* French PM says Socialist manifesto totally out of dateBy Brian LovePARIS, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Francois Hollande will try to unseat France’s conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy and return a Socialist to the Elysee Palace for the first time in 17 years in an election just over six months from now.Hollande, a moderate who says France must balance its books without sacrificing the welfare state or shrinking the number of state-employed school teachers, won a U.S.-style primary ballot on Sunday to designate the Socialist Party’s presidential challenger.He scored a victory over his more old-school rival Martine Aubry, a former labour minister, with 56.6 percent of the 2.9 million votes cast.Although he has never held a national government post and is little known outside France, the notoriously witty Hollande, 57, says he expects and is ready for a “fierce battle” against the right and far-right in the months ahead.”The right has nothing to lose,” said the man who could be the first Socialist to win a presidential contest since the late Francois Mitterrand was re-elected in 1988.Sarkozy has yet to declare but is widely expected to run for re-election after five years in office, where he has had to deal with the worst global economic downturn since World War Two and alienated many voters by cutting tax for the wealthy in tough times.Prime Minister Francois Fillon said any Socialist candidate was likely to be a strong opponent in an election, in a country where the vote is narrowly split.”The question now is whether he is a candidate with his own personal project or whether he’s simply the candidate for the Socialist project,” Fillon said on France 2 television, adding that the Socialist manifesto was totally out of date.’MR NORMAL’Hollande, tipped by pollsters to beat Sarkozy comfortably, rides to work on a scooter and sells himself as “Mr Normal” who will put a stop to the frenetic showbiz style that won Sarkozy the nickname of the “bling-bling” president.The latest poll, published on Monday, showed six out of ten French voters think Hollande would beat Sarkozy in the second round of next year’s presidential election, with 14 percent saying they were absolutely certain.”I measure the scale of the task awaiting me. It is vast. It is grave. I must rise to meet the aspirations of a French people who are sick and tired of the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy,” Hollande told supporters on Sunday night.For months, the opinion polls have suggested French voters are ready to put the left back in the Elysee Palace and oust the unpopular Sarkozy.The left’s runaway favourite to become president had been former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn but his IMF career and presidential hopes foundered when he was arrested in New York in May on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. The charges have since been dropped.The ease with which Hollande and Aubry filled Strauss-Kahn’s shoes as popular alternatives suggests many voters are simply weary of Sarkozy and his economic policies.The Socialist Party had organised a two-round contest where anyone who paid a euro and declared allegiance to left-wing values could vote.What remains to be seen now is whether or not Hollande reverses out of the more hardline stand he adopted in the closing stages of the Socialist primary as he sought to cater to people who had voted in large numbers in the opening round for anti-bank, anti-globalisation contender Arnaud Montebourg.Hollande, who promised in the final days of campaigning to crack down on banks and financial market excess, consolidated his position by securing the support of the four contenders knocked out in round one, including Montebourg.The main tenet of the Socialist manifesto which will provide the backbone of Hollande’s campaign is that some 50 billion euros ($67 billion) of tax breaks and other concessions made by Sarkozy can be scrapped, with half of the proceeds funding more proactive policies for jobs and growth and the other half going into public deficit reduction.

The company later said in a statement it would invest $300 million in the plant from 2012 to 2014 and planned to invest another $200 million after that to expand its capacity further. It did not say when it planned to invest the $200 million.

