Which countries are the safest in the world?

Every day, Israel is plagued by more terror attacks.  Today, a terrorist opened fire on an Israeli minibus in the Binyamin region.   Last night, an explosive device was thrown on a passenger bus in Gush Etzion.   And a Palestinian who was planning a suicide bombing attack was recently arrested near Jericho.   These are merely a few of the terror incidents that Israelis have dealt with recently.   

According to the Global Terrorism Index, Israel is among the countries most affected by terrorism.  This makes one ponder, which countries are the safest ones in the world?  

According to the World Terrorism Index, Azerbaijan ranked 18^th among 141 countries as being among the safest countries in the world.  Singapore, Norway, Iceland and Finland are the world’s safest countries, with Singapore being first place and the other three being tied for second place.   The top ten included Hong Kong, Switzerland, Canada, Indonesia, Denmark, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Austria, China and the Netherlands.

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) is a comprehensive study analyzing the impact of terrorism covering 99.7 per cent of the world’s population. It takes into account the number of terrorist incidents, deaths from terrorism, counter-terrorism, the effectiveness of terrorism investigations and many other indicators.  The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), using data from Dragonfly’s TerrorismTracker database and other sources.

Azerbaijan is also included in the list of 20 most secure countries in the world for crime rates.  The ranking is by the Numbea resource, which has the world’s largest statistical database of countries and cities.  During the survey, the residents were asked if they could walk alone in the city at night, were satisfied with the work of the police and whether they had been attacked or robbed over the past 12 months.

Indeed, Oghuz, Azerbaijan may be one of the few places in the world where it is safe to leave synagogues unlocked at night, without fearing burglars and anti-Semitic vandals.  There is also an Armenian church in the center of Baku.  Despite Azerbaijan’s conflict with Armenia, it remains in good condition.  As Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev proclaimed, “Today, Azerbaijan is an island of security.”

The countries experiencing the most significant levels of terrorist activities and threats, ranked by their respective threat levels, are as follows: Burkina Faso leads with 8.571 scores, followed by Israel with 8.143, Mali with 7.998, Pakistan with 7.916, Syria with 7.890, and Afghanistan with 7.825.

Subsequent rankings include Iran in 26th place with 4.464 scores, Turkey in 29th with 4.168, the USA in 30th with 4.141, Russia in 35th with 3.016, France in 38th with 2.647, Norway in 53rd with 1.747, Armenia in 76th with 0.423, the United Arab Emirates in 79th with 0.233, and Lithuania in 87th with 0.059 incidents.