ij ^ \ ) ^ Associated Press Nebraskan
2 O. ^ ^ ^ Edited by Roger Price Tuesday, February 4,1992
Construction slows in 1991
Slow-down worst
since 1940s
WASHINGTON — Construction
spending on homes, office buildings
and other projects shrank 9.3 percent
in 1991, the sharpest contraction since
World War II, the government said
Monday.
•< The severe cutback was concen
trated in the first half of the year and
spending actually picked up in the
past six months, though it was down
again in November and December.
Separately, a survey of 300corpo
rate purchasing executives suggested
that as the year began the rest of the
economy remained sluggish and the
manufacturing sector continued to
decline.
The National Association of Pur
chasing Management said Monday
its index of business activity was
unchanged in January al47.4 percent.
A reading of less than 50 percent
suggests manufacturing is declining;
a reading under 44.5 percent would
indicate the overall economy was
shrinking.
The Commerce Department said
residential, non-residential and gov
emmcnt spending on construction
totaled $404.9 billion last year. That
was down from $446.4 billion in 1990
and marked the lowest level since
1985, when $377.4 billion was spent
on apartments, factories and other
private and government buildings.
Last year’s decline also was the
first since the recession year of 1982,
when spending fell 4.0 percent. It was
the steepest since spending plunged
36.6 percent in 1944.
Economist David Berson of the
Federal National Mortgage Associa
tion said most of the decline occurred
during the first half of the year. Con
struction spending actually picked up
at a 5.7 percent annual rate in the last
six months, he said.
Analysis attributed the collapse
from January through June to the
Persian Gulf War, the recession and a
glut of already-built structures such
as office buildings and shopping
centers.
Despite the slack economy and its
effects on revenues, government spend
ing edged up 0.5 percent last year to
$ 109.2 billion, although it slipped 0.3
percent in December.
Construction
Spending
Billions of dollars, seasonally adjusted
460
450
440
430
420
19*01«1 A M J J A S 0 N D
Dec. ’90 Nov. ’91 Dec. *91
|421.3| |408.4| 1407.41
AP
Economic refugees return to Haiti
AP
Nebraskan
Editor Jana Pedersen
472-1766
Managing Editor Kara Walls
Assoc. News Editors Chris Hoptanspargar
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Opinion Page Editor Alan Phelps
Wire Editor Roger Price
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Sports Editor Nick Hytrek
Assistant Sports Editor Tom Clouse
Arts & Entertain
ment Editor Stacey McKenzie
Diversions Editor Dionne Searcey
Photo Chief Michelle Paulman
Night News Editors Adeana Lettln
John Adklsson
Wendy Mott
Tom Kunz
Art Director Scott Maurer
General Manager Dan Shaft II
Production Manager Katherine Policky
Publications Board
Chairman Bill Vobejda
472- 2588
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1992 DAILY NEBRASKAN
+■* \
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The
United States began its repatriation
program for thousands of Haitian
refugees Monday, turning over 381
people to Haitian authorities with SI 5
in their pockets and an uncertain fu
ture.
U.N. officials and human rights
advocates warned that many of the
12,000 boat people in U.S. custody
face death or intim idation at the hands
of Haitian security forces if they re
turn to their towns and villages.
Officials at the U.S. naval base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba said those
who relumed on two Coast Guard
cutters Monday did so voluntarily,
while others did not want to go back.
Dozens in the first group said they
had risked their lives fleeing in rick
ety boats to get awily from Haiti’s
poverty and not political persecution.
The United Slates has denied asy
lum to most intercepted Haitians,
saying they were not political refu
gees as U.S. law requires. The Su
preme Court opened the way Friday
for their repatriation by overturning a
federal judge’s order that had blocked
their return for months.
“Had we been any other country,
we would have had a chance,” Florence
Comcau of the Haitian Affairs Com
mittee in New York said Monday.
“The Cubans can come in any time.
The Cubans arc people, the Haitians
are people, but one is light-skinned
and the other is not.”
