The 2010 Global Peace Index is an attempt to quantify which countries are the most secure and the least violent. New Zealand is No. 1, Iraq is last, and the US is in the middle.
By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / June 8, 2010
Washington
The world is slightly less peaceful than it was a year ago, in part as a consequence of the global recession. But falling military expenditures in the Middle East and shrinking access to small arms in sub-Saharan Africa are two bright spots in an assessment of the world’s broad trends in peace and violence.
Those are among the findings of the 2010 Global Peace Index, the fourth edition of an annual attempt to objectively quantify peace in a large majority of the world’s countries.
New Zealand ranks as the world’s most peaceful country, the survey finds, based on a list of factors ranging from military expenditures (high is bad) and participation in United Nations peacekeeping (high is good) to social unrest and incarceration rates (both are not good).
Iraq comes in last at 149 out of 149 countries assessed – the same ignominious placement it snagged last year.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0608/US-places-No.-85-behind-Libya-in-Global-Peace-Index