I would agree that despite all our fears, the world is generally a safer place for the majority of the earth's population.

However I don't like two particular things they've done:

The number of genocides, notwithstanding Rwanda and Srebrenica, peaked in 1988 and has since fallen by 80 per cent.
and

So there are fewer wars, and the wars that remain kill smaller numbers of people. The war in Iraq, the report notes, is an aberration.
This to me is just really, really bad statistical analysis. If everyone could just take out the parts of a study, then it just invalidates the whole study. No matter how favourable it might appear without those included, if they don't include it, they're distorting the results.

And frankly we could have done a lot better on lots of the points.

improvements in the world's vaccination effort has cut the number of AIDS deaths, with an estimated half a million lives saved;
Only half a million? And last time I checked there isn't a working viable vaccine for HIV.

And he even says it himself:

"but with 50 wars still under way around the world, we have a long way to go."