Free Republic

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown took a strong stand against coal on Friday, approving an East Bay lawmaker's bill to ban state funding for coal-related projects. In signing state Sen. Loni Hancock's bill, the governor also praised the Oakland City Council for voting to ban transportation of the ore through its city and encouraged other cities to do the same. "Other localities should follow suit -- and the state should, too -- to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate the shipment of coal through all California ports, Brown wrote in a signing message.

WASHINGTON D.C.—Former top Hillary Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jean-Louis Warnholz are quietly cashing in on State Department intelligence that Clinton received from her adviser Sidney Blumenthal about an energy crisis in Africa. Breitbart News has learned that Mills and Warnholz are racing toward a big payday, shipping cargo in Tanzania after Clinton “discreetly” helped her American friends’ companies move in on the area’s untapped energy market during her time as Secretary of State. It’s a prime example of the legal but dubious ways that Clinton and her associates used the power of the State Department to pad their own...

Unseen by most of the world, the once tranquil port of Aden is being steadily infiltrated by jihadists from both al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and the so-called Islamic State (IS). They are not in charge of the city, the military forces of the UAE are. But in the last few days disturbing reports have emerged of the summary executions of prisoners by the jihadists, along with their black flags hoisted onto public buildings.

NEW DELHI (DHNS) - As Tehran wants New Delhi to raise its stake in Chabahar Port in Iran, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Friday offered India a deal that not only involves developing the second phase of the port but also for operating it. New Delhi already pledged to build a container terminal and a multi-purpose cargo terminal on two berths at the Chabahar Port in south-eastern coast of Iran. Tehran's new offer appeared to be lucrative to India, as the strategically important port could give it a sea-land access to Afghanistan and Central Asia,...

Canada’s military has again delayed the opening of a major new Arctic port, a sign the government is struggling to assert sovereignty over a remote resource-rich region. The planned deep water naval facility at Nanisivik – some 3,100 km (1,900 miles) north of Ottawa – is one of the key components of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “use it or lose it” approach to the Arctic. The port, initially due to open in 2012, will now not be operational until 2018.

Iran and Russia signed an agreement Tuesday to expand military ties in a visit to Tehran by the Russian defense minister. Sergei Shoigu, in remarks carried by Russian news agencies, said Moscow wants to develop a "long-term and multifaceted" military relationship with Iran. He said that the new agreement includes expanded counter-terrorism cooperation, exchanges of military personnel for training purposes and an understanding for each country's navy to more frequently use the other's ports. Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan urged greater cooperation as a means of opposing American ambitions in the region. Moscow and Tehran have staunchly supported Syrian President...

As the calendar turns to July today, summer is fully intact, but the West Coast ports labor situation is still apparently chilly. With the deadline for labor contract negotiations between ILWU (the International Longshore Warehouse Union) and the Pacific Maritime Association arriving aft midnight last night, the current status remains in flux as neither party is publicly commenting on their talks, which have been ongoing since May 12. The ILWU represents nearly 14,000 port workers in California, Oregon, and Washington, with more than 40 percent of U.S. incoming container traffic moving through West Coast ports at the Ports of Los...

Since the beginning of the 19th century, Egypt's Port Said, because of its location near the Suez Canal, has acted as a global city located on the very hub of world commerce. In fact, Rudyard Kipling once said of Port Said "If you truly wish to find someone you have known and who travels, there are two points on the globe you have but to sit and wait, sooner or later your man will come there: the docks of London and Port Said." Using the Suez Canal, it is 7200 miles (11,600 km) from London to Mumbai. Without using the...

Tunisian authorities say a suspected religious extremist blew himself up while making a bomb in a home he was renting near the capital. … Separately, the interior ministry says an “extremist” was arrested on Friday after he blew off his hand while handling explosives in Menzel Bourguiba, 43 miles from Tunis. …

A man was arrested in New York City's international airport with uranium destined for Iran hidden in the soles of his shoes, the US Justice Department said. Patrick Campbell, 33, who was arrested Wednesday as he arrived at the John F Kennedy airport from Paris, is accused of trying to act as an intermediary to sell Iran 1,000 tons of purified uranium, in violation of US law. The Sierra Leone-based Campbell had been under surveillance since May 2012, when he responded to an ad on the site Alibaba.com by someone looking to buy uranium 308, or yellow cake. The buyer...

