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Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) Extemp Round Robin director Adam Johnson has released the names of the sixteen competitors that have been selected to compete at this year’s tournament. These extempers will compete in Nashville, Tennessee on January 2-3. Congratulations to all of the invitees.
*Vaikunth Balaji (Ridge High School, New Jersey)
*Micah Cash (Booker T. Washington High School, Oklahoma)
*Justin Cooper (Scarsdale High School, New York)
*Daniel Drane (Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa)
*Justin Graham (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Katherine Hu (Plano Senior High School, Texas)
*Shawn Kant (Ridge High School, New Jersey)
*Andrew Langford (Lake Highland Preparatory, Florida)
*Christopher Mayer (Montville Township High School, New Jersey)
*Neil Patel (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Nathaniel Saffran (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Shreetika Singh (Seven Lakes High School, Texas)
*Marshall Sloane (Milton Academy, Massachusetts)
*Jacob Thompson (Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa)
*Marshall Webb (Saint Mary’s Hall, Texas)
*Brian Xu (San Marino High School, California)
Once heralded as one of the strongest emerging economies, Brazil has seen its economic fortunes wane over the past year as a result of corruption scandals, fiscal management, and bureaucratic incompetence. The nation is in the midst of a recession – the longest downturn since the 1930s – and unemployment is nearing double digits. As if this was not bad enough, Brazil’s Congress is moving to remove President Dilma Rousseff on charges that she violated Brazil’s fiscal management laws by manipulating government finances to aid her re-election campaign last year. Congress may also move to look into whether Rousseff played any part in a scandal at the state-owned oil company Petrobras, as she was Brazil’s energy minister in former President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva’s government. While some investors have welcomed the move to impeach Rousseff – viewing her as an obstacle to sound economic management – other analysts worry that the impeachment controversy will be an unwelcome distraction as Brazil attempts to correct its present economic trajectory. Rousseff’s defenders argue that her prosecution is politically motivated and that Speaker Eduardo Cunha only initiated the proceedings after Rousseff’s Worker’s Party (PT) moved to oust him on charges of bribery and money-laundering.
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s a list of all our old quizzes, 
An incident that many commentators had been fearing in Syria took place last week when Turkish forces shot down a Russian aircraft that allegedly violated Turkish airspace. The Russian plane was reportedly flying a mission to bomb rebel positions near the Turkish border, something that Russia has made a common occurrence since deciding several months ago to bolster its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish government claimed that it warned the Russian aircraft before shooting it down, but Russia denies these claims. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded an apology and has taken economic countermeasures against Turkey in response to the incident. Considering the fact that France is trying to get both nations to take part in an international coalition to fight the Islamic State, the Russian-Turkish incident illustrates how assembling such a coalition will prove difficult. After all, both nations support opposite sides in the Syrian Civil War. Also, the incident sparks questions about what the Western world should do if a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) finds itself in a military spat with Russia.
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