required viewing tonight...

[scottw]

wow, USA 93 out of 100 (partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.)
, Iraq not at the bottom because of it's "relatively stable government "





The global check on every country recognised as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane’s Information Group and is published today.

Christian Le Mière, managing editor of Jane’s Country Risk, which compiled the ratings, said: “The UK is a very stable country. But the top 20 or 30 countries are all stable. There are terrorist groups in the UK but there are effective security forces to deal with them. We took the July 7 bombings into account but the UK still came out very well.”

He acknowledged that it was a little unfair to put the Vatican at the top because it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries. But under the rating system, which took into account each nation’s political structures, social and economic trends, military and security risks and external relations, the Vatican state scored an average of 99 out of 100. Sweden and Luxembourg were also rated 99, with the UK not far off, with an average of 97, but scoring 100 for its politics, economics and external relations.

Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.

He explained that Iraq had managed to escape the ignominy of being in the bottom ten because, despite “extremely high levels of violence”, it had a “relatively stable Government” that controlled a significant area of the country and had good economic prospects. “Unlike Afghanistan, where – despite the presence of more than 40,000 foreign troops – the Government exercises poor control over large parts of the country and where 50 per cent of the economy is dependent on the opium trade,” he said.