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I'm starting to mistrust the U.S.'s response to the midair collision between the American and Chinese aircraft [SPY PLANE FINALE, April 23]. How would the U.S. have reacted if a Chinese spy plane had landed illegally at an air base in Hawaii? This is something the U.S. would never quietly tolerate, and it should respect the same territorial rights of all other nations. The Americans should accept responsibility and review their reconnaissance flight plans over the South China Sea. EMRI VLOK Cape Town
Undoubtedly the U.S. should be blamed for this affair. If the American spy plane had not flown so close to Chinese territory, the tragedy would not have happened. Don't shift the blame to a missing Chinese pilot who was just trying to protect his country. I believe that many Americans are genuine peace lovers. Yet some others like to assert American self-interests across all continents in the name of world peace. KWOK WAI-SHING Hong Kong
Long View of Global Warming
President Bush's reluctance to follow the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that he doesn't want to hurt the U.S. economy strikes me as a bit shortsighted [SPECIAL REPORT, April 9]. Possibly he sees no connection between the rising cost of oil and the recent economic slowdown. It makes no sense to increase America's dependency on an increasingly costly and nonrenewable resource. Far more logical would be to focus on utilizing and supporting the development of domestically created energy sources and pushing for public-transportation reform in the U.S. DEACON MACMILLAN Yokkaichi, Japan
Justice for Milosevic
I read with great shock and dismay your report "Bagging the Butcher" [WORLD, April 9], on the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic. This monster's crimes parallel the gross indignities suffered by the kidnapped Africans who were sold into slavery in America or by the Jews during the Holocaust. These are crimes against humanity as a whole. Naturally, nothing can be done to make up for the grief and lives that have been lost, but putting Milosevic on trial at the international tribunal in the Hague would definitely be a step in the right direction. DIONE DEVOTTA Munich
Rules of Respect
In the wake of the Cincinnati, Ohio, riots, one can be sure that racial profiling and the abuses perpetrated by American police are anything but funny, but I laughed out loud when I read the "survival tactics" recommended by your columnist Jack E. White [DIVIDING LINE, April 23]. White is teaching his three sons to give no back talk if pulled over, to look straight ahead with hands on the wheel, to ask before reaching for a driver's license, and never to run away from a police officer. My white middle-class parents taught me the same lessons, but they called this what it is: respect. These are common-sense rules that all people should practice and teach their children, race be damned. DENISE P. MACLEAN Midland Park, N.J.