October 17, 1994

As New York's gubernatorial campaign enters its final phase, officials in both campaigns say a key strategic question is whether Gov. Mario M. Cuomo can succeed in discrediting State Senator George E. Pataki in the minds of undecided voters. The answer, they say, will be influenced not just by Mr. Cuomo's attacks but also by Mr. Pataki's response to them. So far, Mr. Pataki has concentrated on attacking Mr. Cuomo, while providing an incomplete picture of himself and his agenda.

Nine months after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, a side accord intended to safeguard the environment has shown virtually no results. Two new agencies dealing with the Mexican border lack general managers and no cleanup projects are even close to starting. Some environmental groups say the delays confirm their fears that increased commerce under the agreement will further damage the earth, water and air in Mexico and on the United States side of the border.

An investment banker who had just had dinner with friends was found dying of a gunshot wound early yesterday on a walkway near the Mayor's residence on the Upper East Side, the police said. Detectives said they had no motive in the death of Robert J. Kase, a managing director of Furman Selz Inc., who staggered up to a man about 2 A.M. on a path of Carl Schurz Park and said he had been shot. The park overlooks the East River at 84th Street.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl's 12-year-old governing coalition suffered heavy losses on Sunday in Germany's national election but held onto a narrow majority over the combined opposition, according to preliminary results counted early today. With 100 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Kohl's Christian Democratic alliance and its Free Democratic coalition partners had 48.4 percent, good for 341 seats in the 672-seat Parliament, a 10-seat majority that Mr. Kohl called "workable." In 1990, in the first elections after unification, they won 54.8 percent of the vote.

Evidence continues to mount that rival chips keep getting faster and faster than those made by the Intel Corporation. Yet Intel continues to hold more than 90 percent of the chip market for desktop personal computers -- because popular software is largely available only for Intel-compatible machines. At an industry conference to be held here this week, MIPS Technologies, Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M. will all offer details of their next-generation microprocessors, each of which will more than double the speed of today's fastest desktop computers. All these chips are based on the RISC approach, which stands for reduced instruction set computing.