Global Security Concerns Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The dues of UN members are assessed on the size of the nation's economy. The scale of assessments is based on the capacity to pay, which is measured mainly from each member's share of world national income, with adjustments. That is why the largest economies pay the largest shares of the regular budget.

The size of a country's area, its military spending and its population are not the basis of the assessment. A large and poor country pays little, and a small and rich one pays more, which shows that capacity to pay, and so the size of the economy, is the measure being used.

Answer: A

The United Nations Compensation Commission is the one that is not a subordinate body of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. It was set up by the Security Council in 1991 to handle claims arising from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, so it is a subsidiary organ of the Security Council.

UNICEF (the Children's Fund), the UN Environment Programme and the UN Population Fund are all programmes reporting to the General Assembly and, through it, in their work with ECOSOC. Only the Compensation Commission belongs to a different principal organ, which is why it is the keyed answer.

Answer: D

Earning interest in banks is not part of money laundering. Laundering is the process of making money from crime look legitimate, and it involves moving it by informal channels such as hawala, transferring currency illegally and converting black money into white money.

Putting money in a bank and earning interest is ordinary banking and does not by itself hide the origin of funds. The other three options all describe ways in which illegal money is moved, hidden or given a legal appearance, so they belong to the process, and the interest option is the one that does not.

Answer: A

The International Monetary Fund looks after exchange rate stability (ii), the World Bank gives reconstruction and development aid (iii), and GATT/WTO deals with free trade (i). The code is (ii) (iii) (i), the first option.

The second option pairs the IMF with free trade and the World Bank with exchange rates, which reverses their roles. The third and fourth options each place the IMF with reconstruction aid. The World Bank began as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is why reconstruction goes with it.

Answer: C

The key gives advances in communication technology as the reason organised crime at the international level has gained momentum. Mobile phones, the internet and encrypted channels let criminal groups in different countries plan, coordinate and move money and goods at a speed and with a secrecy that was not possible earlier.

More open borders, more international travel and an easy flow of money all help such groups too, and each plays a part. The question however asks for one factor, and the keyed option is the one that the key treats as the main enabling change.

Answer: A

The key accepts the first option, which names cultivation, manufacture and sale of illegal drugs. Drug trafficking is a chain that starts with growing the crop (such as opium poppy or coca), goes on to making the drug and ends in selling it, so the widest set of activities is the one that covers the process.

The other options each leave out part of the chain. Purchase, packing and distribution leave out growing and making, manufacturing alone leaves out the trade, and distribution and sales leave out production. Because the question asks for the set that encompasses the process, the complete chain is the keyed answer.

Answer: D

The matching is Politico-Religious with the Middle East and North Africa (iii), Anticolonial with Asia, South and South East (iv), Melting pot with the USA (i) and Vociferous with Europe (ii). The code is (iii) (iv) (i) (ii), the fourth option.

The melting pot idea describes the United States, where immigrants were meant to blend into one nation. Anticolonial nationalism marked the struggles of South and South East Asia, and politico-religious nationalism is tied to the Middle East and North Africa. The first three options pair the melting pot with Europe, Middle East or Asia, which does not suit it.

Answer: C

Xinjiang is the region of China linked with Islamic fundamentalism. It is home to the Uighur Muslim population, and Chinese authorities have repeatedly spoken of religious extremism and separatism there.

Tibet is associated with Tibetan Buddhism and with demands for autonomy, and Aksai Chin is a high plateau area under Chinese control that India claims. Shanghai is a commercial city on the east coast and has no such association. Among the four, only Xinjiang fits, as the key says.

Answer: C

The key gives Taliban as the main factor in the rise of fundamentalism in Afghanistan. The Taliban movement rose in the 1990s and set up a rule based on a strict reading of religion, and it is the organisation most closely tied with fundamentalism in the country.

Poverty, domestic unrest and illiteracy are conditions that helped such a movement find support, but they are background conditions common to many countries that did not produce the same result. The question asks for the main factor, and the keyed option names the force itself.

Answer: C

The New International Economic Order was related to Third World countries. It was a set of proposals put forward by developing countries in the 1970s, through the United Nations, to change the terms of trade, aid and technology transfer in their favour.

The First World countries (the Western industrialised states) and the Second World countries (the socialist bloc) were not the ones demanding it. The G-20 is a later grouping of major economies. The demand came from the developing states, so the Third World is the keyed answer.