NewsTracker Answers for week of Oct. 22, 2018

Q: Ethiopia’s reformist prime minister last week announced a new cabinet that is half female, in an unprecedented push for gender parity in Africa’s second-most-populous nation. Where is Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has marked his nearly seven months in office with staggering reforms for this once authoritarian country, notably releasing thousands of political prisoners and making peace with the nation’s longtime enemy on Ethiopia’s northern border . . .

A. Egypt

B. Eritrea

C. Tanzania

D. Tunisia


B. Ethiopia shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. In 1962, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea. Eritrean fighters fought 30 years to gain independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The two nations signed a peace treaty to finally establish normal diplomatic relations this year.


Q: The new reform cabinet also represents some of Ethiopia’s marginal groups. The country has long been dominated by just a few of the nation’s 80 ethnicities and different religious groups. What is the dominant religion in Ethiopia?

A. Christianity

B. Islam

C. Judaism

D. Traditional


A. According to a 2007 census, Christians make up 62.8% of the country's population, Muslims 33.9%, practitioners of traditional faiths 2.6%, and other religions 0.6%. A small ancient group of Jews live in northwestern Ethiopia, though most of the Beta Israel population immigrated to Israel in the last decades of the 20th century as part of the Israeli government's relocation missions.


Q: Last month, Ethiopia’s ethnic divisions led to violent clashes in the nation’s capital. What is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia?

A. Abuja

B. Accra

C. Addis Ababa

D. Algiers


C. Addis Ababa has a population of about 2.7 million people speaking the many different languages of various ethnic groups. After the violence and demonstrations in the capital, hundreds of youths were detained leading to warnings about the use of repressive tactics once favored by the previous leadership.


Q: While Addis Ababa is the capital of the second-most-populous nation in Africa, Abuja is the capital of the most populous nation on the continent. Which African nation has the most people?

A. Congo

B. Egypt

C. Kenya

D. Nigeria


D. With more than 190 million people, Nigeria has a much larger population than Ethiopia’s 105 million, Egypt’s 97 million, Congo’s 83 million or Kenya’s 47 million. Nigeria and Ethiopia are both located just north of the equator, but Nigeria is on the Atlantic Ocean on Africa’s west coast.