The most powerful passports in the world in 2020, ranked

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Singapore, which ranked as the second-best place to hold a passport from in 2020, tied for first place last year.

The Henley Passport Index, an annual ranking of the most powerful passports in the world based on how many destinations the holder can enter without a visa, was just released.

Japan secured the top spot this year, with access to 191 countries and territories, a position it previously shared with Singapore.

Asia dominated the list, with Singapore landing in the No. 2 spot and South Korea tying with Germany for No. 3.

A US passport provides access to 183 destinations in 2020, giving it an eighth-place ranking. Passports from 16 other countries provide better access than the US. The country is also slipping in rank – last year it placed sixth.

A passport from Japan opens more doors than a passport from anywhere else in the world, according to the newly released Henley Passport Index.

The index is an annual power ranking of passports determined by the number of destinations a passport holder can enter without a visa.

A Japanese passport promises uncomplicated travel to 191 other countries and territories. In 2019, the passport promised access to 189 places and tied with Singapore’s passport as the world’s most desirable travel document.

Singapore maintained access to 189 destinations and placed second this year, followed closely by South Korea and Germany with access to 187 countries and territories.

Passports from countries like Canada, the UK, and the US all slipped in the rankings from 2019 to 2020 – but they are still desirable, with access to more than 180 destinations. For comparison, passports from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria offer access to fewer than 30 places.

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The coming surge of separatism

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Why splittists will be on a roll around the world

FROM CATALONIA to Kashmir, and from Hong Kong to Scotland, separatist movements will make headlines in 2020. At best, this will lead to political turbulence and tension. At worst, it could lead to violence.

Across the world, two types of identity-driven movements are increasingly clashing—and feeding off each other. On the one hand, there are separatist groups that seek to break away from their nation-state and establish new countries; on the other, there is the outraged and assertive nationalism of existing states, determined to crush separatism.

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China introduces mandatory face scans for people buying mobile phones

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The rule came into effect on December 1st, to “protect” Chinese citizens’ rights and security in cyberspace.

Now people buying new mobile phones and phone contracts in China will have to provide a scan of their faces.

The rule came into effect on Sunday, 1 December and is meant to “protect the legitimate rights and interest of citizens in cyberspace,” according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The faces of customers buying new SIM cards must now match their I.D. documents.

It might seem like a step in the right direction along with technological advancement, however, a few privacy concerns have arisen.

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Australian Defence Force looks to integrate robots

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A Ghost Robotics’ Vision 60 quadruped robot supports the soldiers of the Australian Army during an autonomous systems demonstration at the Majura Training Area, Canberra.

What could possibly go wrong?

The same week the latest movie in the Terminator franchise hit theatres, an Australian Defence Force publication ran photos of a prototype Ghost Robotics Vision 60 quadruped robot “supporting” Australian Army soldiers during an autonomous systems demonstration at the Majura Training Area, Canberra on November 8.

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Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Inventor of web calls on governments and firms to safeguard it from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other malign forces that threaten to plunge the world into a “digital dystopia”.

The Contract for the Web requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.

“I think people’s fear of bad things happening on the internet is becoming, justifiably, greater and greater,” Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, told the Guardian. “If we leave the web as it is, there’s a very large number of things that will go wrong. We could end up with a digital dystopia if we don’t turn things around. It’s not that we need a 10-year plan for the web, we need to turn the web around now.”

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India mulls incentives to woo 324 firs as trade war simmers

 

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India Plans Incentives to Bring In Foreign Manufacturers From Tesla to Glaxo

Bloomberg) — India is planning to offer 324 companies including Tesla Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc incentives to set up factories in the South Asian nation in a bid to capitalize from the trade war between China and the U.S., according to a document seen Bloomberg.

The government proposes to provide the manufacturers land to set up a factory along with power, water and road access, according to draft of the document prepared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Invest India. Other companies that officials will reach out to include Eli Lilly & Co., South Korea’s Hanwha Chemical Corp., and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

While the trade war has benefited countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia, rigid land acquisition rules and labor laws have prompted investors to largely ignore India when looking for alternatives to China. The latest proposal may reduce red tape, and set the nation, which expanded at the slowest pace in six years last quarter, on a path to double its gross domestic product to $5 trillion by 2025 – a goal set Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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The great American tax haven: why the super-rich love South Dakota

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Late last year, as the Chinese government prepared to enact tough new tax rules, the billionaire Sun Hongbin quietly transferred $4.5bn worth of shares in his Chinese real estate firm to a company on a street corner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the least populated and least known states in the US. Sioux Falls is a pleasant city of 180,000 people, situated where the Big Sioux River tumbles off a red granite cliff. It has some decent bars downtown, and a charming array of sculptures dotting the streets, but there doesn’t seem to be much to attract a Chinese multi-billionaire. It’s a town that even few Americans have been to.

