The Senate is expected to approve the U.S. Secretary of Defense Hagel

Washington (Reuters)-Democratic leaders in the Senate of the United States moving ahead with plans for conducting Monday's voting for the inaugural Chuck Hagel as Defense Minister.

That movement will pave the way for Hagel became the head of the Pentagon's new leadership under President Barack Obama despite there is opposition from some members of the Senate from the Republican party, Reuters reported.

Sen. Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said he will ask the Committee to conduct the vote in the trial that is scheduled to take place Tuesday at 14.30 local time.

The candidacy of Hagel as Defense Minister must first get approval from the Committee before it is then considered by the Senate as a whole.

The Committee controlled by Democrats--with 14 seats compared to the 12 original members occupied the Republic--is expected to approve the candidacy of Hagel.

Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said that he estimated that the discussion at the level of the Senate reserved the candidacy of Hagel will already be completed Thursday, and pave the way for actual voting.

The Democrats controlled the Senate majority with 55-45 that position is estimated to be approval Hagel became Minister of Defense.

"We hope that Wednesday or Thursday and we've been able to resolve the issue of the candidacy of Hagel," said Reid.

Hagel (66 years), which is a member of the Republican Party and was a senator representing Nebraska, before becoming a target of criticism from his party's senators spicy on its own.

They launched a question about whether Hagel supported Israel and tough enough against Iran.

Hagel in front panel recognition of the armed forces in the deliberations of the Council on 31 January and then reserved his candidacy also other criticism.

In fact, a number of members of the democratic origin says Hagel looks not ready and it looks doubtful when it gets aggressive questions from members of the original Committee Republican.

Supporters of Hagel, who has a conviction that Hagel will succeed Leon Panetta at the Defense Department, called the delay and the threat of Republican strongholds to prevent voting for the candidacy of Hagel as a political stance that threatens national security.

"We are very confident that ... Sen. Hagel will be confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, "said White House spokesman Jay Carney in a news conference Monday.

There is no Democratic members who do not support the Hagel, and at least two members of the original Republican Senator Thad Cochran--from Mississippi and Mike Johanns, currently occupying the Nebraska Senate seat left by Hagel--have said that they will vote support for Hagel.

A number of other Republican members said they would not support the use of any procedural mechanism will force Democrats gathered the 60 votes to establish the candidacy of Hagel. (T008/A/C003)

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Australia Senate backs carbon tax

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8 November 2011 Last updated at 09:58 GMT Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population Australia's Senate has approved a controversial law on pollution, after years of bitter political wrangling.

The Clean Energy Act will force the country's 500 worst-polluting companies to pay a tax on their carbon emissions from 1 July next year.

The Senate vote is a victory for Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who had given strong backing to the plan.

Environmentalists have broadly backed the scheme, but there have been large public protests against it.

Opposition parties have argued that the tax would cause job losses and raise the cost of living, and they have promised to repeal the legislation if they win the next election, due in 2013.

'Victory for optimists' Continue reading the main story To start on 1 July 2012500 companies affectedAgriculture, forestry and land are exemptCompensation for pollutersMarket-based trading scheme kicks in from 2015Target to cut 159m tonnes of CO2 by 2020The bill passed a vote in the lower house last month by just 74 votes to 72.

The Senate vote was also tight - 36 votes in favour, 32 against - with the government relying on the support of the Greens to get the bill passed.

Ms Gillard told a news conference it was "a win for those who would seek their fortunes and make their way by having jobs in our clean energy sector".

"Today we have made history. After all those years of debate and division, our nation has got the job done," she said.

Continue reading the main story Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

The vote in theory brings to an end a long-running and, in a global sense, highly symbolic issue.

Symbolic because Australia is one of the world's highest per-capita emitters and has an economy that is more reliant than most on energy-intensive industries such as mining, including coal.

Yet of all developed countries, Australia is set to feel impacts of climate change earlier than most, and arguably is seeing them already in the recent severe droughts.

It also has immense potential for renewable electricity, particularly in the area of solar; and some are hoping the carbon tax and subsequent trading mechanism will kick-start a renewables revolution.

Whether the carbon tax is high enough to do that, though, is unclear. And investors may be restrained by the opposition's vow to repeal the law if it gains office in 2013.

Emissions trading is scheduled for introduction in 2015. The European experience is that without tight caps on emissions, the carbon price remains far too low to stimulate change on the scale scientists calculate is necessary.

The government has set the initial price per tonne of carbon at A$23 ($23.80; £14.80), much higher than other similar schemes such as in the EU where the price is between $8.70 and $12.60 a tonne.

