2023 World Happiness Report

This year's World Happiness Report is in and just like last year Europe continues to be the happiest place to be with Israel and New Zealand being the only non-European countries to crack the top 10.

Finland came in first place for the sixth year in row.  This year's top ten countries are the same as last year.

The five Nordic / Scandinavian countries all placed in the top seven with Finland #1, Denmark #2, Iceland #3, Sweden #6, and Norway #7.

The BeNeLux countries did well again too.  The Netherlands came in at #5, Luxembourg was #9, and Belgium was #17.

Czechland again was the highest ranked of the Visegrád countries.  Half of Central Europe placed in the top 20.

Switzerland #8, Austria #11, Germany #16, Czechland #18, Slovenia #22, Slovakia #29, Poland #39, and Hungary #51.

Czechland kept its #18 place from last year.  The USA moved up to #15 from #16.

This year Lithuania #20 cracked the top 20; bumping France from #20 to #21.

Here's a short CBS News video I found out on YouTube.

©CBS News

Given Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it's no wonder that neither country ranks as happy.  Russia came in at #70 and Ukraine ranked #92.

Я за Україну. Я за Україною. Слава Україні  Stojím za Ukrajinou!  I stand with Ukraine. 

2022 World Happiness Report

This year is the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report. by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations.  The report factors in things like gross domestic product per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make choices, perceived corruption and social support from friends and family. 

For the fifth year in a row, Finland came in first place.

Scandinavia did well as usual with the five countries all placing in the top eight places.  Finland #1, Denmark #2, Iceland #3, Sweden #7 and Norway #8.

Switzerland placed #4.

The BeNeLux countries did well too with the Netherlands #5, Luxembourg #6, and Belgium #19.

Europe is the happiest region with the eight of the top ten spots.  The only non-European countries to crack the top ten are Israel #9 and New Zealand #10.

The USA placed #16 and Czechland placed #18.

Czechland continues to be the happiest of the Visegrád Four with Slovakia #35, Poland #48, and Hungary #51.

Last place goes to Afghanistan, behind Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Lebanon.

2020 World Happiness Report

Today is the International Day of Happiness.  The United Nations started this back in 2013 to promote the idea that feeling happy is a global human right.  Clearly 2020 was a challenging year due to COVID-19 so this year's theme is "Keep Calm.  Stay Wise.  Be Kind."

The 2020 World Happiness Report was released today.  Czechland came in at #18 and the USA came in at #19.  This is the first time that Czechland outranked the USA.  

Like last year, Finland came in #1 again and 14 of the 20 world's happiest countries are in Europe.  At #9, New Zealand is the only non-European country to crack the top 10.

Scandinavia is the happiest region in Europe with #1 Finland, #2 Denmark, #4 Iceland, #6 Norway, and #7 Sweden.

BeNeLux did well with #5 Netherlands, #8 Luxembourg, and #20 Belgium.

The only Middle Eastern country to make the top 20 was #12 Israel.  Even with Brexit the UK came in at #17.

At #18 Czechland was the clear happiness leader of the Visegrad countries with #34 Slovakia, #44 Poland, and #53 Hungary.

Many of the most unhappiest counties are in East and Southern Africa including #137 Zambia, #140 Burundi, #142 Tanzania, #144 Malawi, #145 Lesotho, #146 Botswana, #147 Rwanda, and #148 Zimbabwe.

The world's most unhappiest country is #149 Afghanistan.  

The rankings are based on the combined scores for the last three years.  

Not much changes overall if you only go by the 2020 scores instead of the three year average.  Although then the USA would have been #14 and Czechland #16.

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe was founded in 1949.  It is an international organisation that promotes democracy, protects human rights and is committed to the rule of law in Europe.  Its headquarters are in Strasbourg, France.

It's important to realise that the Council of Europe is not the same thing as the European Union.  Which can be confusing because the EU actually adopted the flag that the council created in 1955.  The council now puts an "e" on the flag to differentiate it from the EU.

The EU doesn't control the council as they are independent.  But no country has ever joined the EU without first being a member of the council.

The Council of Europe can't make binding laws but it can enforce certain agreements made by European states.  It runs the European Court of Human Rights.

The official languages are English and French.  Certain bodies also use German, Italian, and Russian.

Ten countries formed the Council of Europe in 1949 and today there are 47 member countries.  Basically every country in Europe except for Belarus, due to concerns over human rights and the use of the death penalty), Kazakhstan, due to human rights concerns, Kosovo, due to limited recognition, and the Vatican, for being a theocracy.

The "eastern block" countries didn't start joining until after the fall of communism.  Hungary was the first to join in 1990, followed by Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1991, Bulgaria in in 1992 and Romania in 1993.

Czechoslovakia was replaced by Czech Republic and Slovakia following the Velvet Divorce.  East Germany never joined because the the former territory basically joined following the reunification of Germany in 1990.  Yugoslavia wasn't ever a member.  Following the breakup, Slovenia became the first ex-Yugoslav country to join in 1993.  The Soviet Union was never a member either.  The first former Soviet republics to join were Estonia and Lithuania in 1993.  Other former republics joined later on and Russia joined in 1996.    

