New York  - US bank Citigroup is to merge its brokerage unit, Smith Barney, with rival Morgan Stanley, the two firms said in New York on Tuesday.

Morgan Stanley will lead the new brokerage and will pay Citigroup 2.7 billion dollars in cash.

Citigroup has been hard hit by the financial crisis and has cut thousands of jobs, while its losses for the fiscal year could rise to more than 20 billion dollars when it announces quarterly numbers next week. It has received two cash infusions totalling 45 billion dollars from the government.

New York  - Major US stock indices turned in mixed results Tuesday.

Rising energy prices pushed oil stocks higher, and banks rose amid signs of easing credit markets.

Concerns about a looming slump in US corporate profits continued, though, weighing on some sectors of the stock market.

A survey of analysts by the Bloomberg financial news agency found an average estimate that profits at S&P 500 companies probably fell by 20 per cent in the October-December quarter.

Copiapo, Chile  - Race leader Carlos Sainz on Tuesday continued dominating the Dakar rally when he won the 10th stage that was overshadowed by an accident in which Spanish motorcyclist Cristobal Guerrero was seriously injured.

Sainz in his Touareg seems destined to give VW their first-ever Dakar victory as he has a 24:54 minute lead over American Mark Miller, who is also driving a Touareg.

South African Geniel de Villiers completed a successful day for the German car manufacturer as he ended the day in third place, 41:13 minutes behind.

Berlin  - Technical experts from Germany's federal police and interior ministry are to travel to Egypt in the coming days to help Egypt secure its border with the Gaza Strip, the state secretary in the ministry said late Tuesday.

August Hanning said the move would fulfill a request from the Egyptian government "to support securing Egypt's border area with German expertise."

San Francisco  - Stanford University is launching a 100- million-dollar energy institute to fund research into batteries, solar cells and other aspects of green energy.

The California university has spawned technologies that led to the formation of companies like Hewlett Packard and Google, and the new institute is expected to boost the ability of Silicon Valley to become a world leader in green energy. The tech region already boast a 500-million-dollar energy institute at the University of California at Berkeley.

Washington  - President-elect Barack Obama's pick for treasury secretary could face tough questions in his confirmation hearing after problems arose Tuesday with his taxes and the immigration status of his former housekeeper.

Timothy Geithner, who now heads the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, apparently briefly employed a housekeeper whose immigration papers had expired while she worked for him, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.