Free Republic

Officials in Southern California are crying foul after more than 140 million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the Tijuana River in Mexico and flowed north of the border for more than two weeks, according to a report. The spill was caused Feb. 2 during rehabilitation of a sewage collector pipe and wasn't contained until Thursday, the International Boundary and Water Commission said in its report released Friday. The river drains into the Pacific Ocean on the U.S. side. Serge Dedina, the mayor of Imperial Beach, California, said residents of his city and other coastal communities just north of the...

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Lava streamed down the sides of Indonesia's mystical Mount Merapi on Tuesday, but the clouds of hot gas belching from the top were substantially smaller than the day before. Around the base of the mountain some Indonesians consider sacred, thousands of residents went about their daily lives such as milking cows and collecting grass for feed despite warnings a major eruption could come soon. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, on a visit to the threatened area, urged officials to be persistent in their efforts to move people away from the danger zone and warned residents not...

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2006 – The primary threats to Afghan stability include remnant Taliban members, followed by al Qaeda-affiliated and other terror groups, and criminals engaged in the opium trade, a senior U.S. military commander told Pentagon reporters here today. "The level of violence ebbs and flows on many factors," Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76, said from Afghanistan during a satellite new conference. The amount of terrorist activity in Afghanistan appears to change with the weather or it may reflect the insurgents' mood at a given time, Freakley, also the commander of...