Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected an application Friday by an Australian energy company to build an $800 million floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the Southern California coast. BHP Billiton's proposal previously was rejected by the State Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission. The company needed permission from both bodies and the governor to build the terminal. Schwarzenegger said he was open to the idea of building a terminal off the coast as a means of diversifying the state's fuel supply. But he said the current proposal did not pass muster. "Liquefied natural gas can and...

The head of Russia's space agency says that the US has rejected a Moscow proposal that the two countries join forces to explore the Moon. "We were ready to co-operate, but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," Anatoly Perminov said.

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to throw out a lawsuit by automakers aimed at blocking states from regulating emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The decision by District Court Judge William Sessions III came two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that automobile emissions are subject to regulation by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Sessions' ruling clears the way for a trial scheduled to begin Monday over rules drafted by California and being followed by Vermont and nine other states. Under those rules, states would regulate carbon emissions. The federal Clean Air Act allows California to set...

PARIS - France's highest court Tuesday rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in France, annulling the union of the two men. Stephane Charpin and Bertrand Charpentier were married in a civil ceremony on June 5, 2004, in Begles, a town in the southwest Bordeaux region. The government immediately said the union was outside the law, and a series of court decisions unfavorable to the couple followed. In the latest decision, the court ruled that "under French law, marriage is a union between a man and a woman," backing a 2005 decision by an appeals court in...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Friday rejected an international call to abandon the use of cluster bombs, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We ... take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories, given the right technology as well as the proper rules of engagement," McCormack said. Forty-six countries meeting in Oslo on Friday pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year, with major user and stockpiler Britain and manufacturer France signing on, Norway said. "We, ourselves, have already taken a couple of other steps with regard...

WASHINGTON - Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed continued opposition Friday to mandatory reductions in heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" — including job losses — that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. He and other administration officials at a news conference praised the report Friday by a United Nations-sponsored panel of top climate scientist who said there is little doubt the earth is warming as a result of man-made emissions....

WASHINGTON - President Bush has taken the most dramatic options off the table as he tries to change direction in Iraq, leaving him with a list of modest military and diplomatic moves to announce in the new year. Bush probably will ignore the boldest suggestions from a bipartisan commission that studied U.S. options in Iraq, adopting some of the group's lesser prescriptions alongside those drafted by his civilian and military advisers. The White House National Security Council has compiled recommendations from several agencies as the administration's internal reassessment of Iraq policy nears an end. Bush plans to address the nation...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Qatar's attempt to end a growing crisis in the Palestinian territories appeared to end in failure Tuesday after Hamas rejected the plan's key demands that it recognize Israel and renounce violence. Fatah faulted Hamas for the breakdown in negotiations — the latest setback to international efforts to establish a unity government and restore much-needed aid to the Palestinians. However, Palestinian Information Minister Youssef Rizka of Hamas said the U.S. was to blame for dismissing a separate Palestinian plan that would establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank but not explicitly recognize Israel. The document...

Israel rejects Syria's arms embargo pledge By Patrick Bishop in Beirut and Tim Butcher in Jerusalem (Filed: 02/09/2006) Israel last night rejected Syria's pledge to Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, that it would prevent weapons being smuggled to Hizbollah across its border with Lebanon. Syrian soldiers on parade at Riyyak airbase President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told Mr Annan during talks in Damascus that he was prepared to deploy his military forces along the Lebanese border to enforce the arms embargo on Hizbollah demanded by security council resolution 1701. Mr Assad has previously warned that Damascus would take...

The state Board of Pardons refused Thursday to recommend commutation of the life prison sentences for a man who committed one of Delaware's most notorious crimes and then killed a San Francisco businessman. The board deliberated less than three minutes in deciding not to recommend commutation for Charles Cohen, 41, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill in the brutal 1988 murders of his parents, Martin and Ethel Cohen. "In light of the heinous nature of these crimes, the opposition of the state Board of Parole, and the obvious threat to society, we will not recommend that commutation be granted," Lt....

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Bush administration plan to allow commercial logging in the Giant Sequoia National Monument violates environmental laws. U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer sided with environmental groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service over plans to manage the 328,000-acre preserve, home to two-thirds of the world's largest trees. In the lawsuit filed last year, the Sierra Club and other conservation groups said the forest management plan was a scientifically suspect strategy meant to satisfy timber interests under the guise of wildfire prevention. In September last year, Breyer issued a preliminary...

