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2023 News Stories - Name the Country

Can you name the countries described in these news stories from the year 2023?
Answer must correspond to highlighted box
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: December 21, 2023
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First submittedDecember 21, 2023
Times taken16,993
Average score66.7%
Rating3.39
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Clue
Country
Passes China to become the most populous country in the world
India
Crowns Charles III as king
United Kingdom
Joins NATO
Finland
Declares its intention to annex most of Guyana
Venezuela
Launches a counteroffensive in an attempt to reclaim territory lost the previous year
Ukraine
Brings Neymar to its professional football league with a €150 million yearly salary
Saudi Arabia
Opens a new prison to house 40,000 tattooed gang members arrested
en masse the previous year
El Salvador
Sees its fertility rate plummet to around 0.7 children per woman,
the lowest any country has ever recorded
South Korea
Seizes the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing Armenian residents to flee
Azerbaijan
Suffers over 1,000 deaths from a Hamas terrorist attack
Israel
Suffers over 50,000 deaths from a 7.8 earthquake near the city of Gaziantep
Turkey
Allegedly sends spy balloons over U.S. airspace
China
Wins its sixth Cricket World Cup title
Australia
Libertarian candidate Javier Milei is elected President
Argentina
Former President Lula da Silva takes office once again
Brazil
A military junta overthrows the President and demands the withdrawal of French troops
Niger
Houthi forces launch missiles against ships in the Red Sea
Yemen
Geert Wilders' Freedom Party wins the most seats in Parliamentary elections
Netherlands
74 Comments
+10
Level 60
Dec 22, 2023
How about Mali dropping French as an official language?
+4
Level 68
Dec 29, 2023
Why should they? They literally have no reason to do that.
+9
Level 62
Dec 29, 2023
I was amused reading a news article about it, watching people fill out the ballots which appeared to be monolingual in French that asked if French should be dropped. They're going to have a lot of work to do.
+13
Level 57
Dec 29, 2023
Why should an African country not have use a European language as their official language? They speak Bambara as a lingua franca in this region and they will not have a hard time adjusting to this switch
+5
Level 71
Dec 29, 2023
It is part of the controversy over present-day French relations with former French colonies, as well as the replacement of pro-Western governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, leading to the formation of an alliance.
+5
Level 83
Dec 23, 2023
It should read Wilders', not Wilder's (since the surname is Wilders, not Wilder).
+2
Level ∞
Dec 23, 2023
Okay
+7
Level 86
Dec 23, 2023
Lula took office in 2023, but was elected last year, in the 2022 Brazilian General Elections.
+1
Level ∞
Dec 23, 2023
Fixed
+39
Level 42
Dec 29, 2023
Absolutely wild to omit the most destructive aerial bombardment campaign since WW2
+11
Level 51
Dec 29, 2023
you mean the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war?

2.8 million tons vs 2 million tons of bombs dropped

https://web.archive.org/web/20231203202817/https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf

+3
Level 70
Dec 29, 2023
Interesting. Where did this take place?
+12
Level 60
Dec 29, 2023
Palestine
+18
Level 71
Dec 30, 2023
Unfortunately Palestine is not recognized as a country by Jetpunk, otherwise the Israel question could've been followed up by "Suffers 20,000 deaths (and counting) from an act of revenge"
+19
Level 62
Dec 30, 2023
If Jetpunk can recognize Taiwan as a country, surely they can recognize Palestine. I wonder what's up with this double standard...
+11
Level 76
Jan 3, 2024
I mean, if you can count 75+ years of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide "revenge." Don't pay any attention to Gaza/Palestine not being a "country" - the focus here is just plain old pro-Zionism.
+68
Level 53
Dec 29, 2023
What about the +20 thousand civilians killed in Gaza? I think you should add this too.
+18
Level 66
Dec 29, 2023
We're going for countries and Gaza isn't really an actual country on its own
+58
Level 62
Dec 29, 2023
Then I would also suggest going for neutrality and not reference only one half (the "half" with far fewer casualties) of a major military conflict.
+10
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
Is this a contest?

Is the side with the most casualties automatically the victim?

During WW2 there were a lot more German civilians who got killed than British or American. Does that make Germany the victim here? Or maybe Germany started to attack and therefore had to pay the price for that?