The country's mining firms, airlines, steel makers and energy firms are among those expected to be hardest hit by the tax.

Domestic fuel bills are expected to rise as companies pass on the costs to consumers.

But the government hopes that the legislation will force innovation in renewable energy supplies, and free Australia from its reliance on fossil fuels.

The country accounts for 1.5% of the world's emissions, but it is the developed world's highest emitter per head of population thanks to its relatively small population.

The country's politicians have been debating pollution-limiting legislation for years.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd swept to power in 2007 after making the carbon tax central to his election campaign.

But his plans were bogged down in political infighting and public support evaporated.

Analysts have blamed his inability to get the law passed for his eventual ousting by Ms Gillard.

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Senate Republicans Vote to Defeat Obama's Jobs Bill

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WASHINGTON (AP) — United against Barack Obama, Senate Republicans voted Tuesday night to kill the jobs package the president had spent weeks campaigning for across the country, a stinging loss at the hands of lawmakers opposed to stimulus-style spending and a tax increase on the very wealthy.

Forty-six Republicans joined with two Democrats to filibuster the $447 billion plan. Fifty Democrats had voted for it, but the vote was not final. The roll call was kept open to allow Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. to vote. The likely 51-48 eventual tally would be far short of the 60 votes needed to keep the bill alive in the 100-member Senate.

[What Obama Can and Can't Do to Create Jobs]

The demise of Obama's $447 billion jobs package was expected, despite his campaign-style efforts to swing the public behind it. The White House and leaders in Congress were already moving on to alternative ways to address the nation's painful 9.1 percent unemployment, including breaking the legislation into smaller, more digestible pieces and approving long-stalled trade bills.

The White House appears most confident that it will be able to continue a 2-percentage-point Social Security payroll tax cut through 2012 and to extend emergency unemployment benefits to millions of people — if only because, in the White House view, Republicans won't want to accept the political harm of letting those provisions expire.

White House officials are also hopeful of ultimately garnering votes for the approval of infrastructure spending and tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana — both up for re-election next year in states where Obama figures to lose — broke with their party on Tuesday night's vote. Every Republican present opposed the plan.

[11 Things Wrong With Congress]

Earlier in the day, Obama capped his weekslong campaign for the measure in an appearance typical of the effort — a tough-talking speech in a swing state crucial to his re-election. In fact, it seemed aimed more at rallying his core political supporters heading into the election than changing minds on Capitol Hill.

"Any senator who votes no should have to look you in the eye and tell you what exactly they're opposed to," Obama said to a union audience in Pittsburgh. "I think they'll have a hard time explaining why they voted no on this bill — other than the fact that I proposed it."

Democrats were not wholly united behind the measure. In addition to Nelson and Tester, Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who aligns with Democrats, said they oppose the underlying measure despite voting to choke off the filibuster.

Obama's plan would combine Social Security payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses and other tax relief totaling about $270 billion with $175 billion in new spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.

Obama said that the plan — more than half the size of his 2009 economic stimulus measure — would be an insurance policy against a double-dip recession and that continued economic intervention was essential given slower-than-hoped job growth.

[Political Cartoons on President Obama]

"Right now, our economy needs a jolt," Obama said. "Right now."

Unlike the 2009 legislation, the current plan would be paid for with a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. That would be expected to raise about $450 billion over the coming decade.

"Democrats' sole proposal is to keep doing what hasn't worked — along with a massive tax hike that we know won't create jobs," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday, saying there are 1.5 million fewer jobs than when Obama's 2009 economic package became law. "Why on earth would you support an approach that we already know won't work?" McConnell said.

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Senate business prevents that U.S. shutdown

"27 September 2011 last updated at 00: 36 GMT Senate majority leader Harry Reid:" we fight when something to fight. "The Senate has a decision-making, the money to fund the U.S. Government and end fears a shutdown provides.

Democrats have was against Republican demands for help for the victims of U.S. natural disasters with cuts energy programmes to clean.

The deal has been reached, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that it had enough money to last until the end of the fiscal year on Friday.

The new funding lasts up to 18 November, passed by the House.

A short-term provision in the resolution allows the Government, their work, to the House of representatives, currently on a break, can vote on the Bill.

However report says that the House can lead it with pro-forma-vote, with only a few of the present before the end of the week.

The agreement is the latest in a series of bipartisan differences to finish, which paralyzed Congress and made sharp distinctions between Republicans and Democrats.

"We have prevented a disaster to the next," said Democratic Senator Ben Nelson told of Reuters.

