The director of the Peace Corps on Tuesday announced he would step down after three years at the agency. 

Aaron Williams, 51, has come under intense criticism in recent years for allegedly failing to protect Peace Corps volunteers from sexual assault and even murder and for lacking a specific strategy. He cited personal and family considerations an announcing his resignation. 

Under Williams's tenure, the agency's press office said in a statement that the Peace Corps has hired a victim advocate and undergone “some of the most significant reforms in its more than 50-year history.”

These include putting in place an annual portfolio review to ensure its resources are well-spent, which has enabled the program to expand into new countries such as Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Colombia, Tunisia and Nepal. The agency has also increased its partnership efforts with the Special Olympics, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President's Malaria Initiative and Feed the Future.

A leading business coalition expects the House to take up a bill that would extend normal trade ties to Russia shortly after returning from the summer break. 

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) expects the House to hold a vote Sept. 12 on a bill that combines provisions providing permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to Russia with human-rights legislation.  

"If the House acts that early in September, there should be a good bit of momentum going forward in Senate," Bill Reinsch, NFTC's president told reporters Tuesday, on the eve of Russia joining the World Trade Organization. 

President Obama offered his condolences for the death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Tuesday while glossing over the longtime leader's human-rights record.

Meles, Ethiopia's leader since 1991 and its prime minister since 1995, oversaw explosive economic growth and was a steadfast U.S. ally in the war on terrorism who sent troops to battle Islamist militants in neighboring Somalia in 2006 and 2011. Critics, however, say he led one of Africa's most repressive governments, brutally cracking down on dissent even as the United States continues to give the country $1 billion in aid a year.

“Prime Minister Meles deserves recognition for his lifelong contribution to Ethiopia’s development, particularly his unyielding commitment to Ethiopia's poor,” Obama said in a statement. “I met with Prime Minister Meles at the G-8 Summit in May and recall my personal admiration for his desire to lift millions of Ethiopians out of poverty through his drive for food security. I am also grateful for Prime Minister Meles’s service for peace and security in Africa, his contributions to the African Union, and his voice for Africa on the world stage.”

Military leaders in Tehran publicly unveiled a raft of beefed-up missile and weapon systems on Tuesday, which the country claims are necessary to defend Iran's borders against growing threats in the region. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday reiterated his country's opposition to any external intervention in the Syrian conflict a day after President Obama warned that the United States could take action against President Bashar Assad's regime if it uses chemical weapons.

Russia and China are committed to "the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law...and not to allow their violation,” Lavrov said after meeting with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo in Moscow, Reuters reported. The two countries have vetoed United Nations sanctions against Syria three times.

Also speaking from Moscow, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil scoffed at Obama's threat.

"Direct military intervention in Syria is impossible because whoever thinks about it ... is heading towards a confrontation wider than Syria's borders," Jamil said, according to Reuters.

Republicans meeting in Tampa to draft the party's platform ahead of next week's convention voted Tuesday to continue endorsing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Washington Post reports.

Several of the 112 delegates to the Republican National Committee platform meeting offered amendments to strike the language that was in the 2008 platform, arguing that it undermines Israel. Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), an adviser to presidential candidate Mitt Romney on national security issues, however, urged the delegates to retain the language, as a two-state solution is Israel's own official policy.

“How do we express support for Israel if we offer an amendment that is pushing them in the direction of abandoning the policy they’ve chosen?” Talent said, according to the Post.

Read more...

King asked the Obama administration to look into attacks by Afghan soldiers and policemen against U.S. troops.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Ethiopia's longtime prime minister, Meles Zenawi, a close U.S. ally in the war against Islamist militants in Somalia with a checkered human-rights record, died late Monday, leaving the African country's future in doubt. [Associated Press]

Rebels in Syria say U.S. promises of communications aid have gone largely unfulfilled. [Washington Post]

The European Union is probing whether the sale of cigarettes to Syria by a Switzerland-based unit of Japan Tobacco Inc. violated sanctions against the country and helped fund Bashar Assad's crackdown on opponents. [Wall Street Journal]

In other news: 

Iraq rejects report it is helping Iran avoid sanctions [Reuters]

A Colombian police general pleaded guilty in U.S. court to aiding a right-wing terrorist group. [Wall Street Journal]

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Obama said Monday that commanders were committed to making the transition work and “not make our guys vulnerable.”