m T • g By the
News Digest tss&sb
Debate panel calls Bentsen winner over Quayle
WASHINGTON — An Associ
ated Press panel of veteran debate
judges called Lloyd Bentsen the win
ner by a wide margin over Dan
Quayle in their vice presidential de
bate Wednesday night. An instant
ABC News poll also gave the victory
to the Democratic nominee.
ABC News polled 637 registered
voters immediately after the debate.
Fifty-one percent said Bentsen had
won, 27 called Quayle the winner and
22 percent said it was a tie.
The debate also swayed some
undecided voters over to the Demo
cratic ticket.
In a survey prior to the debate, 50
percent said they favored George
Bush while 45 percent picked Mi
chael Dukakis and 5 percent were
undecided. After the debate, the same
people favored Bush with 50 percent,
Dukakis received 48 percent and 2
percent were unsure.
Eighty-seven percent said Bentsen
was qualified to become president, 12
percent said he wasn’t and 1 percent
was undecided. Asked whether
Quayle was qualified to assume the
presidency, 48 percent said yes, 49
percent .said no and 3 percent were
undecided.
The poll had a margin of error o!
plus or minus 4.5 percent.
The AP panel of six debate judges,
unanimous in calling Bentsen the
winner, scored the contest 148-125
for the Texas senator. Some panel
members pointed to Bentsen s state
ment that Quaylc was "no Jack Ken
nedy” as the turning point of the
debate.
Melissa Maxcy Wade, the director
of forensics at Emory University in
Atlanta, scored it 24-22 for Bentscn
“I thoughtQuayle really held his own
until we got to the John Kennedy
question,” she said. “It was like a
father putting down a child. I thought
the momentum turned then.”
m *—
Pinochet loses free vote referendum in Cnile
SANTIAGO, Chile — Military
President Augusto Pinochet lost a
referendum that would have allowed
him to stay in power until 1997, a
member of his military junta con
ceded Thursday.
The defeat sets the stage for open
elections next year.
“It seems to me that the ‘no’ (vote)
has won,” said Air Force Com
mander General Fernando Malthei, a
member of the law-making military
junta.
He told reporters as he entered the
downtown government palace at 1
a.m. for an emergency meeting with
Pinochet, the four-man junta and the
15-member Cabinet.
“We are calm. We are going to
analyze the situation, Matthei
added.
Before Matthei’s statement, Pino
chet had clung to a dwindling lead in
partial government returns while a
much larger opposition tally showed
him trailing badly in Wednesday’s
vote, which was peaceful and heavily
attended.
The count by a 16-party opposition
coalition said its count showed the
“no” vote ahead by 1,887,664 votes to
1,301,207 — 57.8 percent to 39.9
percent- with 1.3 percent of the bal
lots voided and about one percent
blank. No exact figures for void and
blank votes were given.
Patricio Aylwin, president of the
Christian Democratic Patty and
spokesman for the coalition, de
clared, “It’s clear that the majority of
Chileans have voted no.
Chileans voted on a proposal by
Pinochet and other military com
manders that he remain president
until 1997. The right-wing, 72-year
old army chief seized power in a
bloody coup in 1973 that ousted the 3
y ear-old elected government of Pres i -
dent Salvador Auende, a Marxist who
died during the takeover.
If he had won, Pinochet would
have assumed a new 8 year term in
March. By losing, an open presiden
tial election is to be held late next year
and the winner would assume power
in March 1990, with Pinochet remain
ing in power until then.
Earlier, military patrols in ar
mored personnel carriers and trucks
with mounted machine guns were
seen circulating in working-class
neighborhoods and slums — where
anti-Pinochet sentiment traditionally
runs high — that ring the capital. A
few hundred people danced in the
streets of La Victoria slum in southern
Santiago, waving banners and cele
brating an anticipated “no” victory.
“We all voted no, because we are
repressed,” said one participant, 50
year-old construction worker Jose
Garrido.
Jorge Zincke, military com
mander for the Santiago area, re
ported scattered incidents after the
voting, which he said were being
controlled by police. He said ann
govemmcni demonstrators erected
barricades in the streets of San Ber
nardo, south of the capital, and Puente
Alto, to the southeast.
He said six people were arrested
for carry ing arms and a public bus was
burned and its driver beaten.
Santiago’s streets were mainly
empty as most Chileans heeded oppo
silion calls to stay at home.
Pinochet said earlier in an inter
view broadcast by Radio Cooperative
of Santiago. “So far everything is
calm, but I’ve got some information
that leaves me thinking. There are
some people who have seen individu
als wearing ski-masks.” He gave no
details.
LOS ANGELES — A major quake on a
fault zone through the metropolitan area
would trigger fires, collapse buddings, pour
oil and sewage into harbors and knock out
many hospi tal beds, a disaster worse than “the
Big Qne’f on the San Andreas Fault, a new
state repent says.
A quake on the Ncwport-lnglewood Fault
Zone measuring 7 on the Richter scale “poses
one of the greatest hazards to life and property
in the nation," California’s Division of Mines
and Geology said in the disaster scenario
report issued Tuesday.
