Around the World in 10 Questions (15) Quiz

Answer: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Originally built as a high school, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum reminds visitors of the horrors that took place at Security Prison 21 (S-21) during the late 1970s under the Khmer Rouge regime. Located in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, 'Tuol Sleng' means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" in Khmer.

Between 1975 and 1979, more than 17,000 prisoners passed through Prison 21. Of those 17,000 there are only twelve known survivors!

The buildings today remain as they were found by Vietnamese troops who drove out the Khmer Rouge. The authorities photographed all prisoners when they arrived as well as many of inmates after they were beaten to death or executed. Many of the rooms at the museum contain walls of these stark black-and-white photographs.

Tuol Sleng is not only a memorial to those who died there and an attraction for tourists, but also an educational site. Cambodian schoolchildren are routinely brought here on study tours, to learn the reality of the darkest period in their country's history.

Answer: Chad

Founded by the French in 1900 and named Fort-Lamy, the city quickly became a major trading post and the capital of the region. In 1920, the region was incorporated into the colony designated as French Equatorial Africa. Following WWII, the region was granted 'overseas territory' status and eventually, in 1960, independence as the Republic of Chad. In 1973, the name of the capital and largest city in Chad was changed to N'Djamena (meaning "place of rest" in Arabic).

Today, N'Djamena is a major port, a regional market and the country's major economic centre. In 2012, the city itself was home to something approaching 1.1 million, with a further half million resident in the surrounding metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, the relatively small market town of Kousseri at the Cameroonian end of the bridge was home to around 90,000 at the time of the 2005 Census. Since that time, though, that population has swollen considerably by an influx of refugees fleeing ethnic violence on the opposite side of the river.

Answer: Valparaiso

Founded on July 4, 1811, the National Congress of Chile consists of two chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Chamber is considered the lower house and seats 120 H.D.s ('honorable deputies'), whilst 38 senators sit in the upper house. Deputies serve 4-year terms, whilst Senators are elected for eight years with half of them standing for re-election every four years.

Since it was completed in 1876, the National Congress Building, which stands in amidst exotic gardens near to Boulevard Liberador Bernardo O'Higgins in Santiago, was the seat of the Chilean legislature (except for a short period when the building was destroyed by an 1895 fire and rebuilt by 1901). That all changed in 1973, when a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende: one of the first things that Pinochet did was to move the legislature 70 miles northwest to the port city of Valparaiso.

The move to Valparaiso officially took place in 1987, but the ultra-modern new National Congress Building in the Almendral district of the city was not completed until 1990.

Founded in 1536, Valparaiso, nicknamed "Valpo", "The Jewel of the Pacific" and "Little San Francisco", is a city of 285,000 (2012 Census). The city's metropolitan area, with a population of some 930,000 is the second-largest in the country, after Santiago. Its historic centre was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

Founded in 1827, "El Mercurio de Valparaíso" is the world's oldest continuously-published Spanish-language newspaper. Here, too, you can visit the oldest stock exchange in Latin America and Severín's Public Library, Chile's oldest such institution. Valparaiso is also the home of South America's first volunteer fire department, founded in 1851 -- its hard to believe in the 21st century, but in Chile all fire departments are still staffed only by volunteers.

Answer: Sudan

Adopted in 1970, the flag of Sudan consists of three equal-sized horizontal bands of red, white and black, with a green triangle at the hoist. The design is based on the Arab Liberation Flag, with the addition of the green triangle. Similar designs and colours are also to be seen on the flags of Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Syria.

The design of the Mali flag mirrors that of its former colonizer, France, but with green, yellow and red stripes rather than the familiar red, white and blue of the "Tricolor". Similar designs are used by Senegal (with the addition of a coat of arms in the centre), Guinea (with the order of the colours reversed) and Cameroon (the colours again re-ordered and a star added to the centre). In Mali, the green specifically represents the land, yellow (or gold) stands for purity and mineral wealth, and red is for the blood shed by the people of Mali in the fight for independence.

The flag of Benin consists of two equal-sized horizontal blocks of yellow and red on the fly side with a green vertical block at the hoist. Here, the yellow and green colours represent the savannahs and palm groves respectively, whilst the red again acts as a reminder of blood shed for independence.

The Republic of Congo flag consists of red and green triangles separated along their hypotenuse by a diagonal yellow band. Here, green stands for the country's agriculture and forests and yellow for the "friendship and Nobility" of the people. Red is not defined, but you can guess at the symbolism.

Other African countries to use the same three colours on their flag include Togo, Ghana, Sao Tome and Príncipe, Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau.

