UN approves renewed debate on arms treaty

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to restart negotiations on a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global trade in conventional arms, a pact the powerful US National Rifle Association has been lobbying hard against.

UN delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because US President Barack Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the Nov 6 election if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge US officials have denied.

The NRA, which has come under intense criticism for its reaction to the Dec 15 shooting massacre of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, opposes the idea of an arms trade treaty and has pressured Obama to reject it.