From the textile towns of South Carolina to the rolling hills of Ohio, foreigners were helping declining regions to reverse their fate.

The three foreigners together with the emergence of the youngsters Tyrone Farrugia, Paul Fenech and Josef Mifsud, helped the team to achieve its target, that of getting to the Championship Pool for the first time ever.

It is perhaps more difficult for us to discern the ways in which foreigners help to create the appearance of continuities by applying the same familiar formulas to what they see in Russia, from regime to regime and across the centuries.

To the delight of conservationists everywhere, President Fernando Collor de Mello has now agreed to allow foreigners to help save the forest through so-called "debt for nature" swaps.

Elsewhere on the continent, only two national teams have home grown coaches - and in both cases, they are building on foundations which foreigners helped to build.

To the Editor: "As the Tech Economy Goes, So Go Special Visas" (June 16) described the H-1B visa as intended for "highly skilled foreigners to help fill jobs when no qualified Americans can be found."

The government is eager to attract foreigners to help defray the cost of overhauling the debt-ridden banking system.

The enemy does not discriminate among us; the foreigner, with rare exceptions, will not help us.

They also understand that foreigners are helping to modernize the system.

When China opened its economy to Western companies nearly a dozen years ago it was hoping foreigners would help tap its supposedly huge oil reserves.