The involvement of the congressional Republicans' top inquisitor all but guarantees further headaches for the Obama administration.

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) called for democracies on Tuesday to demand a free and fair election in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s presidential election will take place this Sunday, between a young opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, and socialist President Hugo Chávez.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that Taiwanese travelers have been approved for visa-free travel to the United States.

The country joins 36 participants in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which permits visa-free travel to the United States for eligible travelers visiting the United States for 90 days or fewer for business or tourism. Visitors traveling under the program accounted for 18.3 million visits to the United States last year, according to the Homeland Security Department, or more than 60 percent of tourist and business travelers entering the United States by air.

“Today’s announcement is a major step forward in our long-standing economic partnership with Taiwan,” Napolitano said in a statement. “Taiwan’s participation in the VWP will not only stimulate tourism in the United States, it will also enable us to work together to maintain the strictest security standards.”

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Two House Republicans say whistleblowers have revealed to them that the consulate in Libya was attacked and threatened 13 times.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will “cooperate fully” with a Republican probe into the security situation in Libya in the lead-up to the Sept. 11 attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, the Obama administration said Tuesday.

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jason Chafetz (R-Utah) wrote to Clinton on Tuesday requesting that she address whistleblower reports of previously undisclosed threats and attacks against the consulate in Benghazi. Their letter asks her to answer questions about security at the consulate and puts her on notice that Issa's powerful oversight panel is planning a hearing on the security situation for next Wednesday.

“The secretary intends to respond to the congressmen today,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at her daily briefing Tuesday.

Pentagon officials have opted to dump $1.7 million into continued security and counterterrorism training for Iraq's national security forces despite the austere fiscal outlook facing the department. 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) applauded Georgia's first democratic transition on Tuesday after monitoring the former Soviet republic's parliamentary elections.

The opposition Georgia Dream coalition, led by the country's richest man, beat the party of incumbent president and U.S. ally Mikheil Saakashvili after a bitter campaign. Saakashvili, whose term ends next year, has warned that opposition leader and soon-to-be prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili could take the country back into Russia's orbit after making his fortune in that country during the 1990s.

“As members of the United States Senate and two strong friends of Georgians everywhere, we obviously have no candidate in this race,” the senators said. “We look forward to working with all of Georgia’s leaders to deepen our bilateral ties and help further strengthen Georgia’s young and advancing democracy.”

The U.S. embassy in Tbilisi also praised the election's outcome and extended a hand to the victor.

“We congratulate President Saakashvili on presiding over another important stage in the maturing of Georgia’s democracy and on his statesmanlike handling of these events,” Ambassador Richard Norland said in a statement. “We congratulate Bidzina Ivanishvili on Georgian Dream’s successful performance. The United States encourages both sides to work together to continue to build a better future for all the people of Georgia.”

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Every day seems to raise new doubts about the Obama administration's initial public assessment of what happened in Libya on Sept. 11, giving Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans more ammo to attack the president's trustworthiness and competence on foreign policy matters. 

The latest revelation: Participants in the assault on the Benghazi consulate include militants freed during the Arab Spring uprisings, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that the White House for months has been holding secret meetings on whether to launch unilateral strikes on a resurgent al Qaeda in North Africa.

Romney and the GOP suggested politics was behind the administration’s slowness in acknowledging what had happened in Benghazi.