Global Peace Index

Independent Films, Politics, Travel

“The world is less peaceful”, Clyde McConaghy, from the Institute for Economics and Peace said today.

Launching the 2011 Global Peace INDEX, McConaghy told journalists at the United Nations in New York that it in a scale of one to five and on average, the average countries scored this year was 2.05, and last year it was 2.02 and the year before that it was 1.96. “So as I said its actually become marginally less peaceful than it had been.”

The most peaceful country in this year's ranking was Iceland, positioning New Zealand into second place. The list of ten continued with Japan, and Denmark, and Czech Republic-for the first time in the top ten- followed by Austria and Finland and, Canada –also first time in the top ten- ending with Norway and Slovenia.

McConaghy noted that this year the Institute for Economics and Peace included five more countries than last and those were Eritrea, Guinea, Niger and Kyrgyz and Tajikistan.

The United States this year ranked at 82 place, sitting around the middle of 153 countries. McConaghy noted that “in relative terms its actually one of the biggest improvements”.

Moving on to the Middle East and North Africa he said that it was the largest deterioration this year in the Global Peace INDEX measurement of the different regions, largely due to the events in Tunisia and Iran towards the end of last year and early part of this year.

Directors:

• Muhamed Sacirbey UNTV original

Producers:

• Susan Sacirbey UNTV original