U.S. consular offices in China have processed 1 million visa applications so far this year, the State Department announced, a 43 percent increase over the same time period last year.

The news comes as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) this week lifted his hold on legislation that would eliminate per-country caps on immigrant visas, which is expected to further boost the number of visitors from China and India. The bill is now expected to pass in the Senate after clearing the House over opposition from some smaller countries that their citizens will lose out because the two Asian giants will scoop up an ever-growing percentage of the total number of visas issued.

“The accomplishments announced today reflect the Obama Administration’s commitment towards increasing U.S. jobs by encouraging more people to visit our country,” the State Department said in a statement.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travels to Egypt this weekend to meet with President Mohammed Morsi in what some observers see as a last-ditch effort to salvage the decades-long relationship between the two countries. Clinton will be the highest-level U.S. official to have met with the Muslim Brotherhood member, who is expected to meet with President Obama on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Clinton is expected to press Morsi on the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the backbone of U.S. support for the country. Already, 35 Republican lawmakers have written to House leaders urging them to withhold all U.S. aid to the Egyptian government until its new Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president agrees to abide by “Egypt’s treaties, promote peace with Israel and continue to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” the conservative Washington Free Beacon reports.

Following her trip to Egypt, Clinton will travel to Israel on the heels of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Dialogue, her first visit there in two years. The trip is seen as being as much about domestic U.S. politics prior to the November elections as about foreign policy.

Comments from senators Thursday signal the fate of the treaty in the Senate might remain more up in the air.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) ripped into Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) on Thursday for holding up legislation to protect religious minorities that has bipartisan support.

Wolf's bill to create a special envoy to promote religious freedom of religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia despite the State Department's objection sailed through the House on a 402-20 vote one year ago and has been lingering in the Senate since January. After hitting an impasse with Webb, the co-chairman of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission publicly castigated him by publicly sharing a letter he'd sent to the senator Wednesday night.

“I learned several months ago that you had a hold on the legislation, and were blocking it from moving forward. I cannot understand why. More importantly, I would venture that the Coptic Christians, Baha’is, Chaldo-Assyrians, Ahmadis, small remaining Jewish population and countless other religious minorities throughout the Middle East and South Central Asia who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death would be hard-pressed to see your objection to this straight-forward, bipartisan legislation,” Wolf wrote in the letter. 

Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns's decision on Thursday to oppose ratification of the controversial Law of the Sea Treaty has brought opponents of the international pact three votes away from scuttling the White House-backed deal. 

Johanns was the 31st senator to sign a letter against ratification of the global maritime deal sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) earlier this year. 

The Obama administration is ramping up sanctions aimed at cracking down on Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

The Treasury Department announced Thursday that it was assigning fresh financial sanctions to 11 entities and four individuals, including an Austrian national. The Treasury said the parties are tied to the proliferation program through Iran's Revolutionary Guard, national shipping line and defense ministry, as well as a university.

The move marks the latest escalation by the United States in its efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear and missile development programs.

"Iran today is under intense, multilateral sanctions pressure, and we will continue to ratchet up the pressure so long as Iran refuses to address the international community’s well-founded concerns about its nuclear program,” said David S. Cohen, the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. 

President Obama on Thursday authorized the release of up to $10 million in emergency aid to help deal with the worsening refugee crisis in the West African nation of Mali.

Almost 400,000 people from the northern half of the country have been internally displaced or sought refuge in neighboring countries following an insurgency by Islamists and semi-nomadic Tuareg tribesmen that has cleaved the country in two. In a statement Thursday, the White House said it was authorizing the release of the funds to help respond to “the unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs resulting from the conflict in northern Mali."

“The emergency funds will be used to support the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide lifesaving protection and assistance to those fleeing the conflict,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “Currently, almost 230,000 Malian refugees have fled to Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, while an additional 155,000 Malians are internally displaced.”

The Senate majority leader said U.S. athletes would be better off wearing crude singlets made in America.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) released a staff report Thursday urging Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to reform the country's justice system and police forces in order to reduce drug-related violence. Read more...