World News from the BBC
President Obama has appointed the first female head of the Secret Service after a
scandal
last year in which employees were accused of hiring prostitutes ahead of a presidential visit to Colombia. Julia Pierson has been with the
agency
which looks after the president’s
personal
security for about three decades. She replaces Mark Sullivan who resigned last month after apologizing for the scandal.
The United States says it takes the latest threat by North Korea to strike U.S. bases in the Pacific very seriously. A Pentagon spokesman George Little said that Washington was ready to respond to any contingency and urged North Korea to stop making threats. He said the behavior of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was predictable and damaging to its own interests.
“The DPRK will achieve nothing by these threats of provocations which will only further
isolate
North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”
The North Korean high command said earlier it was placing its long-range artillery and
strategic
rocket forces on high alert to launch a possible attack on U.S. bases in the Pacific region.
The Brazilian Senate is debating a bill which if approved would for the first time give domestic servants the same rights as other workers in the country. The reform seeks to limit the working hours of housemaids and cooks in Brazil to eight hours a day and 44 hours a week. The constitutional amendment has already been approved by the Lower House.