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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, April 27, 1995
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Dollar rallies against Japanese yen
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A pledge of cooperation by the world's major economies to halt a steep slide in the value of the dollar had the desired effect yesterday as the currency staged a sharp rally against the Japanese yen.
However, private economists cautioned against declaring an end to the dollar's troubles based on the one-day performance. Many of them forecasted more weakness ahead, given the country's huge and growing trade deficit.
"This rebound is temporary," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis. "The fundamentals are all stacked against the dollar, and it will take more than mere words from the Group of Seven to change that."
The rebound saw the dollar rise to 83.78 yen in late trading in New York, an increase of 2.26 percent from Tuesday's late level of 81.93.
While it marked the biggest one day gain for the dollar against the yen in almost two years, the U.S. currency is still down 16 percent since early January.
And the dollar continued to lose ground against the German mark, dropping to 1.368 yesterday, compared to 1.3708 Tuesday. So far this year, the dollar has fallen by 12 percent against the German currency.
The statement of support from the Group of Seven countries — the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy — heartened markets, traders said, because it at least showed that the countries were trying to present a united front after weeks of bickering about the dollar's decline.
The G-7 communique was issued after more than five hours of closed-door talks held before yesterday's opening of the spring meetings of the 179-nation International Monetary Fund.
Addressing the International Monetary Fund's policy-setting interim committee, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said he believed that, in many ways, "the fundamental health of the global economy looks stronger than it has in 30 years."
outlook."
But he conceded that "recent turbulence in financial markets casts a shadow of uncertainty over the
To address these problems, Rubin welcomed the recent interest rate reduction by the Bank of Japan but said Japan must spell out more fully proposals to boost domestic growth as a way of lowering its huge trade surplus with the United States and other countries.
But private economists said Japan's proposals likely would offer too little and still leave its surplus at high levels.
"Japan needs to import more and to absorb more of its available savings so that its external surplus adjusts to a more sustainable level." Rubin said.
Japanese Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura said that the yen's sharp appreciation in recent months was "casting a shadow over the future of the Japanese economic recovery."
He repeated recent pledges that Japan was putting together a number of proposals to boost demand for imports as a way of halting the ven's relentless rise.
C. Fred Bergsten, chairman of the Washington-based Institute for International Economics, predicted America's overall trad-
deficit with the world would top $200 billion in each of the next several years. The deficit in the current account jumped 50 percent last year to $155.67 billion, its second-worst performance in history.
Bergsten said the dollar needed to fall by another 5 to 10 percent on a trade-weighted basis against other currencies to keep the U.S. current account deficit from worsening to the $250 billion level.
While some European countries had called before this week's G-7 meetings for the United State to boost interest rates to defend the dollar, the administration signaled its strong opposition to such a move, saying it could push the country into a recession.
German Finance Minister Theo Waigel said of more importance than changes in interest rates was a need for countries such as the United States with large budget deficits to do more to reduce those imbalances.
"Additional efforts are necessary," he said, saying the smaller deficits would boost growth and relieve a global shortage of capital.
Trial of skinheads accused of killing own parents continues
The Associated Press
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — At a hearing for two skinheads charged with killing their parents, a coroner testified yesterday that the father's brain had seeped through a 4-inch gash in his broken skull and the beaten and stabbed body of the mother was left lying in a hallway, naked from the waist down.
brother.
The older sons, Bryan, 17, and David, 16, are charged with three counts of murder in the killings of their parents and their young
Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, the Lehigh County coroner, performed the autopsies on Dennis and Brenda Freeman and their 11-year-old son, Erik, whose bodies were found in their Allentown home Feb. 27.
Their 18-year-old cousin Nelson Birdwell III is charged with hindering their capture when all three fled in the parents' black convertible to Michigan, where they were captured three days later.
The brothers' forehead tattoos "Berzerkier" and "Siegel Heil," so evident during their arraignment last month, were covered by an inch of hair at yesterday's preliminary hearing.