Oakland International Airport security officials on Friday rejected National Guard troops that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had activated on Thursday, saying they had the necessary security and law enforcement resources in place to respond to this week's terror threat. Airport managers, anti-terrorism officials, and representatives of local and regional law enforcement agencies met Friday morning at Oakland airport and decided unanimously to decline the deployment, said Fred Lau, the airport's federal security director. "We told the National Guard we would not require the deployment," Lau said. The airport's decision came as California National Guard troops deployed to the state's other major...

WASHINGTON - A Republican election-year effort to fuse a cut in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates with the first minimum wage increase in nearly a decade was rejected by the Senate late Thursday. Republicans needed 60 votes to advance their bill, which links a $2.10 increase in the $5.15 federal minimum wage over three years to reductions an estate taxes next decade. The bill got a 56-42 vote, four votes short of succeeding. The House passed it last Saturday. For Republicans, the combination could have neutralized a Democratic campaign issue while also advancing an estate tax cut, a priority that...

Israel rejects UN aid truce call> Many have been forced from their homes, but others remain trapped Israel has rejected a United Nations call for a three-day truce in southern Lebanon, as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel. The UN says children, the elderly and disabled people are trapped and supplies are short. But an Israeli spokesman said there was no need for a truce as a humanitarian corridor to the area had been opened. Israeli missiles landed near the main Lebanese border crossing into Syria on Saturday, witnesses and officials said. In a separate incident, two...

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea said Friday that it had turned down a North Korean proposal to hold military talks this week, citing tension over the North's test-firing of seven missiles. North Korea said its missile barrage was not an attack on anyone. The rejection of the North Korean offer came despite South Korea's vow to press ahead with political and economic engagement with its neighbor as a way to solve the longrunning conflict on the divided Korean Peninsula. North Korea made the proposal on Monday, two days before its military fired a salvo of missiles into the sea...

Justice Minister Haim Ramon on Monday warned of a harsh military response in the Gaza Strip if an abducted Israeli is harmed by his Palestinian captors. Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the threat after the militants holding Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit implied the soldier would be killed if Israel does not begin releasing Palestinian soldiers by Tuesday morning. "If God forbid, they should hurt the soldier, our operations will be far far worse," Ramon told Channel 2 TV. The bureau of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Israel rejected an ultimatum issued earlier in the day by...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, July 2, 2006 – News reports published June 30 that claimed coalition forces fired rockets in Afghanistan's Kunar province, allegedly killing a school headmaster and injuring two others, are false, military officials here said today. A Combined Forces Command Afghanistan statement said the three people noted in news articles are, in fact, Taliban extremists responsible for conducting attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. According to the statement, three extremists attacked a coalition patrol on a road in the province's Pech district June 29, and the soldiers responded with small-arms and mortar fire, all positively observed by...

SAN DIEGO A three-judge federal panel on Wednesday rejected a last-ditch appeal by the city of San Diego to keep a giant cross standing on city property after a 17-year legal tussle. The city is under federal court order to move the 29-foot-tall cross from a La Jolla hilltop before Aug. 2 or face $5,000 daily fines. The failed appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was intended to stay that order and allow the cross to remain standing until appeals currently pending in state courts can be heard. City Attorney Michael Aguirre said that Wednesday's ruling, issued...

Khamenei rejects 'carrots and sticks' nuclear deal (Filed: 16/06/2006) The supreme leader of Iran yesterday gave the sternest rejection to date of the international package of incentives designed to coax Teheran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not bend to these pressures." He was referring to the diplomatic "carrots and sticks" agreed earlier this month by America, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia. These included an offer of help with a civilian nuclear programme and the threat of travel bans for senior Iranians. His comments came as Washington used a meeting...

WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected a call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by year's end on Thursday as Congress erupted in impassioned, election-year debate over a conflict that now has claimed the lives of 2,500 American troops. The vote was 93-6 to shelve the proposal, which would have allowed "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in 2007. The vote came alongside a daylong debate in the House, where Republicans defended the war as key to winning the global struggle against terrorism while Democrats excoriated President...