JAMAICA has moved up four places on the annual Global Peace Index (GPI), ranking 98 out of 149 countries in the 2010 report which showed that the world had become less peaceful over the last year, despite reductions in the number of armed conflicts.

Jamaica is ranked 13 places behind the United States, 26 places behind her neighbour Cuba (72), and four places behind Trinidad, which is ranked at 94. Haiti, the only other country in the region that was mentioned in the report, is ranked at 114.

According to the report, which was compiled by the Australian-based Institute for Economics and Peace, New Zealand is the world’s most peaceful and Iraq the most hostile.

The other countries that made the top 10 are Iceland, Japan, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden.

Apart from Iraq, the bottom 10 comprise the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Georgia, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The report has been published annually for the past four years by the Institute for Economics and Peace — a global ThinkThank.

The rankings are calculated using 23 indicators, including violent crime, political stability and military expenditure, correlated against a number of social development indicators such as corruption, freedom of the press, respect for human rights and school enrollment rates.

It uses data from the Economist Intelligence Unit — affiliated with the Economist news magazine — to examine murder rates, crime, social unrest, prison population and military spending in the countries surveyed.

According to the report, nearly two-thirds of the countries that it ranks each year have become more violent since 2007.