Les USA mènent avec efficacité la guerre des visas

Une petite histoire avec quelques paroles, rapportée par Vicki Woods, dans le Daily Telegraph (le 1er avril). Ou comment les USA mènent avec sagacité et alacrité la guerre des visas. Les USA se passeront du Hallé Orchestra de Manchester, et le reste du monde des USA.

« In a tale of our terrorised times, the Hallé Orchestra has regretfully had to cancel its planned American mini-tour next year because it can't afford the visas. It was going to play two concerts in 2007, one of them in New York at the Lincoln Centre, but the fees aren't worth the visa expenses.

» The 80 members of the orchestra plus 20 support staff, all based in Manchester, have been told they each need to apply for a visa in person at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square. Nor can they just catch the dawn train to Euston en masse and turn up at mid-morning. Each person has to make his or her own separate appointment first, by phone - on that nightmare line that costs £1.30 a minute.

» The Hallé's chief executive, John Summers, reckons it would cost £45,000 to pay for 100 visas ($100 each — about £65), return fares from Manchester Piccadilly to Euston and overnight hotel bills. He says: “The palaver is mind-blowing,” which it is. He wondered why it couldn't be done in Manchester, but the US embassy's consul-general said no way — his computers need high-speed lines to send the “biometric data” back to Washington. “We are all paying a cost because of terrorism,” he said. (Yes. Except for Americans travelling to Britain.) »

Mis en ligne le 8 avril 2006 à 12H04