T News Digest fess-- I
People’s Party claims victory in Pakistani elections
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Bena
zir Bhutto claimed victory Thursday
on the basis of early returns that
showed hei populist party leading in
Pakistan’s first open elections in
more than a decade.
Ms. Bhutto, who would be the first
woman to lead this Islamic nation,
said her Pakistan People’s Party had
won at least 80 of the 205 Moslem
seals being contested in the National
Assembly election.
She told a new s conference in the
southern city of Larkana her party’s
main rival, the conservative Islamic
Democratic Alliance, had won 13
seats. The nine-party alliance in
cludes loyalists of President Moham
mad Zia ui-Haq, the military presi
dent who died in a plane crash three
months ago.
There was no independent confir
mation of Ms. Bhutto's claim but
official results showed her party lead
ing the alliance 18 seals to five with
37 of the 205 districts reporting. The
remaining seats went to smaller par
ties and independents.
“The victory the PPP achieved is
because of the selfless sacrifices, the
struggle by people of the PPP,” Ms.
Bhutto told the news conference after
a rally of 8,000 people on the lawn of
her family home.
The crowd chanted “Long Live
Benazir!” and “Benazir, prime minis
ter!”
Former Prime Minister Moham
mad Khan Junejo, one of Bhutto's
main rivals from the Islamic Alliance,
conceded defeat late Wednesday in
his bid for an assembly seat.
“We’re on the losing side,” he said
of his defeat by a Pakistan People’s
Party candidate in his hometown of
Sindhri. He said the Bhutto party had
“succeeded very well” national.
The other main rival of Ms.
Bhutto, chief minister Nawaz Sharif
of Punjab state, claimed victory in the
race for an assembly seat in Lahore,
his hometown.
Ms. Bhutto’s father. Prime Minis
ter Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, won the last
open election in 1977 by a landslide
and prompted a coup by Gen. Zia.
Bhutto was convicted of complicity
in a murder conspiracy and hanged in
1979.
About 48 million of Pakistan’s 107
million people were eligible to vote
and unofficial estimates said slightly
more than half voted. Illiterate mil
lions chose their candidates by sym
bol - an arrow for the Bhutto party, a
bicycle for the Islamic Democratic
Alliance and other symbols such as a
ladder, flower or ink pot for nearly 30
smaller parties.
Men and women voted separately,
in keeping with strict Moslem prac
tice.
At stake were 205 of the 207
Moslem seats and 10 for non-Mos
lems in the 237-member National
Assembly. The remaining 20 seats are
reserved for women and will be filled
later by vote of the assembly.
-I-1
voting tor two Moslem seals was
postponed because of the death of an
elderly candidate in each district
On Saturday, Pakistanis vote to fill
the 483 seats in Pakistan’s four pro
vincial assemblies.
Both major parties have said they
would maintain the long-standing
friendship with the United States and
continue support for Moslem guerril
las fighting the communist govern
ment in neighboring Afghanistan.
Of more than 5 million Afghans
who have fled during 10 years of civil
war, at least 3 million live in Pakistani
border cities and refugee camp^ that
serve as bases and supply points for
the insurgents.
__I _ C
Irade deficit down,
but still not enough
WASHINGTON — The U S. trade deficit
narrowed by 17 percent to $10.5 billion in
September, the government said Wednesday,
but not enough to prevent a new assault on the
dollar over worries about w hat the head of the
Federal Reserve called a ‘ dangerous corro
sion" of the American economy.
Exports rose by S700 million to a record high
S28.2 billion, the Commerce Department said.
Imports declined by 2.5 percent or $1.1 billion
to $38.7 billion from a record high in August.
The $10.5 billion trade gap for September w as
down by SI.8 billion from the revised August
trade deficit figure of SI 2.3 billion.
But neither change was big enough to stem
anew selling wave of dollars by traders worried
about inflation from an overheating economy
and skeptical of President-elect George Bush's
promise to reduce the federal budget deficit
through a “flexible freeze” w ithout any tax
increases.
The dollar, resuming its downward path of
last week, fell about a half-percent against the
Japanese yen and 1 percent against the West
German mark on Wednesday despite what
currency traders said was intervention by the
Fed to prop it up through massive purchases of
dollars using yen.
In the past month, the dollar has fallen nearly
9 percent in value against the yen and about 7
percent against the mark, halted only by a brief
respite Monday when Bush and Treasury Sec
retary Nicholas Brady promised that the new
administration would not scrap a two-year ef
fort to maintain its stability.
Stock prices, in turn, resumed their down
ward turn, with the Dow Jones average of 30 I
industrial stocks falling 38.59 points.
- Ancfy Mafthcrt/Dvltv Nabraakan
Clean-up begins after tornadoes
SCOTT, Ark. — National Guardsmen
helped keep order Wednesday after up to 10
tornadoes churned through Arkansas, kill
ing six people, damaging scores of homes
and businesses and temporarily knocking
out power to 16,000 customers.
The twisters destroyed or damaged 240
homes and mobile homes and eight busi
nesses, said Gary Talley, spokesman lor the
stale Office of Emergency Services. No
monetary estimate of the damage was avail
able Wednesday.
Seven counties were declared disaster
areas by Gov. Bill Ginton, who set aside
S350.000 in state emergency funds,
At least 49 tornadoes touched down in
Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and
Iowa on Tuesday night A seventh person
was killed in southwest Missouri. The same
storm system left three people dead in road
accidents in Colorado mid was blamed for
the electrocution death of a woman in Illi
nois.
The National Weather Service said the
storms were caused by a cold front colliding
with warm, moist air.
