Nominees can only be confirmed at meetings of the International Astronomical Union, and the next meeting that could consider new nominees will be in 1994.

Starting from the 55th Grammy Awards in 2013, mastering engineers will be considered nominees and award recipients in this category.

He added that the party would be willing to consider nominees for ministers of those departments from the President, Lech Walesa.

A senior Administration official said the White House was not trying to make any political point by considering nominees opposed to abortion rights.

On 4 January, Karzai requested the parliament to delay its winter recess, so members could consider new nominees.

Currently, the selection committees refer to three main criteria when considering nominees:

"You bet," the president said Wednesday morning when a reporter asked him whether he would consider potential nominees who did not have judicial experience.

And we'd also like you to consider addi-tional nominees for the 'inner circle.'

However, Hatch demanded that Stewart be confirmed before senators could consider other judicial nominees.

For Democrats the importance of considering nominees in a highly deliberate fashion, including assessing their ideological outlooks, is similarly suddenly important.