Briefly

UNITED STATES

Double firsts as Yellen sworn in

Janet Yellen was sworn in on Tuesday as the nation's 78th Treasury secretary and the first woman to hold the office. She was sworn in by Vice-President Kamala Harris, the first woman elected to the position, at a ceremony performed outside on the East Wing entrance to the White House in view of the department Yellen will now lead. Yellen's husband, George Akerlof, winner of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics, and their son Robert, also an economist, were present for the ceremony. Yellen, 74, on Monday became the third of President Joe Biden's Cabinet nominees to win Senate approval.

ISRAEL

Army chief sends US signal on Iran

Israel's top general said on Tuesday that its military was refreshing its operational plans against Iran and that any US return to a 2015 nuclear accord would be "wrong". The remarks are an apparent signal to US President Joe Biden to tread cautiously in any diplomatic engagement with Iran. Such comments by Israel's military chief of staff on US policymaking are rare. "A return to the 2015 nuclear agreement... is bad and wrong from an operational and strategic point of view," Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi said in an address to a think tank.

MOZAMBIQUE

250,000 affected by Cyclone Eloise

A tropical cyclone that pummeled central Mozambique last weekend has affected 250,000 people, a UN official said on Tuesday. Myrta Kaulard, the UN's resident coordinator in Mozambique, also said 18,000 people had been internally displaced after Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the early hours of Saturday, adding that 76 health centers had been damaged, as well as hundreds of school rooms.

Agencies - Xinhua