BAGHDAD  Dec. 4: Iraq’s three-member presidential council on Thursday approved a security pact with the United States that sets out a three-year time frame for the full withdrawal of American troops, a spokesman said. The panel’s approval was the final step for the agreement, which replaces a UN mandate that expires on Dec. 31.

It came one week after Iraq’s Parliament signed off on the deal following months of tough talks between US and Iraqi negotiators that at times seemed on the point of collapse, and then days of hardscrabble dealmaking between ethnic and sectarian groups. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his two deputies Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, and Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shia, signed the accord at their headquarters in Baghdad, council spokesman Nasser al-Ani said.

The agreement provides a legal basis for American troops in Iraq after the expiration of the UN mandate, but it includes the caveat that it should go before voters in a referendum to be held by the end of July.
Under the deal, US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 and the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012. Iraq also will gain strict oversight over the nearly 150,000 American troops, a step toward full sovereignty for Iraq and a shift from the sense of frustration that many Iraqis feel at the presence of American troops.

New York, Dec. 4: Indian national Jo-seph Palli-purath, who drove all across the US from California to New Jersey to kill his 24-year-old wife, has been brought to Georgia to face trial. Palliparuth, a native of Kerala, who was shackled as he was taken off the plane on Wednesday night, is expected to be arraigned on Friday. Twenty seven-year-old Palliparuth had confronted his wife Reshma James, 24, who was said to be trying to escape from an abusive relationship, shot her and two others in a church frequented by the Indians in New Jersey on November 23. The injured were identified as Dennis John Mallosseril, 25, who tried to intervene and Reshma’s cousin Silvy Perincheril, 47.

Reshma died four hours later, Mallosseril next day and Perincheril is lying in coma in the hospital. They were married in India about a year ago and then moved to California. Pallipurath, the police said, drove from their home in Sacramento in California on the West Coast to New Jersey on the east coast to confront his wife who had left him and was staying with one of her relatives. She had obtained a court order restraining him to come near her. The police said he would undergo psychological evaluation.

Washington, Dec. 4: A member of an Islamic jiha-dist forum has urged supporters to wage a “YouTube Invasion” by uploading propaganda videos to the popular video-sharing website. The Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service, reported late on Tuesday that the call was made last week by a member of Al Faloja, a password-protected jihadist forum, using the name Omar Abdul Hakim.

Noting that the Google-owned website was watched by millions and even used by the US President-elect,  Mr Barack Obama, Hakim said jihadists should use YouTube “to shame the Crusaders by publishing clips of videos showing their losses.” “The members of YouTube number in the thousands of millions, and most of them are the filthiest and most dangerous people on earth,” Hakim wrote. “Brothers, let us go to work and invade. I ask you, by Allah, as soon as you read this subject, to start recording on YouTube, and to start cutting and uploading and posting clips on the jihadist, Islamic, and general forums.”

The forum member included step-by-step instructions on how to post videos on YouTube and what software to use to cut clips into 10-minute sequences.  Islamic militant groups have used the Internet for some time as a propaganda window and for communications and a draft US Army intelligence report warned recently of the dangers of the micro-blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool.  In its “community guidelines,” YouTube says it seeks to “encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” but it prohibits videos featuring graphic violence or hate speech.

New York, Dec. 4: Top fashion desi-gners are lining up to help Michelle Ob-ama decide what to wear when she becomes First Lady on inauguration day in January. Industry watcher Women’s Wear Daily published 34 sketches on Wednesday by designers including Marc Jacobs, Diane von Furstenberg, Christian Lacroix and Karl Lagerfeld, artist director at French luxury powerhouse Chanel. These range from jacket-skirt combinations for when she attends her husband President-elect Barack Obama’s outdoor swearing-in ceremony on January 20 to glamorous gowns for the evening ball.

Oscar de la Renta even sketches dresses for daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven. “There’s been heated debate in the last two weeks over what the lovely Mrs O should wear to the inaugural ball in January ... but before she goes to the ball, there’s the inauguration ceremony itself to consider,” Women’s Wear Daily said. Inspite of the variety it’s not an easy choice, for Ms Obama.  Not only will the world’s eyes be on Ms Obama, but the chilly winter in Washington is hardly conducive to dressing up. “As anyone who’s ever been to a winter wedding knows, dressing for formal events in the cold is tricky. As well as a great outfit, you need a killer coat,” Women’s Wear Daily said.

Miami, Dec. 4: When a man sounding remarkably like President-elect Barack Obama called a Florida Congresswoman, she assumed it was a hoax. So Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reports, this was no prank. “I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,” Ms Ros-Lehtinen said.  “They got Fidel Castro to go along. They’ve gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, “Oh, no, I won’t be punked.”  Mr Obama congratulated her on her re-election, saying he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House foreign affairs committee, Ms Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper.