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Italian Bank Opens D.C. Unit To Monitor U.S.

Banca Commerciale Italiana, the giant Milan bank that also owns a large retail bank on Long Island, has opened a representative office in Washington.Antonio Monti, chairman of the $40 billion bank company, said the representative office will monitor the deregulation of the U.S. banking industry, which Monti said will have a major impact on the Long Island Trust Co., which BCI purchased earlier this year.

The Bottom Line Pan American World Airways will buy a Boeing 747SP from defunct Braniff International Airways for $20 million ... First Florida Banks Inc. has agreed to merge Tampa-based University State Bank into First Florida's headquarters bank, First National Bank of Florida ... FMI Financial Corp. has boosted its stake in Orion Capital Corp. to 9.98 per cent of Orion's common shares outstanding

BEFORE THERE WERE hairdressers and vacuum packaging, there were babushkas and homemade gefilte fish. Not one fish but a combination of several, this traditional Jewish mixture of ground carp, pike and whitefish has come a long way--from the banks of Eastern Europe's North Sea to the bathtubs of Depression immigrants and finally, shortly after World War II, to the jars of New Jersey canning plants.

After a decade of rapid growth fueled by a nearly tenfold increase in world oil prices, the energy-dependent Houston economy is faltering under the prospect of a continued slump in international petroleum markets.Regional economists now predict that Houston, once the unchallenged leader of the rapidly growing Southwest, will be outperformed by other Sun Belt cities, in part because it is so closely tied to the oil industry.

Though there was nothing particular happening Monday for the Boston Bank of Commerce, a dutiful crowd showed up at its main offices on Tremont street to cut ribbon, sample hors d'oeuvres and wish president Juan Cofield well with the newest - and only - mostly black bank in the city. Banks open and, alas, banks close in this day and age, as a part of life. But this bank opening drew a bucket-full of politicians and a brigade of business types and community leaders.

None of the experts gathered in Philadelphia yesterday for a conference on the world debt crisis had an answer for the Peruvian lawyer's questions."What about us?" lawyer Robert Danino asked, after hearing a panel of international bankers and economists predict that U.S. interest rates would remain at current high levels and advise that debtor nations would have to continue tightening their belts to make payments on their accumulated debts.

FBI agents were forced to arrest James Durward Harper Jr., a California engineer, on espionage charges - even though other members of his alleged Soviet spy ring are still at large - because he planned to flee the country, sources said yesterday.Harper, 49, whose late wife and others allegedly supplied him with top secret information on Army ballistic missile defense plans, is being held without bail in San Francisco.

There is no surf anywhere between Brattleboro and Burlington. The man didn't even own a tire pump, much less a racing bicycle, until a few months ago. And he's grown weary of running marathons.

The oom-pah-pah music of colorful Germany will be recreated next weekend at Tulsa's Oktoberfest '83.Three days of music, dancing, arts, crafts and old-world foods will highlight this family festival.This year's festival will be held on the west bank of the Old West Playground of the Arkansas River Oct. 14 through 16.More than 125 artists and craftsmen from a five-state area will exhibit.

The Mexican government has succeeded in getting an extra $450 million to $500 million emergency loan from major private banks to carry it over until a much larger loan package is arranged, sources said yesterday.Jose Angel Gurria, Mexican general director of credit for the finance ministry, flew to New York late last week to ask Mexico's big private creditors to advance $500 million immediately while negotiations continue on a new $5 billion loan.

The FBI will investigate whether Jake Butcher's United American Bank committed any crimes by lending bank directors and their relatives $54.8 million in 1982, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said yesterday.FDIC spokesman Alan Whitney said the FBI would join the investigation because of the "size and complexity" of United American, which on Monday became the fourth-largest bank to fail in U.S. history.

John I. Madison and J. Michael Jammock have joined Union Bank & Trust Co. of Oklahoma City.Madison was elected vice president in the loan monitoring department. He has more than 10 years experience in computer operation and data processing.Hammock joins the bank as assistant controller after working as staff accountant for two Lawton firms.

Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators should have taken stronger steps to stop ''abusive practices" by the United American Bank in Knoxville, Tenn., before it failed earlier this year, according to a draft report prepared by the staff of a House panel.The report, yet to be released publicly, was approved yesterday in a 4-0 vote by the House Government Operations Committee subcommittee on commerce, consumer and monetary affairs.

Walter B. Fries, whose sudden and unexpected departure from Central Bank and Trust Co. last April surprised the Miami banking community, is back in the banking business.Fries is one of the organizers and the chairman-designate of a brand new bank in the making: First Bank of Hialeah Gardens. He was chairman and president of Central Bank and Trust when he abruptly took early retirement at age 61.

The world's poor countries are warning the industrial powers that a planned increase in emergency loans will not be enough to avert a debt crisis hanging over the world. The urgent pleas from the Third World for more help are likely to be rebuffed, however, as finance ministers from the rich-est countries seek agreement today on a more modest package of expanded lending to debt-ridden developing nations.

With cries for protectionism increasing and the United States' trade deficit growing, U.S. Department of Commerce officials say that there is a ray of hope: the Export Trading Company Act.The ETC Act, signed into law Oct. 8, enables exporting companies and banks to band together to form one-stop trading centers without fear of violating anti-trust laws.

Please step through the looking glass for a moment. Step into the world of international bankers and governments in debt to them. The inhabitants call it the Real World because everything is turned upside down there.In this odd place bankers lend money to nations that are unlikely to be able to repay the loans and look for ways to keep lending them more.

Trinidad, the oil king of the Caribbean just a few years ago, is struggling to stay afloat in a world with too much crude.Many Trinidadians, swept up in the oil boom before the fallout from the second OPEC oil price shock depressed demand in the 1980s, have been forced to adjust to harsh economic realities. "The honeymoon is over," said William Demas, president of the Caribbean Development Bank.

Chase Manhattan Bank illegally obtained more than $19 million from Penn Square Bank, contributing to Penn Square's collapse, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. alleges in a countersuit to a Chase action.The FDIC filed a $77 million counterclaim Tuesday in U.S. bankruptcy court here against Chase, which has sued the FDIC to recover money loaned through Penn Square.

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