'Unprecedented'

Business originated FEMA revealed that it the ability continue to relief operations for the rest of the week in areas, which had hit by floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

In the agreement the democratically controlled Senate agreed output measure, a Republican supported $1 billion (£ 1) budget cut to an electric car program would remove.

As a compromise, Democrats, a figure of 3 billion offered $ for funding for disaster relief - lower than last week, asked for and to support reflection Republican proposals.

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more and more to argue that is not just individuals behavior bad but on a quiet crisis of governance in America "

end quote Mark Mardell BBC North America editor last Friday the House passed the Republican version of the law, but it was rejected by Democrats in the Senate later in the day."

The deal ends, the possibility of a Government shutdown on 30.

But with most Americans say, that they are unhappy with the mission that legislators do the dispute, as just another sign of how partisan character inhibits the ability of Congress to pass the basic legislation.

Democrats, said that it was unprecedented, to insist that spending cuts accompany much-needed relief.

Formerly, it was feared that the financing of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would run on Tuesday, when the Bill is not passed.

FEMA has was fighting for the money this summer by Hurricane Irene, tropical storm Lee, as well as forest fires and tornadoes to help areas affected to find.

The deadlock came as a 12-member of Congress "Super committee" to find $1. 5tn savings in federal spending over the next 10 years.

The Committee will present its recommendations before the end of November, and Congress must vote on the proposals a month later.

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French left seizes Senate majority, hurts Sarkozy

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy attends a ceremony commemorating the Harkis, Algerian soldiers loyal to the French during the Algerian war, at the Invalides in Paris, September 25, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer

By Sophie Louet

PARIS | Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:32am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government lost its majority in the Senate to the left on Sunday, officials said, in a historic defeat that deals him a blow just seven months before a presidential election.

For the first time since 1958, the right-dominated upper house swung to a left-wing majority as the body's membership underwent a major generational change of guard.

Early results from the indirect elections showed left-wing candidates took at least 23 seats from the ruling conservative party, securing them an absolute majority.

The shift to the left, which UMP Senate leader Gerard Larcher had described as having "seismic" consequences ahead of a presidential election next April, drew howls of joy from left-wing supporters at a meeting in Paris.

"The 25th of September, 2011, will go down in history," Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Socialist group in the Senate, said on LCI television. "The results of this Senate election represent a real comeuppance for the right."

The left's victory followed a series of wins by Socialist candidates in local elections in the same regions where tens of thousands of municipal officials -- empowered as so-called "super voters" in the Senate poll -- cast votes on Sunday.

SYMBOLIC SETBACK

A left-leaning Senate will not be able to derail Sarkozy's legislative plans but the loss of a longstanding bastion for the right is a symbolic setback especially when taken together with his persistently poor poll ratings.

Sarkozy has become slightly more popular in the past few months, but he remains one of the least well-liked presidents in post-war France and faces a tough battle for reelection in a two-round vote scheduled for next April.

French voters are depressed about their economic prospects, unemployment remains stubbornly high and a European debt crisis has invited intensive scrutiny of France's public finances.

Such worries have overshadowed Sarkozy's foreign policy victories, notably France's role in the toppling of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the result was a result of divisions in the ruling camp.

"Today, the opposition has shown strong progress in the Senate, underscored by divisions in the ruling camp in several regions," he said in a statement.

"The moment of truth will come next spring. Tonight, the battle begins, and the results of this Senate election show us what sort of effort we will have to produce."

Government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse pointed out that the right retained a majority in the National Assembly.

"This is in no way a point of blockage for the government because, as you know, it's the National Assembly that has the last word," she said.

Sarkozy, in the final months of his term, faces a tough battle for reelection against Francois Hollande, the most likely Socialist candidate.

"This victory creates a dynamic ... If we could win the presidency of the republic after winning the presidency of the Senate, that would be a good," Hollande said on LCI television.

There is no major legislation outstanding that a left-wing Senate could delay, but losing his majority there would bury Sarkozy's grand plan to get a budget-balancing debt rule written into the French constitution, a measure that could have been an anchor for France's AAA-rating.

Parliament already has approved an adjustment to the 2011 budget bill to incorporate a bigger bailout for Greece as agreed by euro zone states on July 21, and the 2012 budget bill should pass without hitches.

Of the 170 seats up for grabs in the election, the UMP had 147 seats out of a total 343 to the Socialist Party's 115 before Sunday's vote. Final results are expected later on Sunday.

The number of seats in the upper chamber will be increased on Sunday to 348, reflecting a rise in the population.

Sarkozy is expected to announce sometime in November that he will run for a second term in next April's election.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer, Nicholas Vinocur, Emile Picy and Sophie Louet; Writing by Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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