In Washington, White House press
secretary Marlin Filzwatcr said the
repatriation was being monitored by
U.S. Embassy officers as well as
representatives of the Organization
of American States and the Red Cross.
“We have received no credible
reports of reprisals against any indi
vidual Haitians who attempted to reach
the United States, including those who
are repatriated after the coup” that
toppled President Jcan-Bcrtrand Aris
tide on Sept. 30, Filzwatcr said.
The U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees issued a statement at its
Geneva headquarters criticizing the
repatriation, warning that many re
turnees could “be exposed to dan
gcr.”
“Continuing reports of serious
human rights abuses and violence by
security forces since the overthrow of
the democratically elected govern
ment of Haiti arc cause for great
concern,” it said.
Scientist scans ax victims
FALL RIVER, Mass. — Almost a
century after Lizzie Borden was ac
cused in the ax murders of her par
ents, a forensics expert scanned their
graves with radar Monday for clues in
one of America’s most celebrated
mysteries.
Lizzie was acquitted in court but
was convicted in verse: “Lizzie Bor
den, with an ax, gave her mother 40
whacks. When she saw what she had
done, she gave her father 41.”
James E. Starrs used the ground
penetrating radar to search the hill at
Oak Grove Cemetery where Lizzie,
her father, stepmother and sisters are
buried. His first task was to find the
parents’ skulls, which were removed
from the bodies and displayed by the
prosecutor in the trial.
If the skulls arc there, Starrs hopes
to win permission from a court and
Bordens’ relatives to exhume them,
hoping modem science might shed
light on the ease.
The radar found evidence of two
burial sites where the skulls might lie,
but Starrs said it will take at least a
month to analyze the findings.
Courts draw attention
Noriega defense claims he was a U.S. ally
MIAMI—Manuel Noriega was
the United States’ closest ally in
Latin American drug wars and
served its political ends in Central
America and the Grenada inva
sion, his attorneys said Monday as
they opened his defense.
“At the end of
this case you may
wonder why
General Noriega
was ever in
dicted,” attorney
Jon May told
jurors.
The prosecution case in Nori
ega’s 10-couni drug and racketeer
ing trial ended in December, but
the defense was delayed seven weeks
after U.S. District Judge William
Hocvcler underwent heart surgery.
In a brief opening statement,
May argued that Noriega could
hardly have sold his nation to Co
lombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel
while at the same time identifying
its couriers to the U.S. Drug En
forcement Administration, raiding
laboratories and sei/.ing cocaine
refining chemicals.
The ousted Panamanian leader
' even broke his own nation’s bank
ing secrecy laws to help the United
States in major drug cash investi
gations, one of which led to the
arrest of the Medellin cartel’s top
money laundcrer, he said.
“The level and quality of the
cooperation given by General
Noriega to the United States was
unprecedented among the leaders
of Central and South America,”
said May.
The defense took direct aim at
two key prosecution issues — an
alleged S5 million bribe the cartel
offered Noriega to protect its co
caine chemicals, and a July 1984
meeting with Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
Prosecutors said the Castro meet
ing was to smooth out a dispute
with the cartel after Noriega raided
a Panamanian drug lab.
May said the defense would show
the $5 million bribe attempt was
reported to the DEA when it was
discovered.
If convicted on all 10 counts,
Noriega could be sentenced to 140
years in prison. He has been jailed
since he surrendered to U.S. forces
following the December 1989 in
vasion of Panama.
Experts testify about Dahmer’s insanity,
say he couldn’t control his urge for sex
MILWAUKEE — Jeffrey
Dahmer had uncontrollable urges
to kill and have sex with dead bodies,
and planned to create a temple
made of his victims’ body parts, a
psychiatrist tes
tified Monday in
the serial killer’s
insanity trial.
