Iceland Ranked World’s Most Peaceful Nation, Somalia Worst; U.S. Improves to 82nd

[xchrom]

http://www.allgov.com/US_and_the_World/ViewNews/Iceland_Ranked_Worlds_Most_Peaceful_Nation_Somalia_Worst__US_Improves_to_82nd_110528

World peace has been on a downward trend in recent years, according to an annual gauge of domestic and foreign conflict.

The 2011 edition of the Global Peace Index, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, concludes that the levels of world peace have dropped three years in a row. This year is shaping up to be another bad one in part because of the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa.

But there are bright spots regardless of the overall global outlook. Iceland passed New Zealand to become “the country most at peace.” Other nations ranked high on the peace scale were Japan, Denmark, Czech Republic, Austria, Finland, Canada, Norway and Slovenia.

At the other end of the scale were the least peaceful nations, with Somalia at the very bottom. Others close to the war-torn African country were Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, North Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia, Pakistan, Israel and the Central African Republic.






me: 82nd!:woohoo: exceptional!

[Scuba]

1. I'm surprised were not last. n/t

[gop_equals_taliban]

2. I have no doubt

that as long as O and the Dems keep capitulating to the ReThugs America will over take Somalia for the #1 spot!

USA,USA, USA!

[rug]

3. We're between Gabon and Bangladesh.

[izquierdista]

4. Actually, the USA is BELOW the list

Iraq? Down in the bottom few because of U.S. occupation. Afghanistan? Down in the bottom few because of U.S. occupation. Whatever the metric for this ranking, it apparently only looked at "internal factors" and did not weight them by outside meddling. Considering America's share of the world armament trade, there's another source of unaccounted for negative points. Wherever disruptions to peace can be found, America is first in line mucking things up.

[Tesha]

5. Here's the full interactive map.

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2011/scor/

General advice: If you want peace, live near the poles.
With the exception of the Russian Federation (where
criminals replaced communists as the government),
things get noticeably more-peaceful as you go to
higher latitudes north or south.

Tesha

[CJvR]

6. In Russia...

...anything is possible - except change.

[CJvR]

7. Funny.

Check out the details.

Somalia got top grades for # of prisoners! Hard to put someone in jail without a functioning state.

[nichomachus]

8. I don't know

The US has the highest percentage of the population in jail of any industrial country -- and our state stopped functioning a while ago -- except for prisons, military adventures, and looting of the treasury.

[CJvR]

9. Since...

...the ultimate responsibility of a state is internal and external security the US with world records in both categories seems to function quite well and the only reason the US is able to put the expenses on the creditcard is because people belive the state will pay them back.