CUBA . . . TALKS TOMORROW

U.S. and Cuban negotiators will meet in New York City Thursday with clashing agendas. In one corner: Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba's National Assembly president, who represented his country in 1990 at the United Nations and in 1991 during the Gulf War, known for a sharp tongue and debating skills. In the other: Michael Skol, the second-ranking official in the State Department's Latin American bureau. The U.S. will offer to relax immigration standards for Cubans if Fidel Castro will stop the refugee flow. Alarcon, who succeeded in getting a majority of the U.N. General Assembly to condemn the decades-old U.S. economic embargo against his country, wants to widen the talks to include it. The unprecedented meeting, to open at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, could run three days.