Factories Germany

As a 13-year-old in Poland during the Nazi occupation, Rysia Edelman literally risked her life to get an education. The Nazis allowed no schools in the Jewish ghetto of her hometown. So with a group of friends, she decided to attend a private dressmaking and design school outside the ghetto. "You risked your life because it was across the street and you could get shot," she recalled. "As a Jew, you were not supposed to leave the ghetto."

For years, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s scrappy image was best summed up by an insult that founder Jerry Sanders lobbed against rivals: "Real men have fabs." Sanders' point was that, although many chip companies designed semiconductors and outsourced the manufacturing, AMD enjoyed the advantage of owning its factories, known as fabrication plants, or fabs.

Politicians generally are loathe to challenge proposals that promise to create jobs for their constituents, especially in the midst of a lengthy economic downturn. Yet, National City Mayor George Waters did just that last Tuesday when he pressed the San Diego Unified Port District to deny Pasha Group's request to expand its business onto port-owned land on San Diego Bay in National City.

The Big Three U.S. automakers complain that huge pension and medical bills put them at a cost disadvantage with their Asian and European rivals. But overseas, where these companies compete in many of the same markets, the financial imbalances tend to even out. Both General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. make money overseas. For the first nine months of this year, GM posted a $300-million profit from its foreign auto operations, while Ford booked $415 million.

THE ROOM IS A TINY CELL IN A FAMILY COMPOUND ENCLOSED BY unmortared slate walls more than a thousand years old. Precisely how much more, the four women and two men squeezed into this windowless space don't know, any more than they understand exactly why they will spend the forthcoming hours engaged in feverish ritual. What they do know, they insist, is that like their fathers and grandmothers and forebears beyond them, they were born to this moment.