The money of the world’s mega-wealthy, though, is heading there in ever-larger volumes. In the past decade, hundreds of billions of dollars have poured out of traditional offshore jurisdictions such as Switzerland and Jersey, and into a small number of American states: Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming – and, above all, South Dakota. “To some, South Dakota is a ‘fly-over’ state,” the chief justice of the state’s supreme court said in a speech to the legislature in January. “While many people may find a way to ‘fly over’ South Dakota, somehow their dollars find a way to land here.”

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$69 trillion of world debt in one infographic

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Two decades ago, total government debt was estimated to sit at $20 trillion.

Since then, according to the latest figures by the IMF, the number has ballooned to $69.3 trillion with a debt to GDP ratio of 82% — the highest totals in human history.

Which countries owe the most money, and how do these figures compare?

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The internet is getting less free

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A protester holds an Amazon box made into a sad face as part of a protest against the company’s cloud services contracts with Palantir, which supports ICE.

Election interference and government surveillance on social media are hurting internet freedoms.

 

Amazon has been under fire from protesters lately for assisting surveillance technology company Palantir — and, by extension, ICE — as well as for its own surveillance products like Ring.

Free speech and privacy on the internet declined globally for the ninth consecutive year according to the Freedom on the Net 2019 report by bipartisan watchdog and think tank Freedom House.

 

The report’s authors cite two main reasons for the decline: increased online election interference — by government and civilian actors alike — and increased government surveillance, both of which are spreading on social media platforms. These are topics that continue to dominate the news cycle, whether it’s Facebook’s ad policy that allows politicians to spread lies or Amazon’s growing relationships with police departments that use its Ring smart doorbells and associated social media products to surveil communities. Freedom House recommends increased transparency and oversight of these platforms in order to stop the situation from getting worse.

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Women win the right to go topless in 6 states

 

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It’s unlikely that mayhem and anarchy will ensue

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a ban on women being topless in public in Fort Collins, Colorado. The court’s decision makes it now legal for women to go topless in all of the states that fall under the 10th Circuit — Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Brit Hoagland and Samantha Six had sued the City of Fort Collins in 2015 on behalf of the #FreeTheNipple movement.

They called the ban an attack on gender equality because there were different laws for men and for women. Considering female breasts to be inherently sexual in a way that men’s breasts aren’t, was discriminatory said the plaintiffs. Determining that male breast nudity is different than female breast nudity and only criminalizing one in effect criminalizes being a woman. The city did have an exception for nursing mothers, but otherwise, there was a $250 fine for any female over the age of 10 who exposed her breast below the top of the nipple.

“Hey, my body is not indecent if his is not indecent,” said Brit Hoagland.

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AI to ‘fundamentally shift’ global balance of power

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The focus of Australia’s cyber diplomacy is expanding to include “grand strategy in technology”, as well as engagement with technology firms and governments.

Rapidly maturing technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing will “shift fundamentally the global balance of power”, according to Dr Tobias Feakin, Australia’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs.

“Those [nations] that really are at the forefront of AI and the way that it works will genuinely be at the forefront of the emerging 21st century economy,” he told the Australian Cybersecurity Conference, or CyberCon, in Melbourne on Wednesday.

Some nations are already positioning themselves to take advantage of these technologies.

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Chinese citizens will soon need to scan their face before they can access internet services or get a new phone number

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: A display shows a facial recognition system during the 1st Digital China Summit at Strait International Conference and Exhibition Center on April 22, 2018 in Fuzhou, China. The summit is held from April 22 to 24, with the theme of ‘Let Informatization Drive Modernization, Speed Up the Construction of Digital China’. Visual China Group via Getty Images/Visual China Group via Getty Images

China’s 854 million internet users will soon need to use facial identification in order to apply for new internet or mobile services.

The Chinese government announced last month that telecommunications companies will need to scan users’ faces in order to verify their identities before they can access new services.

The new rule will apply from December 1.

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