Muara Teweh!

The company said 10 North American plants, including the 2,400-employee Norfolk facility already scheduled to be shut down in 2008, face more “down time” this year as part of Ford’s accelerated turnaround plan.

Ford will slash vehicle-building by 21 percent in North America in the last three months of the year. The planned 168,000-vehicle drop in production is the steepest since the early 1980s and is focused mainly on F-Series trucks such as the F-150 assembled in Norfolk.

Ford’s big trucks have piled up on dealers’ lots, with more than three months of accumulated inventory. » Read more after the jump →

Muara Teweh

Andrew Young built his fame as the first lieutenant of the civil rights movement, working closely with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and becoming the first black congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction.

A street here is named after him, as is a school of public policy. And there are plans to erect a statue in his honor. So vast is his reservoir of good will, apparently, that even a racially inflammatory comment he made this week seemed unlikely to draw it down.

Instead, people who have known Mr. Young for decades seem rather satisfied that his comment that Jewish, Arab and Korean store owners had “ripped off” black neighborhoods, “selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables” had severed his link with his most high-profile client, Wal-Mart Stores, in whose defense he made the remark. » Read more after the jump →

Muara Teweh

As leaders in world capitals this weekend review United Nations planning documents for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, they are weighing whether the stated goals are clear and achievable and whether the rules of engagement will allow them to accomplish the mission and protect their forces.

Diplomats involved in the negotiations acknowledged that efforts to create a peacekeeping force were lagging in part because of the reluctance of governments to introduce troops into a part of the Middle East with deep, unresolved political and religious conflicts.

But they said there were also hurdles beyond that concern, particularly in France, which surprised diplomats by pledging only 200 soldiers to the new force. About 50 French military engineers arrived in Lebanon on Saturday to prepare for their arrival. » Read more after the jump →

Muara Teweh

KABUL, Afghanistan — Four U.S. troops and two Afghan soldiers were killed, and six Americans were wounded Saturday during clashes with Taliban militants, officials said.

The fighting was reported to be some of the heaviest in recent months and came as war-battered Afghanistan celebrated its independence day.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded during a clash with Taliban militants in the eastern province of Kunar near the border with Pakistan, said U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins.

American troops in that area are hunting for Taliban fighters, as well as Al Qaeda supporters. » Read more after the jump →

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley early Saturday, setting off a fierce gunbattle. Lebanon called the attack a “flagrant violation” of a fragile six-day-old cease-fire and threatened to halt troop deployments in protest.

Hezbollah, which battled the Israeli military for 33 days until the truce took hold Monday, said its fighters encountered the Israeli commandos in a field near the town of Boudai, about 20 miles from the Syrian border.

The Israeli military, confirming the raid, said its commandos carried out the operation to interdict shipments of weapons and munitions to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. The military said one Israeli officer was killed and two soldiers were wounded, one seriously. » Read more after the jump →