UN/Treaties

The State Department on Tuesday launched a contest aimed at rewarding the best ideas for achieving the nation's international disarmament objectives.

The “Innovation in Arms Control Challenge” sets aside $10,000 for proposals from U.S. citizens and permanent residents that use commonly available technologies to support arms-control policy efforts. It is part of the Obama administration's effort to harness the power of technology and social networking in achieving the nation's diplomatic goals.

“The astonishing advancements in information technologies include new tools and capabilities that could help support arms control transparency and compliance,” the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance said in a statement announcing the contest. “We will collect new ideas about how these advancements can affect the implementation of arms control, verification, and nonproliferation policy. 

Ban Ki-moon has decided to attend an international summit in Iran despite strong admonishments from U.S. and Israeli officials.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the controversial Law of the Sea pact will have better prospects after the campaign ends.

While the U.S. devotes about 40 percent of its corn crop to biofuels, other countries worry about global food supplies.

A senior United Nations official is calling on the United States to suspend biofuels production to combat the effects of the country-wide drought, potentially giving momentum to those on Capitol Hill fighting for the same result.

The drought has inflicted enough damage on U.S. corn supplies to threaten international food supplies, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director General José Graziano da Silva wrote in the Financial Times (subscription required).

"An immediate, temporary suspension of that mandate would give some respite to the market and allow more of the crop to be channeled towards food and feed uses," he wrote in the column published late Thursday.

The U.N. official's column arrives as the U.S. government slashes estimates of corn production this year. The Agriculture Department, in a forecast Friday, predicted that national production will be 10.8 billion bushels in 2012, a 13 percent drop from 2011 and the lowest output since 2006, according to news reports.

With 40 percent of U.S. corn acreage dedicated to biofuels, da Silva said too little is left to survive some of the price shocks the drought has inflicted on the crop.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee voted Tuesday to approve a bill to block the European Union from requiring U.S. airlines to trade carbon emissions emitted from flights to European countries.

The bill, which has been dubbed the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act (S. 1956), had been opposed by two prominent Democratic members of the committee, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

But the measure was cleared for a floor vote on Tuesday after Kerry and Boxer agreed to an amendment asking the International Civil Aviation Organization to take steps to reduce emissions.

"I wasn't going to support the [Sen. Claire] McCaskill [(D-Mo.)]-[Sen. John] Thune [(R-S.D.)] law, but it makes it clear that the place for dealing with this sort of issue is the international organization that is already set up," Boxer said Tuesday. "We're saying no to unilateral moves by Europe, but yes to taking a lead role in doing something collaboratively."

The treaty has met with the staunch opposition of the National Rifle Association and bipartisan concerns in the Senate.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

The United Nations has until close of business to reach agreement on an arms trade treaty. President Obama has come under pressure from advocates to strengthen a draft that was floated earlier this week, notably on the issue of ammunition and the fact that it only applies to commercial export but not the transfer of weapons through aid.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) has managed to corral 50 senators against ratification if it includes provisions to regulate the sale of civilian arms, enough to kill it in the Senate. The draft does mention “small arms and light weapons.”

Romney at the Olympics: Mitt Romney attends the Olympics opening ceremony in London on the second day of a foreign trip that got off to a rough start Thursday. The Republican presidential candidate is also scheduled to meet with Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny and U.S. Olympic athletes.

Israel bill signed: President Obama signs the U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act in the Oval Office this morning, taking some of the political bite out of Romney's visit there this weekend. The bill restates the U.S. commitment to supply Israel with arms to defend itself, pledges to fight anti-Israeli resolutions at the United Nations and calls on the United States to produce an "Iron Dome" defense system for Israel, to intercept short-range missiles and to study how the United States could speed the sale of F-35 fighter planes to that country.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) corralled 50 lawmakers — including eight Democrats — to signal their opposition to a global United Nations arms treaty currently being negotiated.

The lawmakers signed onto a letter released Thursday from Moran, which lays out concerns that the U.N. treaty will infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights because it includes provisions to regulate civilian arms.

Moran’s lobbying effort against the treaty has the backing of the National Rifle Association, whose CEO touted Senate opposition to the treaty in a speech earlier this month.

The treaty, said panel Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), “raises the standard to our level without requiring us to go further.”