March 10, 1993

Hoping to spur commercial lending, the Clinton Administration has developed a set of revised banking regulations meant to encourage a mellower mind-set among bank examiners without encouraging lenders to rebuild shaky loan portfolios. The proposed new regulations, to be introduced by President Clinton on Wednesday at a White House gathering of business executives, are being presented as a form of economic stimulus that costs the Government nothing, requires no new legislation and benefits mainly small businesses, which the Administration says have the greatest potential to create new jobs and the hardest time getting credit.

President Clinton said today that he would support an emergency meeting of the major industrialized democracies to discuss how they can bolster the Russian democracy movement, adding that the group's next planned summit in July might be too long to wait. "The important point I'd like to make," Mr. Clinton said, after talks with President Francois Mitterrand of France, "is I don't believe we can wait until July for the major countries of the world, who care about what happens in Russia and who would like very much to keep political and economic reform on track there, to move."

Two employees of a Mexican restaurant in the Bronx and a nephew of the owner were shot and killed early yesterday during a robbery in the restaurant. A 14-year-old customer who was shot in the head survived, and a third employee escaped unharmed by sneaking out the back door, the police said. The shootings left the relatively peaceful Bedford Park neighborhood shaken yesterday, its residents wondering what could have prompted such violence in a restaurant whose owners and employees were known as hard-working, honest and always generous to customers down on their luck.

Mickey Kantor, the United States trade representative, told the Senate Finance Committee today that the United States would seek some changes in Mexico's legal system affecting labor and environmental cases during the coming negotiations on side agreements to the North American Free Trade Agreement. When President Clinton was a candidate, he said he would not sign legislation putting the provisions of the free trade pact into law until three such accords had first been negotiated. Mr. Clinton said these agreements would cover labor and environmental matters and surges in imports that might result as the pact gradually reduced tariff and non-tariff trade barriers. Willing to Walk Away Mr. Kantor, in his first appearance at a Congressional hearing since he took office, said the Clinton Administration would be willing to walk away from negotiations on the side agreements if necessary rather than strike a quick deal to insure that the free trade pact could take effect as scheduled on Jan. 1.

An American commitment to help dismantle the nuclear arsenal of former Soviet lands is ensnared in Russian unrest and indecision. Page A11.