1.   As in other mergers, he hopes to cut purchasing and production costs and gain economies of scale by creating a federation of microbreweries.

2.   It might also expose the seemingly undemocratic nature of the mainly German and French drive to create a federation resembling a United States of Europe.

3.   The federation was created on paper two years ago by the Clinton administration, as a counterbalance to the Bosnian Serbs.

4.   The Bosnian Croats and the Muslim-led Bosnian government, together controlling one third of Bosnian territory, created the federation in April under U.S. auspices.

5.   The two Cypriot sectors accept the principle of creating a federation, but they cannot agree on its details.

6.   They created the federation last March under U.S. auspices.

7.   A main stumbling block to a settlement has been whether to create a federation of two states that would have a common central government, or a looser confederation.

8.   The United States, under whose auspices the Molsem-Croat federation was created, has so far left the issue to its European partners.