When thousands of terrorists which control a certain territory decide to slaughter innocent people, including beheading babies, burning children, raping women, killing and kidnapping more than 1,000 civilians, they know the consequences.

When terrorists hide in hospitals, schools and between "innocent" civilians, they know the consequences. And they know that people from around the world will see the results and automatically blame the other side, simply because it is bigger and stronger. They count on this propaganda. Unfortunately, they are succeeding, as your comment proves.

That doesn't change the truth. A country has the right to defend itself. Good that they are doing that.

+13
Level 71
Dec 30, 2023
Yes, many German civillians were just as much a victim of WW2 as civilians from other countries.

20,000 people have died in Palestine since Israel launched their attack. Most of these are innocent - Hamas doesn't have anywhere near that number of members. Many of the people killed were children, sick, elderly and pregnant people.

There's plenty of footage out there that you can see for yourself... a bunch of kids playing on the street, then a car drives by with a suspected terrorist in it - and WHAM - the whole street is blown up, along with the kids. The killing is indiscriminate.

In your last paragraph, are you saying that because terrorists hide amongst innocent people, the innocent people deserve to die?

+3
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
Of course they don't deserve to die.

But that is exactly the awful outcome of the actions of Hamas. If they cared about their own civilians they would never do such horrible crimes.

Unfortunately, they didn't leave them any other choice.

The terrorists (which include more people than you think) hurt Palestinians as well as Israelis.

And as for innocent people, there are a lot of civilians in Gaza who are not officially a part of Hamas, yet they cooperate with them, as seen in October 7th. Their "Innocent" people participated in the massacre, killed, stole, kidnapped and more. In fact, some of the Israeli hostages who are still at captivity are kept in apartments of those who are not considered terrorists. So as you can see. a lot of people who we think of as innocent are actually part of the terror actions.

+4
Level 48
Jan 28, 2024
Come on bombing any place isn't how you fight against a terrorist group, it's just collective punishment. If Israel was only fighting against Hamas their politicians wouldn't call for nuclear bombs.
+54
Level 67
Dec 29, 2023
Country that caused 20k+ civilian deaths in response to an attack that caused 1000?
+35
Level 62
Dec 29, 2023
100% agree, thousands of innocent people have been killed in Palestine.
+5
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
Do you suggest that a country suffering from 1,000 casualties should response in killing 1,000 exactly?

Is this a contest?

Every country in such a horrific event would act the same, and probably worse. History shows that.

But only because it's Israel, it is wrong and "not proportionate".

This is hypocrisy at best.

+8
Level 71
Dec 30, 2023
"Do you suggest that a country suffering from 1,000 casualties should response in killing 1,000 exactly?"

No, and also not 20,000. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. An eye for 20 eyes is just evil. Sure the US did the same after 9/11 (except they attacked the wrong country) but the majority of conflicts in modern history didn't end by simply outkilling your opponent.

+2
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
First of all, there's a big difference between a conflict and what has happened in October 7th. I can't think of such a shocking action in modern history.

Second, it seems that you are confused.

Hamas is evil. Israel's reaction is a nation trying to defend itself. The Israeli army doesn't intentionally kills children or other innocent people. That is the big difference. It kills terrorists and destroys Hamas ability to repeat their actions in the future.

I would be glad to read your ideas for a better way to react. I'm sure that you have a rich experience in the area, since you know so much about this subject.

+27
Level 71
Dec 29, 2023
It should still be in here. 20,000 deaths and counting, mainly civilians and children, in what appears to be an attempt to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip through the systematic loss of life and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is going to have long-lasting consequences and what 2023 will be remembered for, not Saudi Arabia buying Neymar out or South Korea having a low fertility rate.
+7
Level 62
Dec 30, 2023
Taiwan isn't either, yet Jetpunk recognizes it as a country. I wonder what's with this double standard...
+17
Level 50
Dec 29, 2023
The quiz is about events that happened in 2023. Why does it have to present both sides? It's not a political discourse.
+33
Level 73
Dec 29, 2023
Agreed, worth mentioning that more than 10,000 children were killed by Israel.
+2
Level 50
Dec 29, 2023
How are children not going to die of Gaza's population is under 18?
+11
Level 66
Dec 29, 2023
I agree, that the Palestinian deaths ought to be acknowledged, but still, the question only asks what country Hamas attacked, not how Israel retaliated. A similar question would be something like "in 2006, Hezbollah forces in Lebanon attacked which country?" We all know what happened then, and we all know what happened now. If anything, it should make the question easy to answer.

