A U.S. judge has rejected a request to order mediation to help resolve a long-running pollution lawsuit stemming from the 1984 Bhopal toxic gas leak in India, after objections from defendant Union Carbide Corp...U.S. attorney Kenneth Feinberg...last month had offered to serve as a court-appointed mediator in the case for free at the request of the plaintiffs...Judge John Keenan of U.S. District Court in Manhattan said...in light of Union Carbide's... stance that mediation...would be useless, "it would be counterproductive to use Mr. Feinberg's proffered services."