NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 21, 2016

Q: President Barack Obama will move to declassify U.S. military and intelligence records related to Argentina’s “Dirty War,” the White House said last week. Where is Argentina?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The effort to declassify more documents comes at Argentina’s request. This week Obama is visiting Argentina's capital . . .

A. Buenos Aires

B. Havana

C. Rio de Janeiro

D. Santiago


A. Obama’s Buenos Aires visit coincides with the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup that started Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship and its “Dirty War.” Little is known about the U.S. role leading up to that period, in which thousands of people were forcibly disappeared and babies systematically stolen from political prisoners.


Q: Argentina's coup and crackdown on leftist dissidents started a few years after a U.S.-backed coup brought a similar military dictatorship to power in Argentina's western neighbor . . .

A. Antigua

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. Uruguay


C. Chile's military ousted the nation's socialist president in 1973 and ruled until 1990. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the U.S. 'helped” the coup in Chile and later urged Argentina's foreign minister to clamp down on dissidents they referred to as “terrorists.” Nearly 10,000 dissidents were killed in Chile and at least 13,000 died in Argentina.


Q: Last week, Argentina's coast guard sank a a Chinese vessel that it says was fishing illegally in Argentine waters. China is Argentina's second-largest trading partner. Which is its largest trading partner?

A. Antigua

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. United States


B. Brazil is largest country in South America and has the largest economy in Latin America. It borders Argentina to the northeast. Argentina is the second-largest nation in South America and also borders Bolivia and Paraguay to the north and Uruguay to the east. China's influence in Latin America has grown along with its rapidly expanding economy.


Q: Obama's trip to Argentina aims to improve ties with its newly elected centrist leaders. Argentine-U.S. relations often have been strained, and the United States sided against Argentina's 1982 invasion of Falkland Islands. Which nation did the United States back in that conflict off Argentina's east coast?

A. Antigua

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. United Kingdom


D. The Falklands War was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Argentina's military dictators used the nation's age-old claim to the islands to divert public attention from a slumping economy and civil unrest.