The question preoccupying American pension specialists is what lessons they should draw from the Chilean experience.

But the state took it over in 1978 to help ease the city's fiscal crisis, the overriding issue preoccupying the newly installed Mayor Koch.

The corridor scuttlebutt, in mysterious State Department code, seems to be preoccupying diplomats more than the chemical weapons conference in Paris or the new budget.

The growing scandal is expected to hinder the peace process by preoccupying Netanyahu, weakening his hold over Israel's extreme right, and discouraging the Labor Party from forming a coalition government with him.

She was one of those people who, instead of turning away, take a visceral delight in preoccupying themselves with something troublesome, for the joy of creating greater fuss and adding to the confusion with a louder complaint.

There is another question preoccupying anyone with a financial stake in the eastern half of New Orleans: Which parts of the city will come back and which will end up as forlorn, half-occupied neighborhoods without basic services?

Since preparations began in 1986, the question preoccupying Mr. Pujol and the center-right nationalist government has been how to make Catalonia's presence felt at Games organized and financed by the Socialists who run Barcelona's City Hall and the central Government in Madrid.

While the ostensible topics were weighty policy issues and political strategy, public and private conversations centered on the fund-raising scandals preoccupying the Democrats and the suffocating financial problems the party faces in repaying debts of $14 million from the 1996 election and covering its mounting legal bills because of questions over fund-raising.

You are more likely to be preoccupied by your own.

Yet both of these issues preoccupied him in his last years.

They say their jobs and the city's financial problems have preoccupied them.

Following are a few of the things, in addition to the economic plan, that preoccupied the Administration.

Would the question that preoccupied his mind damage the girl's?

By then they had all been preoccupied with the dreams.

He must have been preoccupied with his plans for the evening, she decided.

French foreign policy has been preoccupied with Germany ever since.

But she seemed tense and preoccupied most of the time.

She had been terribly serious and preoccupied the past few days.

But what preoccupies us is the environment we will end up in.

Each of his books has been preoccupied with a central theme.

The difficult economic environment is preoccupying many companies these days.

But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him.

She preoccupied the attention in the same way as a snake would have done.

"Obviously they have been preoccupied with other issues - working all hours to get the schools open," he said.

He began to talk about the things that preoccupied him in his madness.

He had always been preoccupied with sexuality, violence and death.

It was the taste of death in his mouth that preoccupied him.

If only you'd tell me what it is that preoccupies you so.

For the last two centuries we have been preoccupied elsewhere.

Other problems preoccupied her now, such as how to get to a ship she could use to escape.

The book is now on hold, yet she says it continues to preoccupy her.

"She did seem a bit preoccupied the last time I talked to her.

I had to preoccupy myself with something, anything, to silence the voice in my head.