Australian Senate

The full US Senate is set to start a day-and-a-half debate on Tuesday on the treaty to allow Montenegro's membership in NATO. 

This follows a 97-2 procedural ballot in the Senate on Monday in favour of allowing the final vote this week on the ratification of Montenegro's NATO Accession Protocol.  

The U.S. Senate on April 28 rejected an effort to require an international nuclear agreement with Iran to be considered a treaty, which would have forced any deal to be approved by two-thirds of the Senate's 100 members before it could take effect. 

The Senate appointed on Tuesday Radu Boroianu as president of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Photo credit: (c) Angelo BREZOIANU / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Boroianu was nominated by the ruling Social Democrat Party and Liberal Conservative Party groups in the Senate; he got 64 votes in favour and 49 against in a secret ballot.

Dutch voters headed to the polls on March 18 in local elections that look set to deal a blow to Prime Minister Mark Rutte by indirectly undermining his center-right government in the upper house of parliament.

Provincial elections determine the make-up of the upper house because the winners get to pick new senators in May.