Is the US Congress racist - quite possibly yes!

10.08.00am GMT Sat 25th Feb 2006

Cross Channel Ferry (P&O)

The last few nights the news has shown members of the US Senate and House of Representatives opposing the buy-out of P&O by the UAE state owned Dubai Ports World. The reason is that P&O currently run New York, Baltimore and four other ports and these Senators and Representatives do not want them being run by Arabs! Well that strikes me as racist as they don't mind that the ports are currently run by Brits.

I, worryingly, find myself agreeing with President George W. Bush on this who says it doesn't matter and the the UAE are allies. On Thursday night I saw Senator Hillary Clinton speaking against the by-out - she went down in my estimation (incidentally I am reading My Life by Bill Clinton at the moment - well worth the read by the way). I also find it a bit concerning that the US - home of global capitalism thinks that they should be able to prevent a business transaction taking place!