsTracker Answers for week of Nov. 11, 2024

Q: Ghana's outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo is facing a backlash on social media after he unveiled a large gold-colored statue of himself that critics called “self glorification." Where is the West African nation of Ghana?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Some of the critics are calling for the statue to be pulled down after the president leaves office in January after serving two terms. Where have statues of former leaders been destroyed?

A. Egypt

B. Rome

C. United States

D. Virtually everywhere


D. As long as humans have been erecting statues and monuments, others have come along and destroyed those those efforts to immortalize ancestors, leaders, heroes, and religion. Often the materials have been used for other purposes. In 1776, a New York mob tore down a statue of King George III which was melted to make bullets to fight British soldiers.


Q: Ghana is considered one of the most stable and democratic countries in West Africa. It’s wealth ranks near the middle for African nations. What is its biggest export?

A. Cocoa

B. Gold

C. Lumber

D. Oil


B. Gold accounts for roughly half of the exports from the country once called the Gold Coast. While gold brought wealth to the area since at least the Middle Ages, it also attracted European fortune hunters who later turned the region into the Slave Coast, supplying the Americas with millions of Africans for forced labor.


Q: The Gold Coast Colony became Ghana in 1957 when it gained independence from which nation?

A. France

B. Netherlands

C. Portugal

D. United Kingdom


D. English is the official language of the former British colony, which has another 11 government-sponsored languages. French also is widely taught in Ghana’s schools because all of the country’s neighbors are French-speaking. The Portuguese and Dutch were the first Europeans to trade for gold in what is now Ghana.


Q: Gold has led to an explosion of illegal mining on an industrial scale, destroying thousands of acres of agriculture and poisoning Ghana rivers with the mercury and cyanide used to extract the gold. Demonstrators protesting the “mad gold rush” recently took the streets of Ghana’s capital …

A. Accra

B. Bamako

C. Conakry

D. Dakar


A. Police detained dozens of the protesters in the capital of Accra, but they were released as anger grew over the arrests. President Akufo-Addo ordered armed forces to end the mining. However, few expect a major crackdown ahead of national elections in December because of political supporters among the illegal miners.