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.

Comments

getting out, not in

[harvey the nerd]

Whether the passport does more to get you favors or "Out", is more important than "In".

In related news ...

[fahrbot-bot]

Japanese citizens can now enjoy visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a whopping 190 destinations around the world ...

MasterCard ecstatic.

Meanwhile...

[GerryGilmore]

...as an American citizen, I can be arrested for visiting Cuba, 90 miles away. Why? Something, something Communism.....

Re: Meanwhile...

[pslytely psycho]

"Then you should have voted Republican. [snip] You should have voted for the small government, less regulation party."

That's rich.

Neither D's nor R's are small government (R's pay it lip service, but don't govern that way).
D's tax and spend, R's borrow and spend. Neither is interested in reducing spending they approve of and neither has been successful in cutting the other sides spending. (The Sequester was a good thing for a moment, but eventually made no difference as both parties found ways around it) Both sides prop up the 1% at the expense of the average citizen, though R's do it outright while D's try to muddy the waters with social controversy while continually increasing military spending.

Neither side has done a god damned thing to help the average citizen, smoke and mirrors abound, but real assistance, never seems to have enough votes to pull it off. R's are demonstrably worse on this, but at least are honest that they prefer militarism to social reform. D's play homage to the idea of social reform and helping the less fortunate while still expanding the fucking military and bathing in Wall Street money.

There is NO POLITICAL PARTY in the US that is for the average citizen. Libertarians are Republican light, and Greens are for the most part single issue and underdeveloped in the details of how the rest of their platform would work, but likely are the closest to a workers party here in the states.
And the party of Trump, (formerly the Republican party) makes no bones about what they support, little of it good and none of it helping the average citizen.

Both major parties are authoritarians that over regulate, they just have different targets. Namely whatever the other side approves of.

Except for bombs of course. Everybody loves bombs.

(end of rant, you may resume your political backbiting now, me I'm off to the weed store to exercise the rights we the people forced down our governments throats even though they fought us tooth and nail. Proof that it CAN BE DONE.)

Please weigh, not just count

[redelm]

It is a start to recognize visa-free is a good thing. But their list ought not to simply count countries, but weigh them by something -- population, GDP, area, /. postings, ... ). Simple binary dot-product.

After all, visa-free to Russia or China is more useful than visa-free to Uzbekistan or Mongolia for most people.

Re:British come April 2019

[ShanghaiBill]

Britain will have no agreements with any nations so the British passport will be by far the worst passport to have.

Britain has never been part of Schengen, so Brexit will have no effect on visa agreements.