World Affairs Councils of America WorldQuest Weekly– Jun 28-Jul 4, 2021

Secretary of State Blinken said THIS nearly completed Russian-German project was a “bad idea,” that “it will potentially be a tool of Russian economic coercion and strategic coercion, a tool that can be used not only against Ukraine but indeed Europe as a whole to the extent it increases dependence on Russian gas.”

The Bank of England introduced a 50-pound banknote into circulation that features THIS legendary World War II Bletchley Park codebreaker, mathematician and father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He was prosecuted for homosexual acts in 1952 for which the British Government later apologized for his appalling treatment.

The Russian Defense Ministry said one of its warships fired warning shots at a British destroyer to divert the ship from its course toward the Crimean Peninsula, which the Russian Federation claims to control. The British, however, said the ship was not fired upon and was not in Russian waters, and they do not recognize Moscow’s claim to Crimea. WHICH country does the UK recognize as having control over Crimea?

Turkish President Erdogan inaugurated a $15 billion project dubbed, “Kanal Istanbul,” a 28-mile waterway designed to relieve pressure on the shipping route through THIS strategic chokepoint connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

Colombian President Iván Duque was aboard a helicopter with some of the country’s top ministers when the aircraft came under fire near THIS border with its conflictive neighbor.

Palestinian opposition figure Nizar Binat was arrested and died after being tortured and beaten in the custody of THIS government entity in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

The Biden Administration is considering banning polysilicon, a component for solar panels, due to human rights concerns over the product’s origins in China’s Xinjiang province. The Chinese government has been accused by Washington of carrying out a genocide against THIS group of people in Xinjiang province.

THIS prime minister’s Civil Contract party recently won in his country’s snap parliamentary elections after months of popular discontent towards the PM’s signing of a Moscow-brokered peace deal to end THIScountry’s war with Azerbaijan.