Montenegro was the most recent country to join back in 2007.

The Vatican does have observer status.  As does Israel, the USA, Canada, Japan, and Mexico.  The council of Europe has observer status with the United Nations.

The death penalty is abolished in member countries.  There's criticism of the USA and Japan each having observer status since the death penalty is still in practice.

Again, since the Council of Europe is not the same thing as the EU, Brexit doesn't apply.  While the UK is leaving the EU it will remain in the Council of Europe.

Here's a video I found out on YouTube that explains more about the Council of Europe

©Council of Europe

Republic of Indonesia

Indonesia, in Southeast Asia is an archipelago between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.  There are 17.000 islands and shares borders with Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste.  The capital and largest city is Jakarta which is located on Java, the world's most populous island.

It's huge!  Almost three times bigger than Texas and it's the world's largest island country.  Indonesia is home to more than 267 million people making it the fourth most populous country in the world.  It's also the most populous Muslim-majority country.

Archaeologists estimate that the islands were inhabited some two million to 500.000 years ago.  There were Buddhist and Hindu dynasties between the 8th and 13th centuries.  Islam came in the 8th century and became the dominant religion by the end of the 16th century.

Europeans came in 1512.  The Dutch were the dominant European power here for about 200 years which is why is used to be known as the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands East Indies.

WWII and the Japanese invasion put an end to Dutch rule.  Following the war, Indonesia declared indolence in 1945 and it was recognised internationally in 1949.

In 1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor but in 1999 it successfully seceded from Indonesia.

Today the Republic of Indonesia is a presidential republic and it was a founding member of ASEAN.


The country is very diverse.  There are about 300 distinct ethnic groups with the largest being Javanese at 40% of the population.

There are six officially recognised religions - Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.  There are 227 million Muslims mostly Sunnis.  Only about 10% of the population is Christian.  Like several Muslim countries, it does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Rupiah (Rp) is the official currency.

The official language is Indonesian which is a standardised version of Malay.    Due to the country's population this makes it one of the world's most widely spoken languages.  But there are over 700 local languages.  700!



The flag is almost identical to that of Monaco.  The Indonesian flag is a bit larger and a slightly different shade of red.  I wonder how often this becomes a "thing".

In 2012 the Czech Export Bank and the Indonesia Exim Bank signed an agreement to support import/export activities between the two countries.  Czechland imports textiles, clothes, footwear, and rubber from Indonesia.  Indonesia imports machinery, chemicals, electrical and power generation and telecommunications equipment from Czechland.  It's about $500 million of bilateral trade.

Here's a 2016 video I found on YouTube about how powerful Indonesia is.

©Test Tube News

7th Least Miserable Economy

The Bloomberg Misery Index sums a country's inflation and unemployment to determine how happy or miserable its people are.  With Czechland's record low unemployment it's not wonder that they finally cracked the Top 10 of the least miserable economies.

1.  Thailand
2.  Switzerland
3.  Japan / Singapore
5.  Taiwan
6.  Malaysia
7.  Czech Republic
8.  Hong Kong
9.  Israel / South Korea

The USA jumped six spots to the 13th least miserable economy.

Having low unemployment too low can be a bad thing.  Employers may not let people move to new roles because they will be unable to find a backfill.  If prices are too low it could mean that demand is low.

Venezuela is the most miserable as inflation is expected to hit 8 million percent this year.  8 million %!!    

Coming in behind Venezuela is Argentina, South Africa, Turkey, Greece, and Ukraine.

Malaysia

Malaysia is a country in South East Asia.  

It is made up of two parts, Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia.  Peninsular Malaysia borders Thailand while East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, borders Indonesia and Brunei.

Malaysia is a little larger than New Mexico and it is home to almost 32 million people.

The country is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.  Most of the country's 13 states are ruled by hereditary sultans or governors appointed by the government.  Every five years one of the sultans is elected king and is the head of state.  However, the prime minister is the head of the government.  Malaysia is the only country in SE Asia that is official federalist.  Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city while Putrajaya is the federal government administrative centre.

The UK established colonies during the late 18th century.  In 1957, the country gained independence from Britain.  Singapore had been a part of the country but it became an independent country.

It is a part of ASEAN and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Malaysia is a diverse country.  Roughly half of the population is Malay with large Chinese and Indian minorities.  The official language is Malay but English is widely spoken.  Chinese and Tamil are commonly spoken by the respective minority communities.  However, in total there are 134 languages spoken within the country.

1 Ringget 

The Ringget is the national currency and it is made up of 100 sen.

Islam is recognised as the state's religion and about 61% of the population is Muslim.  The Malaysian constitution grants freedom of region and about 20% of the country is Buddhist and 9% is Christian.

