An interesting subtext here is Dubai's political stance.
They're friendly enough to Israel and Western nations that they "didn't catch" the assassins; even the article says the Mossad's blown cover is a surprise.
Meanwhile, Dubai seems happy to roll out biometrics aggressively at their borders.
Ok, those are the facts. My analysis: Dubai wants to clamp down on "unilateral" operations (read: illegal or politically toxic acts where Dubai is the pawn in other nations fights).
Dubai could become Switzerland-esque neutral party that can reasonably claim Arabs are safe, _and_ Israelis are safe.
It would surely boost their tourism to have a clean record. "Come visit us. We can police our streets and protect our borders."
And I imagine they wouldn't mind having that kind of political clout either.
Which is entirely reasonable - each country has different attitudes about what is appropriate public behavior, and what isn't. What I found odd about this case was that the evidence was pretty minimal, "The pair's defence lawyers said the woman - who did not appear in court - had not seen the kiss herself, but had been told by her two-year-old child that the girl had seen them kissing." - I think this was probably related to the fact that they were consuming illegal alcohol as well.
And it's entirely reasonable for cowkingdeluxe to be critical of a country where "you go to jail for a month for kissing in public". You can validly hold a negative opinion about some "attitudes about what is appropriate public behavior".
You can take political correctness and cultural relativism too far: this attitude about what is appropriate public behavior, taking into consideration the other behaviors that are considered (in)appropriate in concordance with it, is just awful and can't change soon enough.
Can you explain your position a bit more? I mean, its illegal to go around nude in the United States and I'm not sure how banning public kissing is objectively any worse than that. You can say that local laws should reflect what the local culture finds acceptable in public, in which case both sets of laws are fine, or you can say that everyone should be really liberal in what they accept in public, in which case both laws are bad, but I'm not seeing why you would only object another countries laws against kissing in public.
In the united states, there are places where you would think that it was "nudity" that was illegal, when it fact it's public indecency/lewdness that is illegal. That is, it's the "intent" - I have run into naked people in San Francisco (Bay to Breakers being an obvious example, but numerous protest/art/just-being-social examples) as well. And, from time to time, I see naked people protesting in Berkeley who don't seem to get arrested that quickly (if at all).
I have zero problems with public nudity, but, I also have zero problems with laws against outright public displays of affection (PDAs) - hell, for that matter, when I go to burning man, there's lots of environments where you trip across balls-out sexual-activity - and I don't recall being particularly offended (or even shocked after the first couple times). So, I do believe it's a lot about social-relativsm, and defining what the norm should be. Depending on where you are, any of these activities (kissing, nudity, intercourse) may be considered lewd/indecent - and I don't usually judge/disapprove of a society that makes any of these activities illegal.
I do think it's important (and I do judge cultures) as to whether they clearly establish what the laws are, and that they uphold a certain level of evidence before finding someone guilty. I also think you should have the opportunity to confront your accuser. So - No problem with Dubai outlawing public kissing, but, I do have a lot of problems with the way the approach to the law went in this case (2 year old child's testimony of a third-party event, and the mother of the child/child didn't even show up at the trial)
It's a false bifurcation to present only "local laws should reflect what the local culture finds acceptable in public", and "everyone should be really liberal in what they accept in public" as valid choices.
My position is simple: people are happier in countries where kissing in public is allowed. People have become happier in countries where things like kissing in public have become allowed.
Things like enlightenment, separation of church and state, democracy and checks and balances result in countries where people are generally happier and more free. That has been experimentally verified in a number of countries over the past few hundred years. Some sets of ethical beliefs produce results that are deemed better, even by those that object to part or all of those beliefs.
Cultural relativism cannot and must not be used to excuse repressive behavior.
Dubai and other micro-states are very susceptible to demographic changes for one and that's very serious. Also a lot of rich (legit and shady) types go there followed by secret services. Dubai will take their money http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/11/kabul-bank-fraud... so they need to provide some safety or else there goes the neighborhood.
(One smart thing that have done is hire essentially Blackwater to have a heavily armed brigade ready to crush internal dissent or coup attempts.)
Japan does whatever the U.S. tells them to. Or else.
