WASHINGTON - VICE President-elect Joe Biden will oversee a task force that will make recommendations on how to build the ranks of the middle class, that ambiguously defined segment of society in which most Americans identify themselves.

BAGHDAD - IRAQI Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday that it is for the courts to determine what action if any should be taken against the journalist who thew his shoes at US President George W. Bush.

KABUL - AFGHANISTAN on Sunday welcomed a US pledge to send up to 30,000 extra troops by mid-2009, but the Taleban warned Washington its forces would be 'cruelly defeated' as the Soviets were in the 1980s.