1.   They hope Bush will pressure Sharon into entering talks with the Palestinian leadership under Arafat.

2.   Under its merger agreement with WorldCom, Sprint is prohibited from entering talks with another company until the WorldCom merger is officially called off by both sides.

3.   By entering talks with Bank of Scotland, Abbey National has signaled its own strategic need for a partner and may have made itself more vulnerable to a takeover.

4.   Gotovac denied that by entering talks with Tudjman he had sold out the opposition.

5.   Nando said after talks with a visiting U.N. delegation that the government and the world body were attempting to persuade UNITA into entering talks.

6.   They still want outsiders present but apparently have yielded to foreign pressure to consider entering talks.

7.   They say it is symbolic surrender, and remain wary of entering talks that have IRA disarmament as a goal.