Their brother's head was smashed, and their mother lay on a hallway floor, beaten and stabbed
Mihalakis testified that Dennis Freeman's blood coated the wall next to his bed, his skull broken open in a gash that allowed his brain to "mushroom" outside.
repeatedly. her lower body naked.
repeatedly her lower body hit. The weapons were an aluminum baseball bat, a pickax handle, a weight bar from an exercise machine, and a knife. Mihalakis said.
Authorities have said the older boys fought with their parents and rebelled against their Jehovah's Witness religion. They also had problems with alcohol and drugs, and the Freemans had tried institutionalizing the boys.
Birdwell has said Bryan started the blood bath when he snapped over his mother's nagging, said Birdwell's lawyer, Richard Makoul. The lawyer said Bryan grabbed her from behind, clasped his hand over her mouth and stabbed her.
Birdwell told his lawyer he was a
mere spectator too frightened by the slaughter to leave his cousins.
During cross-examination yesterday by Bryan's attorney, public defender Michael Brunnabend, Mihalakis said he was unable to determine if more than one person had beaten Demis Freeman.
"The amount of splatter on the wall adjacent to the bed showed no breaks in it," he said. Someone else could have been there and moved away.
Joshua Wirth, a schoolmate of Bryan and the Freemans' paperboy, testified that Bryan told him shortly before the murders that his parents had sold the brothers' car.
"He said if he had been awake while they sold it, he would have killed them." Wirth testified.
Review says federal buildings lack security
WASHINGTON — The law calls for 1,000 uniformed officers to guard federal buildings around the country, but fewer than 400 are on duty, a review of government documents shows. As the number of guards has fallen, the number of serious security incidents and threats has risen.
The Associated Press
Why the decrease in guards?
Officials simply didn't obey the law, said John N. Sturdivant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Congress did not earmark enough money, said officials of the General Services Administration.
Agency administrator Roger W. Johnson wrote in a Feb. 15 letter to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D.N.Y., "While the hiring of additional (officers) is not possible at the present time, GSA remains committed to providing the highest level of security and protection for our federal tenants and the public who regularly visit public buildings under our custody and control."
Congress moved to increase the size of the federal security force in 1988, ordering GSA to hire at least 50 additional officers each year and to reach the equivalent of 1,000 fulltime officers by 1992. There were about 750 at the time.
By the time of last week's bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, fewer than 400 uniformed officers were on the payroll, said Jim Boyd, a security specialist for the Federal Protective Service, a division of GSA.
He said that as the number of officers has declined, the service has had to rely on contract guards to help patrol federal buildings.
With 2,300 contract guards, about 400 uniformed officers, 150 security specialists and 70 criminal investigators, GSA has a force of about 3,000 people to patrol 8,200 buildings owned or leased by the federal government. That means some buildings go uncovered.
"Obviously, we have to assess the risk and put the resources.where the needs are," Boyd said.
Unlike federal officers, the contract guards are not armed and can
not make arrests.
"Basically, what we are looking for is security officers, not greeters," Sturdivant said. "Unfortunately, with a lot of these security firms, you have the equivalent of greeters," he said.
The union went to arbitration when GSA did not meet the 1,000 officer requirement. In 1992, an arbitrator ruled in the union's favor but said he did not have the power to force the administration to act.
Since then, the number of uniformed officers has continued to drop, and General Services has discussed moving toward privatization of the entire security force.
Harry Dawson, president of union locals that represent GSA workers, said that he would not participate in any further discussions aimed at limiting the number of officers.
"I will not take part in a privatization study involving security any more," he said. "It would be an insult to the memory of those victims."
The union may get a helping hand in June, when Attorney General Janet Reno is scheduled to issue a report on security at federal buildings. President Clinton asked for the review after last week's bombing.
The Oklahoma City tragedy came as federal workers in some areas were already on edge. In Nevada, for instance, U.S. Forest Service employees do not go into the field alone because of threats. And in New York City, security at the federal courthouse has been intensified for a trial connected to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
There have been about 10 bomb-related incidents a year at federal facilities, according to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Last year, there were also 381 incidents involving weapons or bomb threats, one homicide and more than 600 assaults at federal buildings.
"Given the nature of the crazies who want to tear down the federal government, I would say federal employees are putting their lives on the line every day as they try to serve the public," Sturdivant said.
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