The clue also may sound less "politically charged" if the wording was changed from 'suffered' to 'sustained'.

+5
Level 83
Dec 29, 2023
Palestine is not considered a country on this website. If it was I'm sure it would be added.
+3
Level 44
Dec 29, 2023
Nagorno-Karabakh isn't an enclave of Armenia. It's recognized as part of Azerbaijan by every country in the world. And the residents weren't forced to flee at all, they evacuated voluntarily despite the fact they were offered a citizenship by Azerbaijani authorities. Please correct this
+17
Level 83
Dec 29, 2023
I think the fact that literally everybody left shows it wasn't as rosy as you describe it.
+9
Level 57
Dec 29, 2023
If it was recognised by everyone as part of Azerbaijan, then why would Azerbaijan need to send tanks in? Also there is some evidence that Azerbaijan is not sticking to it's resolution to uphold Armenian culture in the enclave, so they're not really the good guys (neither are the Armenians really, but your post gives Azeris too much credit).
+1
Level 42
Dec 30, 2023
Even the Armenian Prime Minister recognized it as part of Azerbaijan. They sent tanks for the same reason Ukraine sent soldiers to fight the Donbas militants. There was an armed group of secessionists who no one (again, not even Armenia) ever recognized as independent and who have since dissolved.
+19
Level 43
Dec 29, 2023
Typical Zionist bootlicker. Showcasing only one side.
+17
Level 67
Dec 29, 2023
A good way to know not to take someone seriously is when they use the word "bootlicker."
+31
Level 57
Dec 29, 2023
Israel post is rather one-sidedly worded. Think there's a way of including these events without sounding politically motivated.
+9
Level 67
Dec 29, 2023
I do not understand this thinking. The clue is accurate in every sense and does not deny or discredit what happened to the Palestinian people. Whence this notion that we always need to reference both sides of every dispute or we're partisan? The clue does not deny how Israel responded. We all know how Israel responded. The clue only asks which country Hamas attacked. Why do people confuse pedantry and cavil with enlightenment?
+23
Level 76
Dec 29, 2023
Sorry, nonsense. That's embarrassing to ignore over 21000 kills in even hospitals.
+7
Level 50
Dec 29, 2023
In what way is it politically motivated? It's describing the 7/10 Terrorist attack only.

I don't know if it's right to compare but that's on the same note as 2996 people died in 9/11 (fact) but not mentioning the deaths in the wars that followed.

The event in question is just the terrorist attack and not the following war.

+8
Level 67
Dec 30, 2023
What about the preceding incidents?
+4
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
What preceding incidents?

Please enlighten me.

+11
Level 71
Dec 30, 2023
Just look up the stats of how many Palestinians were killed by Israelis vs the opposite, in the past... years, months, decades, doesn't matter the answer will be the same.
+3
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
Once again, for some reason you look at this as a contest.

The numbers are not the issue here.

The issue is who tries to ensure peace in the area, which if you know your history, you're probably familiar with the enormous compromises that Israel has suggested during the last decades, and who's only goal is to demolish the right of another nation from living. Looking at numbers without knowing the history is pure, well, ignorance.

+5
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
One side - thousand of terrorist attack innocent civilians in a most horrific, brutal way possible.

The other side - a country which defends its people.

Where is the comparison?

What is politically motivated by that?

That is how things happened.

+8
Level 71
Dec 30, 2023
1,000 deaths vs 20,000 deaths in the last couple of months. When you look at the last decennia the ratio remains the same.
+4
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
Again with the statistics.

Be sure that if Palestinians had the ability they would have already kill all Israelis.

Israel, on the other hand, has the ability, and despite that, is not doing so.

+9
Level 80
Dec 31, 2023
Wow another flawless argument! I mean seriously? 'If Palestinians could kill all Israelis they would, but Israel currently could kill all Palestinians and they're not so that must mean Israel is in the right.'
+7
Level 80
Dec 30, 2023
Oh bravooo, I'd never thought of it so objectively! Maybe check your biases or do the tiniest bit of reflection before asking what's politically motivated about 'how things happened' in the most cherry-picked and reductionist terms possible.
+6
Level 57
Dec 29, 2023
Great quiz, however I would definitely add Prigozhin's march on Moscow in, as there is still nothing for Russia.
+22
Level 52
Dec 29, 2023
There's a literal genocide going on and you choose to talk about the 1000 deaths from Hamas instead of the millions from Israel which lead to the response. Ok.
+6
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
What are you talking about?

