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Money, so the Beatles famously informed us in the spring of 1964, wont buy you love. But can it buy you a reasonable level of happiness? And if it can, how much will it cost?

These are two of the questions answered in a new piece of research that tries to gauge the price of a satisfied life and how it varies according to where you live. While some of the findings unearthed by financial advice site Expensivity are unlikely to raise too many eyebrows particularly the theme that the more developed the country, the more it takes to have a comfortable existence within it the study does serve up some intriguing points.

The survey combines data on the varying strength of national currencies using purchasing power parity (PPP) figures from the World Bank (PPP reaches its conclusions by comparing the cost of widely available items, such as a can of a specific soft drink or an international fast-food chains best-selling burger in different territories) with the local cost of living to produce a ranking of countries by the price of happiness.

Of course, that phrase needs further explanation. The figures revealed are not the annual income needed to be happy in a country per se, but the point of satiation the amount at which you have achieved maximum quality of life, and money has no further capacity to make you happier. In the case of Bermuda which, perhaps unsurprisingly, tops the table the pertinent statistic is US$143,933 (103,765) per annum. In Australia, which is ranked second, the figure is $135,321 (97,556). In Israel (third), it is $130,457 (94,049). Switzerland, in fourth, is Europes top-ranked country, at $128,969 (92,977).

If these sound like the sort of high numbers, unattainable for many of us, which make you think it is impossible to buy happiness, the figures for the lower end of the scale are also instructive. The country where happiness is cheapest is Suriname the former Dutch colony on the north-east shoulder of South America, and the smallest state on the continent in question. Here, $6,799 (4,901) is the financial satiation point for happiness. However, the survey also says, the average Surinamese yearly income is $5,500 (3,965).

Read more:Discovering South Americas forgotten corner, a land of walking trees and evil spirits

The survey is perhaps most interesting where it throws up some regional inconsistencies.

The highest ranked country in Africa is Libya, where the cost of security in a country that has been strafed by conflict for the last decade equates to a personal-happiness figure of $58,191 (41,951) compared to $36,916 (26,613) in the desert states westerly neighbour Tunisia, and $31,634 (22,806) in Egypt, directly to the east. The lowest-ranked country on the continent is Angola where $8,921 (6,431) buys you happiness (although figures arent given for Morocco, Sudan, South Sudan, Zimbabwe or Somalia).

Perhaps the biggest discrepancy is in South America, where another pair of neighbours have starkly contrasting results. Remarkably, Argentina is ranked as the nation with the second lowest price of happiness on the continent (after Suriname), at $8,778 (6,328) where Uruguay, its colleague across the River Plate, is the highest, at $20,927 (15,086). Again, the jigsaw is incomplete with troubled Venezuela also missing from the picture.

In Europe, the UK ($91,940/66,281) is out-ranked by Norway ($114,147/82,291), as well as Switzerland, Iceland, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The European nation with the lowest price of happiness is easterly Ukraine ($11,301/8,147) while the lowest in Asia is Kyrgyzstan, at $8,997 (6,486).

Read more:
From Suriname to Ukraine, these are the countries where happiness costs the least - Telegraph.co.uk

Forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens, who do not have passports of the Russian Federation, continues in the occupied Crimea.

As Vitaliy Khylko, a representative of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said on the air of Dom TV channel, citizens of Ukraine, who do not have passports of the Russian Federation and live in Crimea without a so-called residence permit, are subject to deportation.

Such persons are considered foreigners under the legislation of the Russian Federation.

In 2020, we documented 178 cases when courts in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea delivered judgments obliging this category of people to leave Crimea. In particular, 105 citizens of Ukraine received such a judicial precept, Khylko said.

According to him, 416 people (at least 292 of them are citizens of Ukraine) were ordered to pay a fine for violating the so-called migration rules in force in Russia.

Khylko noted that those are usually ordinary Crimean residents who had lived on the peninsula before and stayed here after 2014.

