Another Reason Why Moving to NZ was a Great Idea!!

New Zealand has been named the World's Most Peaceful Nation for 2009, according to reports in today's international newspapers.

The South Pacific nation of four million people and 40 million sheep has knocked Iceland off its perch after violent demonstrations followed the collapse of Reykjavik's banking system.

The Global Peace Index, a report prepared for the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks 144 countries in a league table of peacefulness.

The index defines peace as "the absence of violence".

Twenty-three criteria on which the league table is compiled include political stability, risk of terrorism, murder rate, likelihood of violent demonstrations, respect for human rights, internal conflicts, arms imports and involvement in foreign wars.

Read the whole story HERE. And yeah - we made a GREAT choice moving to Aotearoa!! By comparison, the UK is 35th, the USA is 83rd and South Africa comes in at 123, just ahead of Myanmar (126). Down at the bottom are Zimbabwe (134), Afghanistan (143) and Iraq (144).