WASHINGTON — Senator Robert Menendez sought to discourage any plan by the United States government to donate port security equipment to the Dominican Republic, citing concern that the advanced screening gear might undermine efforts by a private company — run by a major campaign contributor and friend of his — to do the work. **SNIP** But the questions about the port security contract are potentially more troubling for Mr. Menendez, who is already facing questions over his fitness for the Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship, because the contract involved a foreign policy concern: curbing the flow of cocaine to the United...

It’s not just about Dominican prostitutes (which he still denies). It’s about questionable business connections, as reported by Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.com, The Corrupt Origins of the Melgen-Menendez Dominican Port Security Deal:

A high-ranking Port of Oakland official is in hot water for throwing down $4,500 in public funds for a party at a Houston strip club. "Port commissioners take this matter very seriously," board President Gilda Gonzales said in a statement after their meeting. Kwon's strip-club spending spree didn't come to port officials' attention until just recently. The timing is especially terrible for the port, which is in the midst of a protracted labor fight with maintenance and other workers over terms of a new contract. Now, officials are scrambling to get a handle on the strip-club visit and to determine...

The cargo volume here is three times the level it was two years ago, before Fu Cheng Qiu was put in charge by his employer, Cosco, a global shipping giant owned by the Chinese government. In a 2010 deal that put 500 million euros ($647 million) into the coffers of Greece’s cash-starved government, Cosco leased half of the port of Piraeus and quickly converted a business that had languished as a Greek state-run enterprise into a hotbed of productivity. The other half of the port is still run by Greece. And the fact that its business lags behind Cosco’s is...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Firefighters are still trying to figure out what caused a gas leak that prompted a ship to be evacuated at the Port of Los Angeles. The incident began Friday afternoon in the 700 block of East New Dock Street at Henry Ford Avenue. Fire officials said an unknown gas was leaking from a large container in the cargo ship. Fire crews unloaded several containers one by one before stopping the spill. Officials still don't know what kind of gas was leaking. The ship was leaving Los Angeles when the leak was reported. Officials have not said...

NOTE The following news release is a quote: www.ice.gov/news/releases/1202/120206denver.htm FEBRUARY 6, 2012 DENVER, CO Chinese national indicted in Colorado for trying to illegally export to China radiation-hardened computer circuits used in satellite communications DENVER – Philip Chaohui He, aka Philip Hope, a Chinese national, made his initial appearance in U.S. district court on Thursday after he was named in a three-count indictment charging him with attempting to export defense articles without U.S. State Department authorization. The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney John Walsh, District of Colorado and Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Denver office of...

In Pakistan’s Gwadar port, Chinese whispers grow May 26, 2011 19:16 IST First, China helped develop Pakistan’s Gwadar port from scratch on the Baluchistan coast to take the pressure off the country’s main port of Karachi, a few hundred miles to the east. Now Pakistan’s defence minister has said that it would like its long-time ally to build a naval base at Gwadar, which sits on the doorstep of Gulf shipping lanes, less than 200 kms from the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz. China, which provided more than 80 percent of the port’s $248 million development cost, has moved...

CAIRO -- CAIRO (AP) Libya's eastern port of Tobruk reopened Monday and one tanker bound for China was being loaded, officials said, as the chief executive of Saudi Arabia's state-run oil giant announced his company had stepped in to compensate for an export shortfall stemming from the unrest in the North African nations. The news offered a glimmer of hope that the disruption to exports from Libya may ease, at least slightly. The country, where Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is embroiled in a violent struggle to stay in power, is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting...

President Barack Obama’s budget plan on Monday was a mix of good and bad news for South Florida. The bad news: An aggressive effort to secure federal funding to dredge the Port of Miami suffered a significant setback when Obama declined to put aside money for it. Local officials and the state’s South Florida congressional delegation had hoped to secure $75 million in the president’s 2012 budget proposal... More bad news: The budget plan cuts by $300 million – or 7.5 percent -- the popular Community Development Block grants that many cities, including Miami, use for helping the poor.

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Disney’s newest cruise liner, the Disney Dream, came within feet of striking another ship in Port Canaveral last week. But, on Wednesday the cruise line insisted that there was never a safety concern. A YouTube video captured by a passenger shows the the Dream drifting close to the Royal Caribbean ship the Monarch of the Seas just two days before the Dream was christened on January 17. In the video, a Royal Caribbean worker is heard saying, “Close!” Witnesses said the dream came within feet of the Monarch. At one point, a Royal Caribbean worker told...