From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 10:31:42 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury:
>The way I read it Amara, you don't need a Visa if you plan
>to stay less than 90 days and have a machine readable passport
>and come from what are essentially NATO countries or Japan,
>Singapore, AU or NZ
And that list and the procedures don't strike you as just a little
bit bass-ackward? If the Bush Administration wishes remove their
world competitiveness in the scientific arena and basically cut the
throats of the U.S. scientists these next years, then they are acting
in the proper manner.
And btw, not NATO countries: Eastern / Central Europe require
visas and all of that.
Do you have a machine-readable U.S. passport? I do not, but I'm
waiting until the last possible date to renew mine because
I strongly object to the policies of the State Department.
For the Italians (a "Visa-Waver Country") at my institute
it is a similar story for different reasons: many also do not
have an Italian machine-readable passport, so now there is a large
flurry of activity and worry and some cancellations-to-meetings
because they must go through the Italian bureaucracy to gain this
particular document before October 1.
Fortunately there are some countries left in the world (but
only a few), where these paranoid policies are not in place,
so those places are tending to get more scientific interaction
and attention. As it should be.
Amara
-- *********************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ *********************************************************************** "Treat people as if they are what they ought to be, and you will help them become what they are capable of being. --Ashleigh Brilliant
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