October 28, 1991

Four months into their discussions on a North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada said today that they were ready to begin drafting treaty language. But even as they swapped smiles and handshakes, they declined to specify areas in which they had moved closer to agreement, and a senior American trade official who privately discussed the talks acknowledged that in some areas, they had run into roadblocks.

Last season, the Giants became the Super Bowl champions, the best team in pro football. This year, they will not even win their division, and they may struggle to make the National Football League playoffs. Listen to Coach Ray Handley after his team rolled to an impressive 13-0 lead over the Washington Redskins in the first half tonight, then crumbled in the second half and lost, 17-13. The Redskins improved their record to 8-0 and the Giants fell to 4-4.

Mobutu Vows to Keep Power President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire vowed to stay in power despite growing opposition. Burning and looting have brought chaos to the country's mining region. Articles, page A10. Looser Grip on Scrolls The Israeli organization controlling access to the Dead Sea Scrolls issued new guidelines that will expand their availability for scholars. Page A3. Giants Fall to Redskins After rolling to a 13-0 halftime lead, New York couldn't score again and lost to undefeated Washington, 17-13, SportsMonday, page C1.

For the first time in the long history of East-West summit-level diplomacy, the American President will go to meet the Soviet President in Madrid on Tuesday uncertain whether the man across the table has real power to represent his country or is little more than a figurehead. The talks between President Bush and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev are not even planned as a full-scale summit conference, a far cry from past meetings that rewrote Europe's map, forged arms control agreements, provided the setting for cold war confrontation or ushered in warmer phases in Soviet-American relations.

A hastily scheduled special primary today to pick a Democratic candidate for a City Council seat could be the last act of a political drama that has been fought in eastern Harlem over the last few months with all the convolutions of a dynastic saga and the nastiness of a street fight. The two-candidate runoff pits an old-fashioned political machine, battered in recent days by corruption allegations, against a handsome young outsider with a name so famous in Harlem that a major avenue bears it. An Appellate Division panel last week ordered the special election because the Sept. 12 primary was too close to call after a court-appointed referee found more than 700 irregularities in ballots cast.