A top Senate Republican is calling on the Obama administration to outline its position on China's currency before the next round of talks on an Asia-Pacific trade agreement later this year. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday to provide the Obama administration’s position on Chinese currency manipulation before the next round of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations begin in December. 

"Unfortunately, rather than comply with the statutory mandate, you announced on Friday, Oct. 12, that the issuance of the report will once again be delayed,” Hatch wrote in the letter to Geithner. 

The State Department on Thursday began live-streaming its daily press briefings on the Internet, giving people around the world a chance to see where the U.S. government stands on global issues in real time.

"We are finally in the 21st century here," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced Thursday. "Starting today, the State Department will stream the daily press briefing live on www.state.gov, which maybe will encourage some of you to watch it in your offices and I’ll have less people in the room – no."

The press briefings are usually held around noon. Interested viewers can find out the time for the weekday briefings by subscribing to the daily schedule here. Transcripts and a video recording of the briefing, which is available several hours after the briefing ends, here. 

Senate hawk Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is doubling down on his theory that the Obama administration deliberately hid the truth about the attack in Libya that left four Americans dead even as the accuracy of that assertion is increasingly in doubt.

Graham, a longtime critic of Obama's foreign policy, has become the most vocal proponent of the theory that Obama tied the attack to anger over an anti-Islam video so he could look strong on national security. The issue of who knew what when has become an issue in the presidential race, with the Obama campaign now saying the president called the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate in Benghazi an “act of terror” from the beginning but continued to tie it to the video based on his intelligence team's initial assessment.

“The video had nothing to do with this because there was never a mob,” Graham told Fox News on Wednesday night. “If it's a riot based on a video that's spontaneous, they have a lot less blame. And I'd be the first to say that if this was a mob generated by video, that's a different national security threat, harder to plan for. So they wanted us to believe that.”

Reporters on the ground in Libya paint a more nuanced picture, however. Both The New York Times and Bloomberg reported this week that numerous witnesses to the attacks — and the attackers themselves — similarly describe a hastily organized strike, without any warning or protest, by well-known local Islamic militants infuriated by a U.S.-made anti-Islam video that had sparked violent protests in neighboring Egypt hours earlier.

She said administration officials were given "speaking points" by intelligence adviser James Clapper in the immediate aftermath.

The Afghan president said his government will be "happy" to take over security if coalition leaves before end of 2014.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make the case Thursday that “energy diplomacy” is central to U.S. foreign policy.

The Wall Street Journal got a look at the speech that Clinton will give Thursday afternoon at Georgetown University.

“Today, energy cuts across the entirety of U.S. foreign policy. It is a matter of national security and global stability. It is at the heart of the global economy. It's an issue of democracy and human rights,” Clinton intends to say, the paper reported. “It has been a top concern of mine as secretary. And it is sure to be the same for the next secretary of State.”

Clinton is “expected to stress the role that U.S. energy production, coupled with U.S. diplomatic efforts, has played in ratcheting up sanctions on Iran,” the Journal reports.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

A newly released Congressional Research Service report on sanctions in Iran says they have so far failed to stop the country's quest for a nuclear weapon, raising new doubts about President Obama's approach. The report comes as the European Union is set to decide today whether to send a delegation to Iran, a trip strongly opposed by U.S. lawmakers and Israel.

Energy diplomacy: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to map out a plan for making energy a centerpiece of U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy during a speech at Georgetown today. [The Wall Street Journal] 

Next week's debate on foreign policy will give each candidate a final chance to shape opinion on the Benghazi attack.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday strongly urged their European Union counterparts to nix a planned trip to Iran, saying it would send “the wrong message at this particularly sensitive time.”

“As you know, we strongly support increased ties between the United States Senate and the European Parliament, and we believe it is critical that we work together to present a strong, united front in our efforts regarding Iran at this critical juncture,” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) wrote in a letter to European Parliament President Martin Schulz. “With these concerns in mind, we respectfully ask that the delegation reconsiders its visit and that you do what you can to indefinitely postpone this ill-advised trip to Iran at this sensitive time.”

Fourteen members of the European Parliament are planning an annual trip to Iran later this month. The Conference of Presidents of the EU Council is expected to decide whether to approve the seven-day trip on Thursday.

The visit is organized by the parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iran, which bills itself as seeking to build bridges between Europe and Iran. The trip is controversial within the European Union itself, with European Parliament Vice President Alejo Vidal-Quadras calling it “extremely counterproductive” on Tuesday, one day after the EU slapped tough new sanctions on Iran to curtail its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Israel also objected to the visit on Tuesday, according to a report by Kol Yisrael radio.