Free Republic

Environmentalists are raising a stink about changes to the state's waste management board, which governs California's garbage collection and recycling system. Michael Paparian, a veteran Sierra Club leader in Sacramento, is out. Reportedly in is Scott Harvey, a one-time San Diego city councilman and former executive director of the San Diego County Disposal Association, a lobbying and education group funded by the region's trash haulers. "These decisions really tilted the balance of the board toward the industry and away from the environment," said Bill Magavern, legislative representative for the California Sierra Club in Sacramento. The Sierra Club yesterday issued a...

JUST before his September 11 attacks on the US, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sent a friendly invitation to the now imprisoned Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. "Greetings from Osama bin Laden," the extremist leader said in the invitation, apparently forwarded to Indonesia via Jemaah Islamiah ringleader Hambali. Known as al-Qaeda's linkman in Asia, Hambali was then in Afghanistan for unclear reasons. He passed the verbal message on to Mohammad Rais - a detained Jemaah Islamiah operative who was then heading to Indonesia. "Osama bin Laden invites Ustad Abu Bakar Bashir to come to Afghanistan if the conditions for Ustad...