PAGE  1  |  2  |  3
A lot of globalists and International Monetary Fund supporters will disagree with the steps Malaysia has taken to control its currency and block foreign investors from making short-term gains on the local market. But do we have any choice when the very people who are supposed to control the international financial system are unable to stop the currency manipulators? Speculators are changing the fundamentals of our economy in a period of three to six months. Left to true market forces, currency re-valuations would take two to three years. Try to understand that we are fighting for our survival. The IMF helps only creditor banks, not the countries it is supposed to be bailing out.
ALAN WAN
Kuala Lumpur

It is surprising that the IMF defends itself so vigorously while failing in its task of reviving moribund economies. Why doesn't the IMF follow the example of the World Trade Organization, which is implementing a systematic and slow liberalization of trade barriers to allow the competitive upgrading of domestic industries before they must compete on a par with external economies? The IMF asks countries to do the impossible in a short period of time. It should wake up and realize that the best way is not the free market way.
NELSON LOW
Singapore

CLARIFICATION
The drawing of the hand that accompanied our story about the announcement by Louisville, Ky., doctors of their hopes of performing the first successful hand transplant [Aug. 3] should have included a credit for medical illustrator Elaine Bammerlin. She created the original drawing upon which TIME based its illustration.END