The fault zone stretches 45 miles through
the Los Angeles urban area from near Beverly
Hills through Long Beach to Laguna Beach.
The quake “would cause markedly greater
damage in metropolitan Los Angeles and
Orange counties than would a magnitude 8,3
along the more distant San Andreas Fault,"
said Joseph Ziony, an assistant director of the
division’? parent agency, the Department of
Conservation.
The fault zone caused the 6.3-magnitude
Long Beach earthquake la 1933 ft* killed
U5 peopk? and injured hundreds more. Scien
tists don't know how often big quakes occur
on the fault
“There is no evidence this earthquake will
occur in the near future,” Ziony said. “We re
providing this scenario as a worst case for the
LA Basin so that officials can develop the best
possible emergency response plans.
The report predicts one-third of the 43,000
hospital beds in Los Angeles and Orange
counties would be unusable after the quake.
It doesn’t estimate casualties, but cites a
1981 federal study indicating a magnitude
7.5 quake could kill up to 21,000 people,
hospitalize up to 84,000 and injure an addi
tional 630,000 less severely.
Shaking capable of damaging ordinary
buildings and partly collapsing brick struc
tures would occur on loose sedimentary toil
throughout the basin, north as far as San
Fernando and south ft San Jtum Capistrano,
said the report written by senior seismologist
Tousson Toppozada and others.
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4T i
State Dept: Iranian’s assertion ‘pure fantasy’
WASHINGTON — The Stole
Department, confirming the release
Monday of an Indian hosto&e to the
Syrian government, said we are
anxious to talk to him and learn if he
has any information to share with us"
about the eight other U.S. citizens
held in Lebanon.
Spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said
Mithileshwar Singh, who is a perma
nent resident of the United States, was
in Syrian hands in Beirut and would
be token to Damascus early Tuesday
morning.
“We join with Mr. Singh’s rela
tives in rejoicing in his release and
call for the urgent, unconditional re
lease of aH hostages in Lebanon,’’
Mrs. Oakley said.
Mrs Oakley said Syria notified the
U S. embassy in Beirut and Secretary
of State George P. Shultz, who is at
the United Nations in New York, of
Singh’s release.
‘rHe’ll be transported tomorrow to
Damascus, and at that point we will
consult with him whether he wants to
take advantage of the facilities at
Wiesbaden,” she said.
The United Stales maintains a
hospital at the military base in West
Germany.
The release had been expected at 2
p.m. EDT, and then at 3 p.rn. After
two more hours of anxious wailing,
Mrs. Oakley made the announcement
in the State Department newsroom at
5 p.m.
- “We can confirm," she said, “that
the Syrian government has told us
they have custody of a hostage, an
Indian citizen and legal permanent
resident of the United States,."
She then identified the freed hos
(age as Singh, a visiting professor at
Beirut University College. “We
understood the Syrians intend to
transport Mr. Singh to Damascus on
Tuesday morning/’ Mrs. Oakley said.
Asked if there were indications
other hostages would be released, the
spokeswoman said: ’’No. This is all
we have.”
Although Singh is an Indian citi
zen, he was considered one of the nine
Americans held hostage in Lebanon,
she said, adding that he ‘‘was associ
ated” with the Americans who taught
at the college.
Prospects boosted for contraceptive for both sexes
NEW YORK—An experimen
tal contraceptive vaccine has
blocked fertility without fail in
female and male guinea pigs, re
searchers report, raising prospects
that a similar approach might one
day work for women and men.
The vaccine is designed to pre
vent fertilization, which may make
it more widely acceptable than
another vaccine already in hiuiMiL
testing that stops development^
the embryo, other scientists saklF
Still, “there are many things
about it that would have to be
changed or improved lo make it a
useful method for either agricul
tural animals or humans,” cau
tioned researcher Paul Frimakoff.
Primakoff and colleagues at the
University of Connecticut Health
Center in Farmington report the
experiment in Thursday's issue of
the British journal Nature.
It is the First demonstration of
contraception without fail from a
vaccine, experts said.
None of the 25 female guinea
► pigs that got the vaccine Before
mating had litters, nor did the
mates of the six immunized male
guinea pigs. Animals that received
sham immunizations for compari
\ i♦: >4 i tH • i ■ ' iv it. •i
son purposesremained fertile.
The vaccine’s effect was tem
porary. Eleven of 24 females tested
had regained fertility by nine to 11
months after the immunization,
and all four of the longest-studied
group had delivered litters by 15
months. Among the males, four of
six had regained fertility by seven
months after the immunization.
In a telephone interview, Pri
makoff said his team has since
produced contraception in 17 other
male guinea pigs.
The vaccine is designed to
make the body’s disease-fighting
immune system attack a protein
found in guinea pig sperm. The
details of just how that blocks fer
tility in guinea pigs are not known.
Pnmakoff said.
But immune system orotcins
called antibodies, taken from the
immunized females, prevented
sperm from binding normally to
guinea pig eggs in the test tube.
In males, the vaccination trig
gered an invasion of the testicle by
immune system cells. That is “not
something you would want going
on in your body” because of the
potential for long-term harm, Pri
makoff said.