Answer: Spain

The band plays 'Marcha Real' ("The Royal March") before matches involving the Spanish team, as they do every other team's anthem, but you will never hear (or see) the Spain's players and their fans singing along. The reason is not that the Spanish are any less patriotic than people from any other nation, but that Marcha Real has no lyrics.

First printed in 1761, and thus one of the oldest of all national anthems, Marcha Real was originally called 'Libro de la Ordenanza de los Toques de Pífanos y Tambores que se tocan nuevamente en la Ynfantª Española ("Book of the Ordenance of Newly Played Military Drum and Fife Calls by The Spanish Infantry).

Spain is not the world's only country to have a national anthem without lyrics. The other three, Kosovo, San Marino and Bosnia Herzegovina, just rarely (if ever) reach the final stages of major football tournaments.

Answer: Canada

Formerly called the British Commonwealth, the intergovernmental organization of countries, most of whom were formerly territories within the British Empire, is now called the Commonwealth of Nations. Created in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster, the 1949 "London Declaration" defined all member states as "free and equal".

The Commonwealth encompasses almost a quarter of the planet's land area and nearly a third of the world's population live in a Commonwealth country. In 2009, Rwanda became the first state to join the Commonwealth since 1995 (when Mozambique and Cameroon were added). The withdrawal of The Gambia in 2013 again reduced the number of member states to 53, though.

'A Mari Usque Ad Mare' is the official motto of Canada. Granted Dominion status (nominal independence) in 1867, Canada formally ended links with the British Parliament in 1982 whilst retaining the British monarch as its official Head of State.

Of the alternatives, India's official motto is in Sanskrit, 'Satyameva Jayate' (meaning "Truth Alone Triumphs"); South Africa's official motto is in the IXam language (an extinct Khoisan language of South Africa), '!ke e: ǀxarra ǁke' (meaning "Unity in Diversity"); and Australia does not have an official motto.

Answer: Aleutian Islands

Stretching some about 1,200 miles westward from Alaska towards Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands mark the dividing line between the Pacific Ocean to the south and the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean to the north. With a combined land area of 6,821 square miles, the islands are about the size of Kuwait, or a little larger than the U.S. state of Connecticut. Most of the Aleutians Island chain is part of Alaska and are, therefore, part of the U.S., but the extreme western end, the Commander Islands, still belong to Russia.

At the time of the 2000 Census, the Aleutian Islands had a population of just over 8,000 with more than half of those living in the main settlement, the amusingly-named Unalaska, Alaska.

Answer: Bolivia

The world's 5th-largest country and the largest in South America and, indeed, in the entire Southern Hemisphere, Brazil is more than three times the size of Argentina, the continent's next-largest nation.

Only China and Russia (and France if you count its overseas regions) have land borders with more countries than Brazil. Those same two counties are also the only ones with longer land borders than the 9,182 miles that Brazil shares with its ten neighbors. The only two countries in South America who do not border Brazil are Chile and Ecuador.

Brazil's longest land border, 2,125 miles, is with Bolivia. Next comes Venezuela (1,325 miles), Colombia (1,027 miles), Peru (975 miles) and Argentina (765 miles).

Answer: Mauritania

Unlike almost every other currency in the world, the Mauritanian ouguiya is not decimal-based. Instead, each ouguiya comprises five khoums (meaning simply "one fifth"). The only other circulating currency is the Malagasy ariary (from Madagascar), which also has sub-units of five (in their case, 5 iraimbilanja constitute one ariary).

When Mauritania made the switch in 1973, they did so with an exchange rate of one ouguiya equaling five francs. Some 40 years later, the exchange rate had dropped considerably, with one MRO worth only marginally over two francs.

In theory, the Central and West African franc are separate currencies, but in reality the two are interchangeable, making life easy for those living near to a border between two countries where the to zones meet. The exchange rate between the two African currencies and the old French franc was fixed at 1 FF = 100 CFA francs. When France joined the Euro in 2002, the exchange rate was again fixed, so one Euro is equal to 656 CFA francs.

Eight countries use the West African Franc, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. Six use the West African Franc, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Answer: Japan

Located some 25 miles north of Tokyo, Camp Zama occupies the former site of 'Sôbudai', the pre-WWII "Imperial Japanese Army Academy" (the Japanese equivalent to West Point in the U.S. It is today home to United States Army Japan/I Corps (Forward) and various specialist divisions.

Over the years, Camp Zama has welcomed its share of 'celebrity' visitors: Mother Teresa came here in 1984, whilst in 2007 Michael Jackson flew in to the delight of more than 3,000 U.S service personnel and their families.

Camp Zama has also suffered its share of terrorist attacks: from a "Revolutionary Army" bomb in 2002, and again in 2007 and 2015.