"The only thing that needs to be clarified is that these people did not receive a Russian passport and do not have a certificate of temporary or permanent residence. Usually, these are persons who do not have a residence permit in Crimea. I underscore usually because there are exceptions. Perhaps, some of them came to Crimea after the occupation to work or visit their relatives, or just use the right to move freely across the territory of Ukraine," added the representative of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

It is noted that there are two types of deportation forced and voluntary departure. If a "court" orders that a person must leave voluntarily but a person did not leave the occupied territory, he or she is detained again and already faces the forced deportation.

In case of forced deportation, the detainees are placed in detention centers. And these persons will be deported. We document such cases. They are deported either first to the territory of the Russian Federation (usually to Rostov region) and then to the territory of Ukraine through Kharkiv region, or directly through the administrative border with Crimea to the territory of mainland Ukraine, Khylko explained.

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UN representative: Deportation of Ukrainian citizens from occupied Crimea ongoing - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoan welcomed the Chairman of the Verkhova Rada of Ukraine, Dmytro Razumkov, to NATO Headquarters on Monday (22 March 2021). The Deputy Secretary General thanked Ukraine for its continued contributions to NATO missions, including in Kosovo and Afghanistan. He also welcomed that NATO and Ukraine have supported each other throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Deputy Secretary General and the Chairman discussed the security situation in Ukraine and the Black Sea region. Mr. Geoan expressed concern over the erosion of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, and reaffirmed NATOs full support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. He also welcomed the high-level of dialogue and cooperation between NATO and Ukraine on security in the Black Sea region, which remains a priority for the Alliance.

The Deputy Secretary General praised Ukraines efforts to implement wide-ranging reforms, which support its Euro-Atlantic aspirations. He noted that the Verkhovna Rada plays a crucial role in driving these reforms, and encouraged the parliament to support democratic oversight mechanisms.

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Deputy Secretary General welcomes Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada to NATO Headquarters - NATO HQ

Ukraine looks forward to building consensus among the Allies and receiving NATOs Membership Action Plan in the near future.

Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Dmytro Razumkov said this at a meeting with NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoan at the Alliances Headquarters on March 22.

"The receipt of NATOs Membership Action Plan will be a logical step on this path. We look forward to a consensus among the Allies and the granting of MAP to Ukraine in the near future. For the Verkhovna Rada, strengthening cooperation with NATO is a priority. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Kyiv was postponed. But we are grateful to our partners for agreeing to hold it in May 2022 at the suggestion of Ukraine," Razumkov said.

According to him, reforming Ukraine's military and security sectors in line with NATO standards is a priority for the government. Ukraine has already taken some decisions that bring it closer to Euro-Atlantic integration and continues to move in this direction.

"We appreciate the Alliance's strong position on the annexation of Crimea and aggression in the east of our country, as well as support by NATO member countries for reforms in Ukraine," Razumkov stressed.

As Ukrinform reported, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Dmytro Razumkov is on a working visit to Brussels (the Kingdom of Belgium) and Luxembourg (the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) on March 22-23.

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Ukraine expects to receive NATOs Membership Action Plan in near future Razumkov - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has stated that Ukraine aspires to become a member of the European Union in the next 5 to10 years.

"We aspire to become a EU member in the next 5 to10 years. Of course, this also depends on 27 other countries, not only us. The same concerns NATO. Ukraine aspires to join the North Atlantic Alliance. We are already working very closely with NATO. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statements that NATO's door remains open for Ukraine strongly testify to this," Shmyhal said in an interview with the Handelsblatt German newspaper.

Shmyhal notes that he does not see any fundamental obstacles. There are two reasons why we are still not in the EU. We are still working to reach the European standards, but we are confident that we will make significant progress, not least through digitalisation. Second, there are countries in the EU that are skeptical about its further enlargement, the Prime Minister stressed.

He is convinced that Ukraine is ready to become a EU member and wants to do so as soon as possible.

As reported, the Ukrainian delegation led by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal made a working visit to Dusseldorf and Berlin (Federal Republic of Germany) on March 18-19, 2021.

During the visit, several working meetings with high-ranking German officials were held.

The Ukrainian delegation also took part in the 4th German-Ukrainian Business Forum.

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PM Shmyhal: Ukraine aspires to join EU in next 5-10 years - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news