Which millions?

What response?

It seems like you got confused.

+4
Level 67
Dec 30, 2023
I forgot what this quiz was, so for the Who crowned Charles III question, I tried every variation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Justin Welby... Got there eventually.
+15
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
Disappointed that there is no mention of the genocide happening currently... it's the biggest news of 2023 that tens of thousands of people especially children have been murdered by Israel...

Mention of the attack on October 7th and the Houthi forces but no mention of the genocide committed by the IDF currently.. or the raids in West Bank.. or even the desecration of Holy Sights for two of the world's major religions..

+6
Level 28
Dec 30, 2023
Enough with the lies.

"Genocide".

Any country would respond the same, and probably much worse. And rightfully so.

Suddenly it's wrong because it's Israel.

The hypocrisy...

+7
Level 66
Dec 30, 2023
I actually don't believe that this is an actual genocide. A genocide is when people are purposefully targeted for no other reason than their ethnicity. This is happening and has happened in many places around the world, but not here. The huge death count in Gaza is real, but the Israelis are not targeting the innocent people simply because they are Palestinian. It is true, large numbers of innocent people are being killed at the hands of the Israelis, but the innocent people are not the targets here.
+4
Level 75
Apr 2, 2024
Wikipedia says "The strikes hit specifically protected locations, including hospitals, markets, refugee camps, mosques, educational facilities, and entire neighborhoods. A group of UN special rapporteurs asserted that Israel's airstrikes are indiscriminate, stating that the airstrikes are "absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime". Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy"
+7
Level 80
Dec 30, 2023
Yeah c'mon y'all, what's wrong with bombing the life out of a tiny strip of land because of a terrorist attack? Who wouldn't do that (and apparently much worse), I mean there's no other option, right? If the US did that nobody would be complaining, right? Because human rights abuses are acceptable if you have a good reason, right? Don't give this person the nuclear codes!
+3
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
I'm sure you have a better idea of how to deal with a terror organization of tens of thousands of people hiding in schools, hospitals and neighborhoods.

Let's here them out, because you are for sure an expert in that area.

+9
Level 80
Dec 31, 2023
No I'm not an expert about combatting terrorism and never claimed to be, but the notion that the best way to work against Hamas terrorism is by bombing the crap out of the Gaza Strip is completely ridiculous to me. Israel is one of the most developed countries in the region, and it's a stain on its reputation and conscience to be doing what they're doing, contrary to what you seem to be saying. If they wanted to address the issue in a more humane way I'm sure they could. It's not my responsibility to advise them or come up with ideas, I'm simply pushing back on the rhetoric you employ.
+12
Level 60
Dec 30, 2023
I agree with others that the phrasing of the Israel one is one sided. It seems to bury the lede, which is that Israel has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, mostly children, largely through indiscriminate air bombings. The horrors being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza is by far the biggest news story of the year.
+2
Level 28
Dec 31, 2023
Are you aware of the Hamas attack on October 7th?

It looks like you are not.

Because it is by far the biggest new story of the year.

+3
Level 74
Jan 2, 2024
Well this comments section is about as calm as expected
+3
Level ∞
Jan 4, 2024
Honestly, it might be time to institute a downvote policy so that inflammatory comments can be hidden.
+3
Level 80
Jan 9, 2024
Don't become Reddit. What happened to the rule about restricting comments to users above a certain level?
+8
Level 72
Jan 4, 2024
Love you Quizmaster but it's pretty cowardly to still have not altered the Israel question by now, given the very valid criticism and suggestions you've received in the comments there.
+2
Level ∞
Jan 4, 2024
Wouldn't cowardly be caving to random internet commenters?
+6
Level 72
Jan 4, 2024
Accepting feedback on a question isn't caving! Perhaps cowardly was a strong word though, I apologize.
+1
Level 68
Feb 4, 2024
This feels like a quiz where it is worth disabling comments. As much constructive criticism there is, I think comments here can get too controversial that it turns into an argument and not actually related to the quiz.