“He planned
to preserve entire
bodies, but he did
not do that. He
saved the bones. He bought an
aquarium that was going to house a
head in the middle,” said Dr. Fred
Berlin, a defense witness who spe
cializes in sexual disorders. “He
even sketched il out”
Dahmer told Berlin during inter
views that he planned to devote the
temple “cither to the devil or to
himself,” Berlin said.
Dahmer, 31, couldn’t control
his urge to have sex with corpses,
but he knew right from wrong,
Berlin testified.
“I would think if a policeman
were standing there watching him
that he would be able... to control
his behavior,” Berlin said. “The
real issue is, when there isn’t any
one else present to help him con
trol his behavior. . . can he then
apply his own willpower to stop.”
Victim’s friend testifies against Tyson
INDIANAPOLIS—A teen-age
beauty contestant blurted out, “
‘He raped me!’” and looked as if
“something had taken her soul
away,” another pageant participant
testified Mon
day in boxer
Mike Tyson’s
trial.
“She said
she felt so stu
pid. She just
wouldn’t stop
talking,” Stacy Murphy told the
Marion Superior Court jury.
“I just wanted to comfort her. I
didn’t know what to do. 1 knew she
needed help, and I knew I couldn’t
help her.”
The prosecution neared the end
of its case as the trial entered its
second week.
Tyson, 25, is charged with rape,
confinement and criminal deviate
conduct. If convicted, he faces up
to 63 years in prison. The defense
maintains that the woman consented
to sex and has implied lhal the
former heavyweight boxing cham
pion will testify.
In six hours of testimony last
week, Tyson’s accuser said he
pinned her on a bed July 19, stripped
her, raped her and laughed while
she cried in pain and begged him to
stop.
Murphy said she and the 18
year-old woman became friends
during the Miss Black America
pageant and joked about how nei
ther had any rhythm during dance
rehearsals.
At rehearsal on July 19, how
ever, Murphy said the woman
seemed preoccupied and told her
about being raped.
“I asked her what was wrong
with her, and she turned around
and looked at me,” Murphy said.
“People say a look says so much
- this look said it all. She didn’t
even look like herself. She was like
a zombie, like someth ing had taken
her soul away.”
Senate subpoenas reporters who revealed Anita Hill’s allegations
WASHINGTON — Two report
ers were subpoenaed Monday by a
Senate special counsel investigating
leaks of sexual harassment allega
tions against Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas.
The subpoenas seek personal ap
pearances this month by Timothy
Phelps of Newsday and Nina Toten
berg of National Public Radio, law
yers for the journalists said.
The special counsel, New York
lawyer Peter E. Fleming Jr,, subpoe
naed Newsday, NPR and William
Buzcnbcrg, the public radio network’s
vice president for news and informa
tion.
Phelps and Totenberg were the
first to report allegations by Anita
Hill that Thomas had sexually har
assed her.
The stories led to televised Senate
Judiciary Committee hearings, at which
Hill, now a University of Oklahoma
law professor, described the alleged
harassment in sexually explicit terms.
Thomas vehemently denied ever
sexually harassing Hill and shortly
afterwards was confirmed to the high
court.
Lawyers for the reporters and their
organizations said the subpoenas tread
on the First Amendment’s protec
tions of a journalist’s right to gather
news and protect confidential sources.
Floyd Abrams, representing Toten
berg, Buzenberg and NPR, said Buz.cn
berg will appear Feb. 18 as requested
and Totenberg on Feb. 25 to answer
questions from Fleming. Abrams said
they will not tell him what he wants to
know.
“This seems to me the beginning
of an unnecessary, futile and uncon
scionable effort to force Nina to break
her word to her sources,” Abrams
said. “That she will not do.”
Abrams said the subpoenas were
issued “in stark violation of the First
Amendment. The idea of an appointee
of the Senate requiring a journalist to
break a word to her confidential source
is inconsistent with the most basic
First Amendment principles.”
Theodore Olson, lawyer for Phelps
and Newsday, said no decision has
been made on whether the journalist
or anyone else from the New York
newspaper will appear as directed on
Feb. 13.