“We saw itcoming.bullherc was nothing
we could do,” said Police Chief Darnell
Scott of the central Arkansas town of
Lonoke, where two people were killed and
about 30 houses were reported heavily
damaged.
At the height of the storm, 16,000 cus
tomers of Arkansas Power & Light Co. lost
power for different periods, said AP&L
spokesman Jerol Garrison. By Wednesday
morning, only about 1,000 customers still
had no power, he said.
oroup wamcu ui
deficit dangers
WASHINGTON — The National Eco
nomic Commission opened its post-election
attempt to break a seven-year deadlock on ihe
budgetdeficil with repeated warnings Wednes
day that the deficit represents the nation’s
greatest economic threat.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan,
one of the leadoff witnesses before the biparti
san panel, said “The deficit already has begun
to eat away at the foundations of our economic
strength, and the need to deal with it is becom
ing ever more urgent.”
Greenspan joined other witnesses in saying
that Congress and President-elect George Bush
must reach agreement quickly on ways to slash
the deficit or run the risk that foreigners will
stop financing America’s borrowing needs.
“We must pul our fiscal house in order so
that we can address the other problems which
are important to us as a nation ” said Alice
Rivlin, former head of the CongresMonal
Budget Office. “Getting the budget deficit
behind us is a test of our ability to govern
The comments offered a sharp contraM to
much of the debate during the presidential
campaign when both candidates sidestepped
auestions concerning the deficit because they
id not want to offer detailed solutions.
However, some of the witnesses said Bush,
now that he is president-elect, very well could
be forced by events in financial markets to
seriously bargain w iill Congress or risk trigger
ing a free-fall in the value of the U S. dollar.
“The rest of the world may well give up on
the dollar if it foresees four more years of
towering tw in (budget and trade) deficits, said
C. Fred Bergstcn, head of the Institute lor
International Economics.
Bush starters given gag order on new appointees
WASHINGTON — Leaders of
George Bush’s transition team closed
ranks publicly on Wednesday, refus
ing to talk about the reported selec
tion of Washington outsider John
Sununu as White House chief of staff.
Bush asked aides to sign a pledge
designed to prevent leaks and con
flicts of interest
As the capital buzzed about the
choice of Sonunu, the feisty, conser
vative governor of New Hampshire,
Bush spent the day in separate meet
r..
ings with British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and Soviet dissi
dent Andrei Sakharov.
The vice president was mum about
filling the chief of staff's job, saying
“no final decisions” had been made.
Sources close to Bush said, how
ever, he would name Sununu to the
post. Next to the president, the chief
of staff is the most powerful person in
the White House with influence over
access to the Oval Office, the agenda,
scheduling and other matters.
-- ■ 1 1 — i
The other contender for the job
was Craig Fuller, who has been
Bush’s vice presidential chief of staff
for four years.
Sununu, who returned to New
Hampshire after a Monday night
meeting with Bush, said, “We’ve had
discussions... about that job (chief of
staff) in particular.”
At a news conference in Concord,
Sununu said, “A request isn’t a formal
request until the tall thin guy (Bush)
sings. And the tall thin guy hasn’t
i
sung publicly, and therefore I’m not
going to comment on this in any way
at all.
“Until the vice president decides
yes or no - and he certainly could
decide no in the interim -1 don’t think
it’s appropriate for me to comment.”
In Washington, Fuller said at a
news conference he did not know if
Bush had made a decision.
Fuller said he raised the question
with Bush in a morning meeting. “His
comment was, *Just let them know
lhai when 1 m ready to make an an
nouncement, they'll hear from me on
this.’"
Deny ing reports that he had tried to
block Sununu s appointment. Fuller
said, “I have in no way been opposed
to John Sununu for the chief of staff ."
Meanwhile, all of the staff and
volunteers involved in Bush's take
over of power were asked to sign a
“standard* of conduct” document that
applies both during the transition and
a Bush presidency.
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Givens files libel suit against Tyson
NEW YORK — Actress Robin
Givens filed a $125 million libel
suit on Wednesday against her
estranged husband, heavyweight
boxing champion Mike Tyson, for
allegedly telling a newspaper that
she was trying to steal his money.
The lawsuit, filed in federal
court in Manhattan, accused Tyson
of holding Givens, 23, up “to pub
lic contempt, ridicule, embarrass
ment disgrace and prejudice.”
The latest swing in the marital
punchoul between Tyson and Giv
ens stemmed from a Nov. 7 New
York Post article which quoted
Tyson as saying “Robins Givens is
trying to ‘steal’ his money and
property.”
The Posl was not named as a
defendant in the lawsuit, which
described the article as “false, de
famatory, malicious and libelous.”
The New York Posl had no
immediate comment
Tyson and Givens, married Feb.
12, have filed for divorce. He is
suing her in New Jersey and she is
suing him in California.
The lawsuit, filed by noted New
York divorce lawyer Raoul Lionel
Fcldbcrg, seeks $25 million for
damages and iniury and an addi
tional $100 million in “punitive,
compensatory and special dam
ages.”
“I think it’s funny,” Tyson
manager Bill Cay ion lold Ihc
Associated Press.
Among the Tyson quotes in the
Post article that angered his wife
were lines like: “She manipulated
me. ... Now it turns out she was
lying when she said she didn T want
anything from me.”
The artic Ic also quoted Tyson as
saying: "The nature of those two
women (Givens and her mother,
Ruth Roper) is to be mean and
vindictive. She said she wants
nothing, but she refused to sign a
release.”
Also: “And she (Givens) stole
money from me when we were
together.”