From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 6/3/2007 4:02 AM
Friday, June 1, 2007
Looking for Peace? Stay Out of Russia, Study Says
The Moscow Times
Russia is one of the least peaceful countries in the world, according to a new study that uses levels of violence, organized crime and military expenditure to measure unrest.
The Global Peace Index listed Russia at 118th place out of 121 countries surveyed by researchers of the Intelligence Unit of British magazine The Economist.
Russia fared particularly poorly on conventional weapons exports and deployments to United Nations peacekeeping missions, securing the worst possible score of five.
Some analysts find those results arbitrary. "The method of the analysis is not clear," said Alexander Khramchikhin from the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. "If they had chosen other indicators, the result would have been quite different."
On levels of distrust in other people, internal conflict and respect for human rights, Russia scored a four.
The same low mark was given for the ratio of security officers and police per 100,000 people and the ratio of homicides and inmates per 100,000 people.
Only Israel, Sudan and Iraq had a record worse than Russia, which is ranked the least peaceful country in Europe, the report said.
Overall, Western Europe was ranked the most peaceful region in the world. In Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic led the way, in 13th place.
The United States was ranked 96th, followed by Iran at 97th.
About 80 countries, including Afghanistan and North Korea, were not in the report due to a lack of reliable information, the authors said.
The study, published online at www.visionofhumanity.com, was financed by Steve Killelea, an Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/06/01/013.html