New York  - An investment advisor who allegedly steered his clients' money to Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme was charged with fraud on Monday.

J Ezra Merkin invested more than 2.4 billion dollars of his clients' money with Madoff, who pleaded guilty last month to the 50- billion-dollar scheme in which funds from new investors were used to pay off earlier ones.

New York - IBM's takeover bid for Sun Microsystems collapsed over the weekend on disagreements over price and conditions of the deal, Bloomberg financial news agency reported Monday.

After Sun's board broke off the talks, IBM withdrew its offer, according to an unnamed person close to the deal cited by Bloomberg.

Sun balked not only over the price, but also over the absence of guarantees that the deal would go forward even if there were delays such as an antitrust review, the source said.

Washington - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Monday announced a major shift in the Pentagon's spending priorities, cutting some expensive Cold War-era weapons programmes and boosting spending that would aid the country's battle against terrorism.

Gates said the decisions drew heavily on lessons learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and represented a shift away from conventional warfare, as well as futuristic military projects where the technology was not yet proven.

New York  - Ford Motor Company said Monday it had trimmed its debts by 38 per cent in a massive effort to keep the car maker from seeking government aid to survive.

Ford, the only US carmaker not to have received government funds, has reduced its debt by 9.9 billion dollars through agreements with creditors. It offered last month to pay creditors discounted amounts using 2.4 billion dollars in cash and 468 million shares of stock.

The debt reduction will save Ford 500 million dollars in interest each year, the company said.

Washington - A US judge on Monday cleared the way for John Demjanjuk, a war-crimes suspect from the Nazi era, to be deported to Germany.

The US Immigration Court in Arlington, Virginia, lifted a stay on the deportation that it had issued Friday.

The court declaration means Demjanjuk could be deported as early as Wednesday, but his lawyers were expected to seek a further stay.

Washington/Zurich - Four key central banks agreed on Monday to provide foreign currency to the Federal Reserve should it need to pump liquidity into financial institutions, many of which are in danger of collapse due to a lack of capital.

Should the need arise, the Fed would be able to access up to 285 billion dollars in euro, yen, sterling and Swiss francs through the new swap agreements, which come on top of previous commitments with the European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank.