Berlin - Germany is likely to back the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, despite allegations against him, the news magazine Der Spiegel said Saturday.

A investigation by a law firm has been under way into claims that the French politician had an affair with a woman subordinate. Spiegel said the inquiry commissioned by the IMF had been completed.

Washington, Oct 20: The International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has welcomed South Korea's move to join international rescue efforts to ease pressures in the local dollar funding market.

"The announced guarantee of banks' external liabilities will bring Korea''s policies closer in line with advanced countries, including some in the region, and help ease pressures in the local dollar funding market," The News quoted Strauss-Kahn, as saying.

Paris - International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Sunday that his institute could serve as a kind of watchdog for the crisis-stricken world financial market.

In remarks published in the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche, Strauss-Kahn said the IMF could set the norms and keep watch on the markets.

Democracy demanded that each country must pass its own laws, he said, "but the general rules must apply universally because the financial system has been globalized."

Speaking of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn said: "We are in a position to define and to guarantee compromise and the common interest."