June 11, 1994

President Clinton announced two measures today to increase pressure on Haitian military leaders and their wealthy supporters: a halt to commercial flights between Haiti and the United States and a ban on financial transactions between the two countries. Administration officials said the ban should hit rich Haitians hard because many of them have bank accounts or investments in the United States. The ban, which takes effect immediately, will prevent Haitians from wiring money from their American accounts to Haiti or from making deposits in American accounts.

Perhaps it all began last January when the Mayor's chief deputy and political enforcer, Peter J. Powers, told Mark J. Green, the Public Advocate, that the Giuliani administration had considered the Democrat's inaugural speech "too mayoral." Or perhaps it's just that no matter what you call Mr. Green's office -- City Council President as it was long known, Public Advocate as it was reincarnated, or simply, as mayors often suspect, Mayor-in-waiting -- its occupant is destined to end up in a feud with the Mayor.

With millions of dollars in court judgments and a new Federal law barring demonstrators from obstructing access to abortion clinics, it might seem that abortion rights groups have won the decadelong battle over clinic blockades -- and been well-compensated in the process. But the money has proved almost impossible to collect from the individuals and anti-abortion groups that have lost in court -- groups like Operation Rescue and Rescue America. And abortion rights organizations are beginning to acknowledge their frustration.

Xavier J. Silva, owner of a small business near San Francisco, has three children. His 5-year-old son, Joseph, has a rare brain defect and is prone to seizures. When Mr. Silva looked for health insurance for his family and for his employees, he was either rejected outright or offered a rate he could not afford. The insurers did not want a child with Joseph's problems. For a while, Mr. Silva bought insurance for everyone in his family but Joseph, and hoped for the best. Then he heard about a new state program under which he could insure his entire family and his employees at a reasonable price. No health questions asked. Just name, age and address. Mr. Silva signed up.

Congress, which last month granted sweeping protections to abortion clinics from harassment, now has to decide whether to grant similar protections to hunters who say they are being harassed by members of animal-rights groups. Both liberals and conservatives are finding themselves in the awkward position of defending groups to which they are sympathetic while opposing protection for another group to which they are generally less sympathetic.