As a predominately Muslim country, it's not a good place to be gay.  Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Malaysia has no diplomatic ties and has never recognised Israel.  It will only recognise Israel once a peace agreement has been reached with Palestine.

There are diplomatic relations with Czechland.  Primary exports from here to Malaysia are engineering products, machine tools and electric motors.  While Czechland primarily receives machinery, rubber, cocoa, and other electrical equipment.  

Here's a video I found out on YouTube about how powerful the country is.

©Test Tube News

Malaysia has been on my list of places to visit since 1999 when I saw the movie Entrapment.  I also had several colleagues who had been to Kuala Lumpur for work and everyone had such good things to say about KL.  It's hard to believe that after 20 years I'm finally going to tick this off of my bucket list.

2018 Eurovision Final Results

Last night were the 2018 Eurovision finals.  The top 26 countries from semi-final #1 and semi-final#2 competed.

Mikolas Josef performed great and, with 281 points, he finished in 6th place.  That's the highest the Czechland has ever placed.  Way to go!

Here's his performance from last night's grand final.

©Eurovision

Netta Barzilai and her song Toy placed first with 529 points.  So next year's contest will be in Israel.  Here's her winning performance from last night.

©Eurovision

Eilat Trip Summary

We had a great time on our Middle East adventure last week.  Eilat was the perfect place for some quiet beach time.  Especially last week when a cold blast of snow and freezing wind set record low temperatures across Europe.

Thanks to the Sibiřská zima, Siberian cold, Brno was -14℃ (7℉).  I definitely felt friends freezing back home while it was 28℃ (82℉) on the beach.




On Monday we went to Egypt and visited Saint Catherine's Monastery.

Egypt has long been a popular beach holiday destination for Czechs.  The number of tourists declined after the revolution in 2011 but have steadily increased the last couple of years.

On Wednesday we took our long day trip to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

I can definitely see going back to spend some more time at the Dead Sea.  Quite the experience.

Then we went in to Palestine to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Something I didn't understand was that the Oslo II Accord actually divided up the West Bank into three different areas.  Area A is where the Palestinian Authority has administrative control, Area B is co-administered with Israel, and Area C contains settlements only controlled by Israel.

Israelis are not allowed to enter Area A.  This sign warns that it is both dangerous and against the law for Israeli citizens to enter Area A.


On Friday we took our tour to Petra.  It was even better than I thought it would be.  The carvings were so cool.  I wish we had more time to really explore Petra but we hit the major highlights.  I'm glad that we didn't stay over though because Jordan is ridiculously expensive.

Since 2013, Israel no longer stamps your passport.  Instead you receive a paper ticket every time you enter or exit the country which you hold on to.  There are several counties which won't let you enter if there's any evidence in your passport that you've been to Israel.

Taba visa stamps

The thing is that Egypt and Jordan do stamp your passport.  So there's now evidence in my passport that I used the Taba border crossing in Egypt, and since the only country that one can get to from here is Israel, which means it's pretty easy to figure out where I've been.

Israeli border crossing to Jordan

It's the same story with the Jordanian border crossing.  My passport now won't let me enter Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen.

Aqaba, Jordan, across the Red Sea

While not immediate travel destinations I would like to eventually go to Iran and Lebanon.  I'll either have to get a second U.S. passport, which will only be valid for two years, but won't show evidence of having been in Israel.  Or I wait until I eventually get a Czech passport.


The rest of the time we just relaxed on the beach and enjoyed our time in Eilat.

Mall security

Mall security is no joke in Israel.  According to the law, you can enter only a shopping centre after clearing security.  Your bags will be searched and you go through a metal detector.  It's quick and easy and you don't have to remove your shoes like at an airport.

The biggest surprise actually came when we left.  Ryanair says to be at the airport at least two hours before your flight.  However, Israeli airport regulations state that passengers should arrive at least three hours prior to your flight in order to clear security.  It took us about 2,5 hours to make it to the gate.

First you get in line to talk to a security who asks a few questions and looks through your passport.  I think there's a bit of racial profiling that goes on as well.  We were then split up and asked the same questions again separately.  It didn't seem to be a problem that we had gone to Egypt or Jordan but security had lots of questions about out visit to Morocco a year ago.  Why did I go to Morocco?  Do I know anyone there? What did I do?  Did I meet anyone there?  It took a while to explain that it was just a day trip and again, a year ago.

"2" is low risk but "6" is the highest risk

After about five minutes they put a yellow sticker on my passport and I could then get in the queue for baggage inspection.  All of your bags go through a screening machine.  Some people were told to remove iPads but I wasn't so I left it in the bag.  Depending on the number on the yellow passport sticker, some people had to then go to another bag check where they had open their bags and watch an official inspect every item.  I'm glad that this didn't happen to me.  Then you go to the airline counter and check in your bag.  After this you then go through "normal airport security" where you remove your liquids from your carry-on, take off your shoes and pass through metal detectors.  Then you go to passport control and then finally you are cleared to go to the gate.  Super thorough but you can definitely feel safe at an Israeli airport.