As the posting by Peace (1:23 AM 23 Feb 2006) indicates), what happened was the British company which used to handle those ports has been sold to a firm run by the UAE government.

"Martin" is against this deal, so it must be right. Sure enough, he's wrong.

As Q and some others have pointed out, this deal does not have to do with security at the ports--that would continue to be handled by US entities. We are not handing our security over to the UAE.   With this sort of uproar, the US authorities will be on notice to keep security fully under control at all times--and that's good.

Panic and xenophobia are not necessary.