Korean Air: A Culture of Corporal Punishment? (int'l edition)

The general public is blissfully unaware of the increased risk on specific airlines (''Kim to KAL: Straighten up and fly right,'' Asian Business, May 10). Generally, the booking is made via a travel agent whose primary interest is commission--not safety.

Having lived in Southeast Asia for seven years and having been intimately involved in flight-crew training and leasing, I'm aware of the arrogance and blind certainty of the military-trained captains at KAL and other carriers. Some even physically slap the co-pilot for noncompliance with orders. In Indonesia, for example, it is culturally acceptable for the instructor to hit the pilot trainee over the head at flight schools.

Jonathan Clark
Auckland, New Zealand

The Pound, the Euro, and Kosovo (int'l edition)

''Kosovo's fallout'' (European Business, May 10) opens up an interesting possibility for the British Prime Minister. If the euro falls to parity with the dollar, why should he have to spend immense amounts of energy persuading his skeptical electorate of the benefits of submerging the pound sterling in the (foreign) euro when he can join in the Anglo-Saxon success by merging it with the (not-so-foreign) dollar?

Brian H. Gill
London

''Economic Imperialism and Racial Prejudice'' (int'l edition)

Now I understand Robert Barro's problems with Brazil (''The men who run Brazil still don't get it,'' Economic Viewpoint, May 3). In 1995, he said at a lecture at the London School of Economics that Brazil and India would have slow economic growth because they are democracies, and democracy is not the most appropriate political system for developing countries. The implications were: First, authoritarian models such as Asia's were superior, and we have witnessed how wrong he was. Second, that Brazil should go back to a dictatorship. He simply didn't say whether the U.S. was ready to send in the Marines.

Brazil doesn't want to dollarize its economy for the simple reason that we intend to maintain full independence. Our economy is 1/10 the size of the U.S. economy, we are at a different point of the economic cycle, we don't have the same productivity, and most of our trade is with Europe, not with the U.S.

The suggestion he made that Domingo Cavallo should be Finance Minister of Brazil is outrageous and only shows his political ignorance about Latin America. You simply don't play two strong regional powers (Brazil and Argentina) against each other. The suggestion that Brazil will never have the fiscal discipline to have a stable currency amounts to economic imperialism and racial prejudice. I wonder if he has looked back to the Asian model before unrepentantly bashing Brazil. We are recovering much faster than the Asians.

Nelson Franco Jobim
Correspondent, Jornal do Brasil
London