Joe Biden

Yellen, a 74-year-old economist, will also be the first person to have served as Treasury Secretary, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Chair of the Federal Reserve after the Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 84-15 on Monday.

The executive order "sets the policy that all Americans who are qualified to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States should be able to serve," the White House said in a statement. "President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America's strength is found in its diversity," the statement said.

Qureshi said that Pakistan, under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, hopes to engage with the new US administration with a "new approach and new guidelines". Qureshi reminded that he has written a letter to the incoming US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and had updated him about Pakistan's progression and trajectory of its current policies for the future.

This was the first phone call between the two leaders since Biden's inauguration as the 46th US President on January 20. Taking to Twitter on Friday night, Johnson said: "Great to speak to President Joe Biden this evening. I look forward to deepening the longstanding alliance between our two countries as we drive a green and sustainable recovery from Covid-19."

He added that Iran has "realistic" demands from Biden's administration, which are "lifting of sanctions" by Washington and its returning to the nuclear deal. Former US President Donald Trump had unilaterally withdrawn the country from the JCPOA in May 2018. As a result of the US' unilateral exit, Iran has surpassed JCPOA-stipulated limits on its uranium enrichment level and on its stockpiles of heavy water and low-enriched uranium.

After a four-year unusual exception of President Donald Trump, they feel Biden will continue a decades-old practice of the deep and enduring affinity between Americans and Tibetans that has been followed religiously by American presidents by extending an invitation to the Buddhist monk in the Oval Office, generally reserved for visiting heads of state, as the pandemic subsides.

Sullivan said that the US would assess "whether the Taliban was living up to its commitments to cut ties with terrorist groups, to reduce violence in Afghanistan, and to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government and other stakeholders".

With the signing of one of the executive orders, the Department of Agriculture will consider taking immediate steps to make it easier for the hardest hit families to enrol and claim more generous benefits in the critical food and nutrition assistance areas, he said.

"Russia stands in favour of the preservation of the New START and for the extension of this treaty, where a time lag could be used for conducting appropriate negotiations," Xinhua news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Friday. It is significant to take each other's concerns into consideration, Peskov said.

The Senate panel approved Yellen's nomination by a vote of 26-0, sending it to the full Senate for final confirmation, the Xinhua news agency reported. "I hope that President Biden realises that the treatment of Dr. Yellen's nomination in this Committee signals interest by me and my Republican colleagues in working cooperatively and in a bipartisan way," Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said.