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Iraq
Rocket Attack on US Embassy
A rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad Friday morning caused minor material damage but no casualties. The attack is the first on the Embassy since the start of the current Israel-Gaza war. It’s located in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Iraq’s capital that also houses Iraqi government buildings and embassies. Iraqi security said 14 Katyusha rockets were fired, some of which struck in the vicinity of the Embassy complex and offices of the US-led coalition, while others fell into the Tigris river. Officials say no group had claimed responsibility for the attacks as of Friday morning, but early indications pointed to Iran-aligned militias.
This map depicts the location of the Green Zone in Baghdad, where rockets were launched targeting the US embassy in the area. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: X (Twitter)
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Armenia-Azerbaijan
Adversaries Seek Peace Deal
Armenia and Azerbaijan say they will move towards normalizing relations, and will exchange prisoners captured during recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. The two neighbors have been involved in a decades-long conflict over the disputed territory. Azerbaijan’s lightning military offensive in September brought an end to three decades of ethnic Armenian rule in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, recognized internationally as Azerbaijani territory. Most of its 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled to neighboring Armenia. The two countries announced on Thursday that they would work towards signing a full peace treaty based on mutual respect for each others’ territorial integrity. Both countries said they hoped to sign the peace treaty by the end of the year.
This map depicts Armenia and Azerbaijan, including ethnic enclaves within each other’s territory. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: France24
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Laos
Location of Meteor Strike Found
Scientists believe that they have found the location of Earth’s most recent major meteor impact, on the Bolaven Plateau in Laos. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has pinpointed the impact site using tektites, glassy pebble-like objects formed upon meteor impact. While it was known that the meteor struck about 800,000 years ago somewhere in the area, the exact location of the impact remained unknown. The research team spent eight years identifying Bolaven-originating tektite samples, ranging in size from hand-held to up to 9 meters thick, and marking their locations on maps to identify their origination point as the center of the meteor strike.
This map depicts the identified location of the Bolaven meteor impact and tektites used to find it. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: What island in the Indian Ocean is home to ponies popular for horse racing and named after the scented sandalwood trees that were once found widely there?
A: Sumba
Named after the scented trees that once covered the island, the Sandalwood pony of Sumba is the only breed of horse in Indonesia that is still intrinsic to the local economy, culture, and religion. Forests of sandalwood, now mostly depleted, attracted attention to the island in the 17th century. The Sandalwood pony is the only breed of horse in Indonesia that is exported overseas: as children’s ponies in Australia and racehorses in Singapore, Malaysia, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Sandalwood ponies have small ears, a short muscular neck and an unusually long back. Their lineage dates back to the eighth century when traders from China first visited Indonesia. Chinese traders swapped Mongolian ponies for sandalwood with the locals, and these ponies were later bred with Arabian horses brought by traders from the Middle East. The Sandalwood is the best of the Indonesian breeds and owes this to their high percentage of Arabian blood. Sumba is known in Indonesia as the land of horses. In traditional culture, the horse is both a symbol of wealth and honor.
Source
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Q: What is the world’s longest mountain range, considering both submarine and above-water mountains?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in Monday’s DailyGeo.
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