Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Passport Now World's Most Powerful (cnn.com)
According to the Henley Passport Index, compiled by global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & PartnersCitizens, Japan now has the most powerful passport on the planet. From a report: Having gained visa-free access to Myanmar earlier this month, Japanese citizens can now enjoy visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a whopping 190 destinations around the world -- knocking Singapore, with 189 destinations, into second place. Germany, which began 2018 in the top spot, is now in third place with 188 destinations, tied with France and South Korea. Uzbekistan lifted visa requirements for French nationals on October 5, having already granted visa-free access to Japanese and Singaporean citizens in early February.
This raises an interesting question: What is the worst passport to have?
I figured it would be North Korea, but nope, it is Afghanistan.
North Korea isn't even in the bottom 10. Eleven countries allow visa free travel to North Koreas, and 35 more issue visas on arrival.
Here's the bottom ten:
Iran
Ethiopia
Lebanon
Sudan
Yemen
Somalia
Syria
Pakistan
Iraq
Afghanistan
So if you want to be at the bottom, you need to be an exporter of terrorists.
So who allows visa free access to Afghans? According to Wikipedia, they are Dominica, Haiti, Micronesia, Saint Vincent, North Cyprus, Cook Islands, and Pitcairn Island.
...as an American citizen, I can be arrested for visiting Cuba, 90 miles away.
It is legal to visit. You just can't spend money there. But enforcement is lax, and nobody really cares.
Bzzt! Wrong. The embargo was in place before the nukes were placed there. Also, this was in response to American nukes in Turkey, right on the Russian border. Stir in a few assassination plots by America and attempted overthrows of the Cuban government, I'd welcome some nukes too.
Japan's 190 countries versus the US and UK's 186 countries - that's not really much of a difference.
Don't forget next year the UK drops by 25 countries.
You know that Australia is 7th on the list right?
Russia doesn't have a border with Turkey.
It did in 1961.
Heh? Singapore has mostly the same thing going on - but we're friends with them.
Indeed. We are also friends with Saudi Arabia, which has no elections, and where gays are executed.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, gays are not persecuted, and starting in January next year, gay marriage will be legal.
GPP's assertion that America's foreign policy is based on "protecting gays" is absurd.
Except it was a Democrat who normalised relations with Cuba and made it possible for US citizens to visit there again, and the Republican who succeeded him who has already rolled part of that back.
But do go on...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Passports are a scam and a TRAP. The world never used to have passports. There was and is NO need for them.
That is entirely wrong. All you have to do is read a book like the Count of Monte Cristo, written almost 200 years ago, to see that there was a period in time where you couldn't even leave the town you grew up in without a passport. If you did, you'd be considered a criminal when you tried to get into any town. The lay person did not need a passport because the lay person never had the opportunity to go anywhere.