In seafaring news, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 in favor of ratifying the Law of the Sea today, moving the treaty out of committee and onto the Senate floor. There it will need to win two-thirds approval for the United States to officially join the more than 150 other nations. The last whip count I heard put the number of senators in favor of ratifying the treaty at around 70. The U.S. might well join the rest of the world on a major international accord by the end of the November.
In other news, in celebration of Halloween, Chuck Hagel came to today's Foreign Relations Committee dressed as someone surely terrifying to his fellow Republicans: Joe Biden.
--Kate Sheppard
