Wednesday's global agenda: Congress wraps up, honors Burma's Suu Kyi

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Congress returns for one final week with a busy agenda.

The highlight of the day comes when House and Senate leaders honor Burma's opposition leader and Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, with the Congressional Gold Medal at the Capitol Rotunda. Former first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be on hand for the celebration.

Also on the Hill: Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) Foreign Relations Committee kicks things off this morning with a nomination hearing for Robert Stephen Beecroft, President Obama's pick to be ambassador to Iraq. Beecroft was picked last week after Obama's first choice, Brett McGurk, imploded over a sex scandal.

The committee reconvenes in the afternoon with one last business meeting to clear no fewer than 10 pending bills and resolutions, including an Africa trade bill (S. 2215) that seeks to increase exports of U.S. goods and services to Africa by 200 percent over a decade. The panel will also clear the nominations of ambassadors to Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Burundi and Poland.

Also, the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Africa subcommittee holds a hearing in the morning on Rwanda's involvement in the insurgency racking next-door Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

In other news: 

A team of FBI agents has arrived in Libya to investigate the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens. [The Washington Post]

U.S., NATO scale back joint operations with local forces in Afghanistan [The Hill]

China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that he wants to advance ties with the United States on Wednesday during his first meeting with a foreign official since vanishing from the public eye nearly two weeks ago. [Reuters]

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White House: Romney remarks on peace process showed 'opposite of leadership'

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Egypt to try US citizen, seven others over anti-Islam video

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