In general, considering the 8 U.S. military bases in Tokyo (not Japan, just Tokyo), and in particular, the 31000 sq metre military base in the centre of the city, in Roppongi (prime real estate worth at least $60 m, with a few military helicopters landing/taking off from there every day, and a lot more towards the weekend), IMHO, Japan is an occupied territory not too different from Afghanistan or Iraq. IMHO, the role of Japan in the scheme of things as designed by the US is to hold US debt, giving legitimacy to the piece of paper printed by the Treasury. The entire Toyota drama was about Japan trying to assert it's independence and not follow orders.
Oh, totally. You figure, first, that America doesn't have 50,000 soldiers there for no reason. No country has ever had soldiers in other countries for no reason.
The reason is that it's a vassal state, and the way it pays its tribute is, depending on how you want to look at it, by sending awesome manufactured goods over, or buying bad paper at high prices with its huge annual trade surplus. Cf Germany.
Got that from someone whose family works in the CIA, no link.
Edit : Assuming you were not asking for proof, only information, see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_Toyota_vehicl.... Note that "After a 10 month search, NASA and NHTSA scientists found no electronic defect in Toyota vehicles. Driver error or pedal misapplication was found responsible for most of the incidents". But the dive in Toyota stock price, sales, and most importantly, brand image, was enough to send the message. Toyota stocked surged 20% after the then-Japanese PM resigned after his failure to get the US off of Okinawa.
One of my flights from the US routed through Schiphol then I entered Spain without going through customs or getting my passport stamped. I'm not really sure what happened.
Both the Netherlands and Spain are in the Schengen Area, so there's no border controls between them. The same happens if you go to Zürich via Paris, for example. I've done that a few times; you don't go through Swiss customs.
A number of nations have a tit-for-tat policy when it comes to immigration practices. For example, China matches the fee for a US tourist visa for Chinese citizens when Americans try to go to China. That's far from the only example.
I'm not generally a fan of overblown border security, but there is another angle here: it's now harder for foreign governments to conduct unilateral spy operations in your country. I'm not sure to what extent that actually affects me, but it seems like a plus.
didn't the soviets gain much of their information from american citizens? so i'm sure that many such agencies will simply recruit citizens from the country they wish to spy on. such changes in security practices as this will only change the number of people recruited.
This probably means more reliance on "low-tech" tradecraft like dead drops, etc. Surveillance is so endemic today, agents are probably being told "assume you are always being photographed." So even a casual meeting in a bar could be observed.
So expect a lot of thumbdrives taped to the backsides of toilets in the future.
As a matter of implementation, I wonder if this is in fact true at the moment.
Of course in the future there's no reason that national biometrics databases couldn't store unique identifiers that could be used to identify individuals (given the biometrics for an individual, you would be able to look up that individual in your database).
However my very patchy understanding of systems as currently implemented is that they provide a way of tying a document reliably to an individual - so that you can present a passport and an automated kiosk can scan your irises/take fingerprints to work out if the document actually belongs to you. This is what's called a "closed search" problem.
If you can generate the document in the first place then this doesn't really change the situation from before.
Of course systems may get more sophisticated but I suspect the problems with collisions of biometric checksums are likely to put some sort of a limit on the practicality of an approach like this. Especially when retina scans etc can be defeated by wearing lenses etc.
I think you missed the point of the article. Once the biometrics are in the system, you can't go back to that country (or any other country with which it is sharing data) precisely because those biometrics are forever linked with the first identity's travel documents. If you show up again, the fact that your biometrics no longer match the first identity is going to set alarm bells ringing. In other words - the first time those fingerprints passed through the system they were attached to a British citizen called "John Bull" and now look! Those same fingerprints are attached to an Israeli called "Menachem Reichman".
They're friendly enough to Israel and Western nations that they "didn't catch" the assassins; even the article says the Mossad's blown cover is a surprise.
Meanwhile, Dubai seems happy to roll out biometrics aggressively at their borders.
Ok, those are the facts. My analysis: Dubai wants to clamp down on "unilateral" operations (read: illegal or politically toxic acts where Dubai is the pawn in other nations fights).
Dubai could become Switzerland-esque neutral party that can reasonably claim Arabs are safe, _and_ Israelis are safe.
It would surely boost their tourism to have a clean record. "Come visit us. We can police our streets and protect our borders."
And I imagine they wouldn't mind having that kind of political clout either.