Lebanon is the third unhappiest country in the world
Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.
Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order.
Country rankings were based on answers people give when asked to rate their own lives. The study was done in partnership with the analytics firm Gallup and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
"Happiness isn't just about wealth or growth — it's about trust, connection and knowing people have your back," said Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup. "If we want stronger communities and economies, we must invest in what truly matters: each other."
- Sharing meals and having somebody to count on -
Researchers say that beyond health and wealth, some factors that influence happiness sound deceptively simple: sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support, and household size. In Mexico and Europe, for example, a household size of four to five people predicts the highest levels of happiness, the study said.
Believing in the kindness of others is also much more closely tied to happiness than previously thought, according to the latest findings.
As an example, the report suggests that people who believe that others are willing to return their lost wallet is a strong predictor of the overall happiness of a population.
Nordic nations rank among the top places for expected and actual return of lost wallets, the study found.
Overall, researchers said global evidence on the perceived and actual return of lost wallets shows that people are much too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities compared to reality — actual rates of wallet return are around twice as high as people expect.
- The U.S. falls to its lowest-ever position in the happiness ranking -
While European countries dominate the top 20 in the ranking, there were some exceptions. Despite the war with Hamas, Israel came in at 8th. Costa Rica and Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, ranking at 6th and 10th respectively.
When it comes to decreasing happiness — or growing unhappiness —the United States has dropped to its lowest-ever position at 24, having previously peaked at 11th place in 2012. The report states that the number of people dining alone in the United States has increased 53% over the past two decades.
The United Kingdom, at position 23, is reporting its lowest average life evaluation since the 2017 report.
Afghanistan is again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world, with Afghan women saying their lives are especially difficult.
Sierra Leone in western Africa is the second unhappiest, followed by Lebanon, ranking the 3rd from the bottom.
- Almost one-fifth of young adults globally have no social support -
In a concerning development, the study said 19% of young adults across the world reported in 2023 that they have no one they could count on for social support. That is a 39% increase compared to 2006.
All countries are ranked according to their self-assessed life evaluations averaged over 2022 to 2024.
Experts in economics, psychology, sociology and beyond then seek to explain the variations across countries and over time using factors such as GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, a sense of freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
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Nahar Net
06-08-2025
- Nahar Net
Beauty industry loves argan oil but demand and drought are straining Morocco's trees
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Goats climb trees, chomp their fruit, and eventually disperse seeds as part of the forest's regeneration cycle. Moroccans stir the oil into nut butters and drizzle it over tagines. Rich in vitamin E, it's lathered onto dry hair and skin to plump, moisturize and stave off damage. Some use it to calm eczema or heal chicken pox. But the forest has thinned. Trees bear fewer fruit, their branches gnarled from thirst. In many places, cultivated land has replaced them as fields of citrus and tomatoes, many grown for export, have expanded. Communities once managed forests collectively, setting rules for grazing and harvesting. Now the system is fraying, with theft routinely reported. What's wrong with the forest But a forest that covered about 5,405 square miles (14,000 square kilometers) at the turn of the century has shrunk by 40%. Scientists warn that argan trees are not invincible. 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Much makes its way through middlemen to be sold in products by companies and subsidiaries of L'Oréal, Unilever, and Estée Lauder. But workers say they earn little while watching profits flow elsewhere. Cooperatives say much of the pressure stems from climbing prices. A 1-liter bottle sells for 600 Moroccan dirhams ($60), up from 25 dirhams ($2.50) three decades ago. Products infused with argan sell for even more abroad. Cosmetics companies call argan the most expensive vegetal oil on the market. The coronavirus pandemic upended global demand and prices and many cooperatives closed. Cooperative leaders say new competitors have flooded the market just as drought has diminished how much oil can be squeezed from each fruit. Cooperatives were set up to provide women a base pay and share profits each month. But Union of Women's Argan Cooperatives President Jamila Id Bourrous said few make more than Morocco's minimum monthly wage. 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Cedar News
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- Cedar News
British Airways Flight BA2615 Declares Emergency En Route from Malta to London
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Nahar Net
17-07-2025
- Nahar Net
Prince Harry retraces Diana's footsteps by walking through land mine field in Angola for charity
by Naharnet Newsdesk 17 July 2025, 13:44 Prince Harry followed in his late mother's footsteps on Wednesday by wearing a flak jacket and walking down a path in an active land mine field in Angola to raise awareness for a charity's work clearing explosives from old warzones. The Duke of Sussex is in the southern African country with the Halo Trust organization, the same group Princess Diana worked with when she went to Angola in January 1997, seven months before she was killed in a car crash in Paris. Diana's advocacy and the images of her walking through a minefield helped mobilize support for a land mine ban treaty that was ratified later that year. Harry walked through a land mine field near a village in Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola, according to Halo Trust. It's not the first time he has retraced his mother's steps after traveling to Angola for a similar awareness campaign in 2019. The land mines across Angola were left behind from its 27-year civil war from 1975 to 2002. The Halo Trust says at least 60,000 people have been killed or injured by land mines since 2008. It says it has located and destroyed over 120,000 land mines and 100,000 other explosive devices in Angola since it started work in the country in 1994, but 1,000 minefields still need to be cleared.
