Washington, D.C.
The State Department this week issued new guidelines on travel to foreign countries, and they are not particularly diplomatic. Posted on the department’s Web site, the guidelines include entries on Qatar, where driving is “an extreme sport”; Cyprus, whose “cabaret girls” connive with bar owners to fleece patrons looking for female company; and Laos, which seems to operate according to “unpublished laws.” And if you ever get robbed or assaulted in Mexico, good luck. “Reporting crime is an archaic, exhausting process in Mexico,” the State Department says, “and is widely perceived to be a waste of time.”
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