A former military officer once dismissed by a conservative establishment as a naive and dangerous acolyte of Venezuela’s fiery President Hugo Chavez, Humala is enjoying the most successful first 100 days in office of any Peruvian leader in decades.His popularity rating has soared to 65 percent as he follows a center-left model after a series of rightist coalitions held power for much of the last 20 years.Humala’s mix of policies, which aim to please the poor and investors at the same time, is not new in Latin America and his playbook reads like ones followed for years by the Concertacion coalition in Chile or the Workers’ Party in Brazil.But what is surprising is how quickly the model, combined with a more conciliatory personal style Humala has taken pains to develop, has paid dividends in a polarized country where leaders are usually disliked, if not despised.Of Peru’s three previous presidents, Alberto Fujimori was run out of office by angry voters in 2000, Alejandro Toledo sometimes polled in single digits and Alan Garcia grew ebullient whenever polls showed him climbing above 30 percent.”I think this new style is working,” said Alfredo Torres of the polling firm Ipsos. “Humala could lose some popularity due to social and economic problems, but my impression is that the honeymoon will be prolonged.”Humala has tapped into voter sentiment that free-market reforms of the 1990s weakened the state too much, leaving it unable to spread the wealth from the commodities boom of the last decade to the one third of Peruvians living in poverty.He has already moved two pieces of landmark legislation with a social bent through Congress with overwhelming support.One bill raised royalties on companies in the vast mining industry to fund social programs and infrastructure projects, and the other gave indigenous communities and rural towns more influence over how mining and oil projects are carried out on their lands.His prime minister, the businessman Salomon Lerner, has also averted what could have been a tumultuous anti-mining protest against Southern Copper and lured at least $5.7 billion in new investments.Lerner, who has moved between government and the private sector since the 1970s, also has the role of keeping the radical left wing of the ruling Gana Peru party in check. Analysts say the government might be adrift without his experienced hand.SOCIAL SPENDING IN LEANER TIMESNext on Humala’s agenda is rolling out a stimulus program to keep the local economy humming if the global crisis worsens and a program giving a minimum pension to poor people over 65.He also promises to raise the minimum wage a second time and expand a program of cash transfers to poor families, but these moves will depend in part on how tax revenues perform.Finance Minister Luis Castilla has said new social spending won’t jeopardize Peru’s healthy fiscal surplus.So far, Humala has not faced a single setback in Peru’s unicameral legislature.”A block with a comfortable majority has formed in Congress and at least for the first year I don’t think they are going to have any problems,” opposition lawmaker Carlos Bruce said with a slight tone of resignation.Bruce said it remains to be seen if Humala will push for Congressional approval of a long-stalled labor law reform that aims to move casual laborers onto payrolls.More broadly, Humala and Lerner are trying to defuse social conflicts in around 200 towns nationwide that are often fomented by local politicians and marred the tenure of Garcia.”The local and regional governments had sort of been abandoned,” Lerner said recently. “We are working on forging a new relationship based on dialogue with different constituencies.”Humala campaigned on promises to spread the benefits of Peru’s decade-long economic miracle to the poor and end conflicts that pit mining and oil companies who plan to invest $50 billion here over the next decade against small towns worried about pollution, water supplies or tax revenues.Early signs indicate that Humala will have better luck at managing social conflicts than his predecessor because his left-wing roots give him more credibility among the poor.There is a risk, however, that poor voters have elevated expectations and may become frustrated by Humala’s more moderate style.Economy growth is also expected to cool to 5.7 percent next year from about 6.5 percent this year and government officials have indicated they may have to brace for a sharper slowdown — which could hurt Humala’s ability to fund welfare projects.”If he fails to deliver what he has promised, social tensions might increase,” said Juan Lorenzo Maldonado, an analyst at Roubini Global Economics.

* Infrastructure includes power grids, oil and gas pipelinesBy Barbara LewisBRUSSELS, Oct 11 (Reuters) - The European Union is seeking powers to sweep aside planning objections and speed through energy projects of strategic significance in ensuring security of supply, according to draft legislation seen by Reuters.The draft also proposes creating a “European coordinator” to help accelerate projects of EU-wide importance if they encounter “significant delays or implementation difficulties.”The proposals indicate the priorities for allocating 9.1 billion euros set aside in the EU’s budgetary framework for 2014-2020.Although less than one percent of the EU’s budget, the spending is highly significant because it marks the first time the budget has included spending on energy infrastructure.It could provide leverage for attracting further funds from the private sector and other sources.Priority projects include the area known as the Southern Gas Corridor for helping to reduce EU dependency on Russian natural gas supplies, as well as an integrated offshore electricity grid in the North Sea and in the Baltic region.Europe’s most prominent solution to reducing its vulnerability to any interruption of Russian supplies is the proposed Nabucco pipeline to carry gas from the Caspian.British auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA) said on Tuesday that Turkmenistan’s South Iolotan gas field was the world’s second-largest, estimated to hold up to 21.2 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of natural gas.Such reserves could be crucial to the development of the Nabucco pipeline, which does not yet have enough gas suppliers to fill its targeted capacity.’LEAST HARMFUL ROUTE’If projects are important enough, public objections can be overridden on certain conditions and “the least harmful route of that project shall be granted the necessary positive decisions”, according to the draft being circulated in EU departments.A Commission spokeswoman declined to comment.EU officials have already said Europe is better prepared for any upsurge in tension between leading gas producer Russia and transit nation Ukraine. In early 2009, a pricing dispute blocked supplies to some EU countries.Since 2009, more liquefied natural gas is potentially available for shipment to the EU, freed up by U.S. development of shale gas. In addition a new compressor at the Austrian hub Baumgarten, built with the help of EU money, means gas supplies can be distributed more widely.Environmentalists, as well as local residents, could object to sweeping powers to remove planning objections for major energy projects, but the European Commission highlighted the urgent need to improve infrastructure.”Major efforts are needed to modernise and expand Europe’s infrastructure and to interconnect networks across borders to meet the union’s core energy policy objectives,” the explanatory memorandum attached to the draft law says.Apart from nervousness about supply disruption, the European Union has legally binding 2020 targets to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels and to increase the share of renewable energy in the mix to 20 percent.Those aims and still more ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions laid out in a 2050 low carbon road map require vast changes to European energy infrastructure.In total more than 1 trillion euros of investment is needed for the European electricity and gas sector in the decade between 2010 and 2020, the European Commission has said.In June, it said the budgetary framework for 2014-2020 should set up a fund of 40 billion euros for energy, transport and other infrastructure, of which 9.1 billion would be dedicated to energy — specifically energy transmission — which covers gas and power networks.The latest draft legislation is expected to be made public in the coming weeks, after which it could take at least a year to be finalised by EU governments and lawmakers.It follows proposals last month also focused on helping to ensure security of supply by increasing the scope for the European Commission’s involvement in energy negotiations between EU members and governments outside the 27-nation bloc.