First newsquiz of 2020

Well done to those who were still paying attention to the news over Christmas. Top of the crop was Alan Geere who scored 20 in last week's newsquiz, just ahead of Alex Richman and Toby Brown on 19. Hannah Tomes and Gavin Devine both posted respectable scores of 17. The top team was Adam Batstone and Lucy Thorpe with 18, ahead of Bruce and Sarah Hayward on 17. Here is the first newsquiz of 2020. As always there are 25 questions about the week's events. Give it a go and let me know how you get on. Happy quizzing for the new year to you all. 

Australia burns: Question 6

1. What was the name of Iran's most powerful military commander who was killed by a US air strike in Iraq?

2. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab issued a statement after the Iraq air strike saying: 'Following his death, we urge all parties to ____. Further conflict is in none of our interests.’ What is the missing word?

3. Why did the Cabinet Office apologise to more than 1,000 celebrities, Government employees and politicians who received New Year Honours?

4. Who received a damehood in the New Year Honours for services to music, cancer research and charity?

5. A 19-year-old British woman, who claimed she was raped in Cyprus, was found guilty of what offence at a court in Ayia Napa?

6. Ecologists from the University of Sydney estimated that how many mammals, birds and reptiles had been lost in the Australia bushfires since September?

7. What is to rise by 6.2 per cent - four times the rate of inflation - from April?

8. Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings wrote a blog looking to recruit wild cards and weirdos and warned that ‘if you play office politics, you will be discovered and immediately ____.’ What is the missing word?

9. A YouGov poll of Labour Party members found Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey are the two early front-runners for the leadership but who came third?

10. An employment tribunal judge in Norwich ruled that what is a philosophical belief and therefore protected by law?

11. Three people in their 20s, who died after their car collided with a lorry on New Year’s Eve, all worked for which company?

12. Research published this week calculated that an average of 61 what closed every working day in 2019?

13. Campaigners Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan became one of the first couples who made history by doing what on New Year’s Eve?

14. Documents released by the National Archives revealed that Prime Minister John Major investigated the possibility in 1996 of renaming Heathrow airport after whom?

15. Pope Francis apologised for setting a ‘bad example’ after he was filmed doing what?

16. Which banking group’s customers were unable to gain access to their accounts through its websites and mobile apps for almost nine hours because of an outage?
17. From January 1 the Pacific nation of Palau became the first country to ban what?

18. Nissan’s former CEO Carlos Ghosn fled house arrest in Japan by reportedly hiding in what?

19. Councillors are set to ban private cars, with some exemptions, from which city centre by 2023?

20. What is the nickname of new world darts champion Peter Wright?

21. Which football manager returned to the same job he had left 18 months earlier?

22. Colin Weir died aged 71 this week, eight years after becoming what?
23. Twin brothers Billy and Joe Smith, aged 32, who were found dead together near Sevenoaks in Kent, appeared in which television programme?

24. Neil Innes, who died age 75, was a founder member of which anarchic pop group that had a chart hit with I’m The Urban Spaceman in 1968?

25. Who complained to the dating app Bumble that she had been blocked after her account was thought to be fake?

Answers here