According to the Post:

The board said Tuesday that BP had taken a $32.2 billion pre-tax charge in the second quarter to cover the cost of the April 20 spill, including $20 billion it pledged to set aside in an escrow account. The petroleum company faces unquantifiable liabilities in lawsuits from fishermen, holiday hotel owners and tourism businesses across the Gulf Coast.

These numbers give us a sense of BP’s thinking about the cost of the oil spill. Up until now, only the $20 billion escrow account for economic damages, to which the company publicly committed at the prodding of the Obama administration, had hinted at the spill’s probable cost.

And more on Dudley:

The choice of the even-keeled Dudley represents a fresh start for BP, which has seen its reputation badly soiled in the aftermath of the rig explosion and spill.

Dudley grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss., and later spent eight years working in Russia, gaining experience and knowledge that could be key in running a company that relies largely on oil produced in the United States and Russia.

According to the BBC:

BP chief executive Tony Hayward will get an immediate annual pension worth about £600,000 ($930,000) when he leaves in October, the BBC has learned.

And more details:

BP pension scheme rules say that those who joined before April 2006 can take the pension at any point from age 50. Mr Hayward is 53.

He will also receive a year’s salary plus benefits worth more than £1m.

Mr Hayward’s pension pot is valued at about £11m and he will keep his rights to shares under a long-term performance scheme which could – depending on BP’s stock market recovery – eventually be worth several million pounds.

Hayward will take a “non-executive position” at BP-TNK, the company’s joint venture in Russia, the BBC reported.

Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake.

“With the Defense Department you’ve got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan,” he said in an interview. “The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the C.I.A. is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about.”

Alston stops short of calling the drones a violation of the laws of war. But that doesn’t diminish the tension between the rules-based internationalism Obama seeks and the drone strikes he considers a crucial counterterrorism tool.

Consider that the drones are a fairly cheap and unsophisticated technology. It’s only a matter of time before some other country replicates the U.S.’s move to outfit them with missiles. China, for instance, has at least seven types of unmanned aerial vehicles. Russia has at least eight. Will the Obama administration accept an assertion by China or Russia that they retain the right to launch missiles from remotely-piloted aircraft at foreign military targets in defiance of the wishes of a U.N. special rapporteur?

“We have reached agreement on a strong draft with the cooperation of both Russia and China,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today.

“We plan to circulate that draft resolution to the entire Security Council today,” Clinton said. “I think this announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.

Could be bluster, or it could be that Clinton has a whip count.

Partly because elements of the technology behind Prompt Global Strike are “not yet even invented,” it’s hard to say what the system will ultimately cost or when it can be deployed. The New START accord with the Russians even had to limit its development because once launched from an intercontinental ballistic missile, it would be hard for Russia or any other power to determine with confidence that such a missile didn’t carry a nuclear payload.

Relatedly, here’s something that should warm Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) New START-opponent heart but surely won’t: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a NATO forum that the U.S. won’t withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe until there’s a follow-on treaty with Russia ensuring the Russians will do the same.

Update: Noah Shachtman hates Prompt Global Strike. “Relying on conventional ICBMs to do the job, and risking a nuclear showdown, is just plain crazy,” he writes.

You would think that the verifiable absence of an actual objection to the treaty would remove political obstacles to it and win over converts. If you think that, you’re probably not Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who gave a breakfast crowd at the National Defense University Foundation a whole bunch of — irony of ironies — unverifiable objections to New START. They culminated in this:

“More important to me, the Obama administration negotiators were disingenuous at best in the way they described the wording on missile defense, and some would go further than disingenuous to describe what they did,” Kyl said. “And what did we get out of the Russians in return? They will go down to levels [of nuclear arms] they were heading toward anyway. They tied one hand behind our back on missile defense, and we did nothing to address the Russian advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. So we’re going to have a very robust debate on whether or not the United States is better off with this treaty. Personally, I’m not sure the treaty is worth what we give up.”

On the Russian advantage stuff, the Obama administration plans to negotiate another treaty after New START gets ratified, to cut the arsenals even further. So be charitable to Kyl and give him that. On missile defense, the briefest of inspections of the treaty refutes Kyl’s substantive point. This is what the treaty actually says about missile defense:

For the purposes of this Treaty… a missile of a type developed and tested solely to intercept and counter objects not located on the surface of the Earth shall not be considered to be a ballistic missile to which the provisions of this Treaty apply.

Right there! In black and white! The treaty doesn’t restrict missile defense! Explicitly! There’s even more:

Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] launchers and SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to signature of this Treaty for placement of missile defense interceptors therein.

Who’s the disingenuous one here?

Under the agreement we are about to sign, the United States and Russia will each irreversibly and transparently dispose of no less than 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. Together, that is enough material for nearly 17,000 nuclear weapons. And we will put in place the framework and infrastructure needed to dispose of even more plutonium from defense programs in the future.

The agreement provides for monitoring and inspections that will ensure that this material will never again be used for weapons or any other military purpose. By using civil nuclear reactors to dispose of the plutonium, we gain an added benefit – to produce electricity for our people, even as we remove a potential serious danger.

During the meeting President Obama and Hu underscored their agreement that Iran must meet its international nuclear non-proliferation obligations.  The two Presidents agreed to instruct their delegations to work with the P5-plus-1 and U.N. Security Council representatives on a sanctions resolution.  The resolution will make clear to Iran the costs of pursuing a nuclear program that violates Iran’s obligations and responsibilities. The discussion was as [sic] sign of international unity on Iran.  The Chinese are actively at the table in New York in discussions with Ambassador Rice, as well as the other (inaudible) the P5-plus-1.  The meeting today is another sign of international unity on this issue.  It’s also I think a strong indication of the way in which the U.S. and China are working together in a positive way on Iran and other issues.

Bader wouldn’t specify the substance of the Chinese commitment on the sanctions resolution. But what the Obama administration has been looking for is a clear indication from the Chinese, who hold veto power at the United Nations Security Council, that they’ll work on a resolution with Obama, and here it is. The New York Times helpfully adds the caveat that the Chinese agreed to comparable steps during the last administration. But back then the Chinese had the support of Russia for essentially protecting Iran, and this time around, the Russians are on board with the U.S.-French-British effort. The question now is whether China will want to be isolated among the veto-wielding Security Council members in again protecting the Iranian leadership from economic sanctions.

The White House has indicated that the full treaty will be completed and submitted to the Senate in early May.  I plan to begin hearings on the treaty in the coming weeks, and then report a proposed resolution of advice and consent to ratification out of the Foreign Relations Committee for approval by the full Senate as soon as possible.

Well, now you can answer all these questions to your satisfaction.