NewsTracker Answers for week of Jan. 20, 2025

Q: University students led tens of thousands of protesters last week outside Serbia’s state television headquarters demanding the broadcaster stop what they call biased reporting in favor of President Aleksandar Vucic, who claims protesters are being paid by foreign agents. Where is Serbia?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The demonstration in the capital was part of wider protests that erupted after the collapse of concrete canopy killed 15 people at a rail station in November. What is the capital of Serbia?

A. Belgrade

B. Bratislava

C. Bucharest

D. Budapest


A. Belgrade is Serbia’s capital and largest city with population of about 1,7 million people. The canopy collapse occurred in the northern city of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city. Protesters blame corruption for the disaster and are unhappy with Vucic’s increasingly autocratic rule.


Q: Vucic was born in Belgrade in 1970 when it was the capital of what former country?

A. Czechoslovakia

B. Moldavia

C. Wallachia

D. Yugoslavia


D. Yugoslavia was created in 1918 at the end of World War I. In 1991, it began breaking apart into the current nations of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Ethnic tensions led to a decade of warfare among some of the newly independent countries.


Q: World War I began after which empire declared war on Serbia in 1914?

A. Austria-Hungary

B. German

C. Russian

D. Ottoman


A. A Bosnian Serb student assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire which then declared war on Serbia. The Russian empire came to Serbia’s defense. The Germans and Ottomans backed Austria-Hungary, and the French and British allied with Russia.


Q: Most of Serbia is on which European peninsula?

A. Balkan

B. Crimea

C. Iberian

D. Jutland


A, The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. Most of the nations of the former Yugoslavia are on the peninsula.