April 2023 World News Quiz: What’s Trump’s Big Record?

Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York County on Mar. 30, 2023, on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges stem from a hush-money payment his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump was arrested on Apr. 4, 2023, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and flown to New York City by federal marshals. He pleaded not guilty and was released without posting bail. His next court date is Dec. 4. The judge, Juan M. Merchan, warned Trump’s defense to refrain from statements that incite civil unrest. This relates to Trump’s recent social media posts that threatened “death and destruction” if he was charged and used racist language and images against the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Trump is a candidate for the US presidency in 2024.

What about Nixon, Johnson, and Clinton?

Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after he resigned in 1974. The Senate acquitted Andrew Johnson of impeachment in 1868 and Clinton in 1998. However, Clinton was barred from practicing law in Arkansas and before the Supreme Court. Neither of them was ever arrested.

Fox News acknowledged that “certain claims” it made about Dominion were false as part of the settlement agreement reached on April 18, 2023. This was shortly before a trial was set to begin in Delaware Superior Court, sparing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch a court visit. Dominion sued Fox News in 2021 for $1.6 billion, alleging that the network defamed it by broadcasting baseless allegations from former President Trump and his allies. Despite privately expressing skepticism and ridicule about the claims, Fox hosts repeatedly argued on air that Dominion was tied to the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, paid kickbacks to politicians, and flipped millions of votes from Trump to Biden. Fox News said it hoped the settlement would allow the country to move forward from the issues. Dominion said it represented “vindication and accountability.” Fox News did not apologize.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on March 20, 2023. He is the first world leader to meet the Russian leader, a few days after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes in Ukraine. Xi presented China as a global peacemaker intent on ending the Ukraine war. In its peace plan, China calls for formal respect for Ukrainian sovereignty, protection of civilians, and prohibition of nuclear weapons. Russia applauded China’s willingness to play a constructive role, but Western leaders dismissed the peace plan, arguing that Beijing lacks the international credibility to mediate. China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy and a partner in opposing what both see as American dominance in global affairs.

Fun fact: On the same day, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Kyiv. Kishida and Xi’s visits highlight deep divisions in northeast Asia over the Ukraine war, with Japan promising substantial assistance to Kyiv while China remains isolated in its support of Putin.

Maria Lvova-Belova is a Russian politician and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights. She is accused of unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia during the invasion. The EU and Japan have sanctioned her, and the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against her and Russian President Putin on March 17, 2023. Lvova-Belova has five biological and eighteen adopted children with her husband, Pavel Kogelman, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church and formerly a programmer, who she married in 2003.

A major leak of classified US documents that exposed details of its intelligence gathering started in a chatroom on a social media platform popular with gamers called Discord. An anonymous poster shared the classified documents, first typing them out, then posting images of papers. The posts appear to have gone unnoticed until they began circulating on social media and were picked up by major news outlets.

What’s in the leak?

The records have provided startling and timely details of US and NATO assistance to Ukraine and efforts to assist Ukraine in its war with Russia, including an anticipated spring offensive. By April 11, 2023, the Pentagon claimed some of the leaked documents had been doctored. The Associated Press interviewed a chat group member in which documents appeared for several months. He said the person who uploaded the documents did not appear driven by ideology. He also said he had copies of hundreds of pages of files and would leak them all if the original poster was arrested.

At the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers, Khartoum is Sudan’s capital and largest city. It’s also the seat of the country’s de facto ruler, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who clashed with his deputy, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti), the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). This movement originated from the notorious Janjaweed militias that committed crimes against humanity in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, in the 2000s. On Apr. 15, 2023, the RSF attacked key government sites in Khartoum and other cities, sparking four days of violence that killed at least 185 people and injured more than 1,800. The clashes threatened the transition to civilian rule that began after the removal of longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was born on July 6, 1935. He is Tibet’s spiritual leader and describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. On April 10, 2023, the 87-year-old Dalai Lama apologized for asking a boy to “suck his tongue” at a public event in India in late February.

What happened exactly?

In a video that has become viral, a young student approached a microphone at the event and asked the Dalai Lama: “Can I hug you?” The Dalai Lama told the boy to come up to the stage. After the child kisses the Dalai Lama on the cheek and hugs him, the Dalai Lama holds onto the boy, saying, “I think here also,” kissing his lips. “And suck my tongue,” the Dalai Lama added, sticking out his tongue forehead to forehead with the young student. When the boy moved away, the Dalai Lama pulled him in for another hug as the audience laughed. The controversy prompted an apology from the Dalai Lama’s office, which said his behavior was “innocent and playful,” adding, “His Holiness wishes to apologize to the boy and his family… he regrets the incident.”

Hundreds of elite officers in Israel’s military reserves said they would not show up for duty starting Mar. 19, 2023. This is in protest against the ruling coalition’s planned overhaul of the judicial system. The protesters say the plan undermines democracy by restricting the power of the Supreme Court. The protests paused after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and the reservists did not follow their threat.

On March 26, 2023, thousands of Israelis protested the country’s planned judicial overhaul after Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the judicial overhaul must be stopped due to the damage it is doing to the military. The next day, Netanyahu agreed to delay his flagship judicial changes to the next parliamentary session, saying he wanted time to compromise with his political opponents over the divisive package, but not before passing a law protecting him from prosecution while in office.

Taiwan is an island nation in East Asia that was formerly called Formosa by Portuguese explorers in the 16th century. The Formosan black bear is an endangered subspecies of black bears native to Taiwan and is seen as a symbol of Taiwanese identity.

Why is it beating Pooh?

A patch depicting a Formosan black bear holding Taiwan’s flag and punching Winnie-the-Pooh, representing China’s president Xi Jinping, has become viral online as a defiant gesture against China’s military drills around Taiwan in April 2023. Winnie-the-Pooh is often used as an internet meme to mock Xi Jinping and is censored in China.

Sanna Marin became the world’s youngest leader when she became Finland’s Prime Minister in 2019 at age 34. She headed a coalition of five parties, all led by women. Marin was widely praised for steering Finland toward its imminent NATO entry and navigating her country through the Covid-19 pandemic. However, she was scrutinized in 2022 when a video emerged of the young PM singing, dancing, and drinking at a party.

What happened in Finland’s 2023 elections?

While all mainstream parties in Finland backed NATO membership, Sanna Marin’s center-left Social Democrats (SDP) garnered just 19.9% of Finland’s Apr. 2, 2023, election vote and secured second place. As a result, Marin resigned as chair of her party. The right-wing Finns Party achieved the highest result in its history with 20.1% of the vote and won more regions than any other party in mainland Finland. Petteri Orpo’s center-right National Coalition Party won with 20.8%. Orpo became Finland’s prime minister. Finland officially joined NATO on Apr. 5, 2023.

The Order of Merit for special achievement is Germany’s highest distinction for a former leader. On April 17, 2023, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honored former Chancellor Angela Merkel with this award for her near-record 16 years of leading the country. She was the first woman, the first East German-born, and the longest-serving chancellor since Otto von Bismarck in the 19th century. Only two other ex-chancellors received the honor: Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of West Germany after World War II, and Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who oversaw Germany’s reunification in 1990.