Washington - Scott McClellan, the former White House spokesman and once a close confidant of President George W Bush, has said he will vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on November 4.

McClellan, who has since fallen out with Bush after sharply criticizing the president in his memoirs this spring, said Obama was best placed to change the way Washington does business, according to excerpts of a CNN interview to be broadcast on Saturday.

McClellan served as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006. He had been a part of Bush's media team since his days as governor of Texas in the 1990s.

Reykjavik  - The government of Iceland said Friday it has reached an agreement with a visiting team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a 2-billion-dollar economic rescue plan.

The IMF team was to return to Washington to seek approval from the IMF's management, the government said. If approved, Reykjavik could immediately draw on 830 million dollars under the two-year arrangement.

New York - The international finance crisis claimed another US bank on Friday, as regional bank National City was taken over by rival PNC Financial Services, in a merger that will create the nation

Berlin - German railways company Deutsche Bahn said Friday it would idle the most modern type of its bullet trains, amid fears that the axles of the ICE T trains are cracking.

It blamed the major disruption in German passenger services beginning Saturday on the manufacturers of the swift electric trains.

The consortium of Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier refused to provide "reliable data" on the safety of the axles, said Bahn chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn.

A cracked axle was blamed earlier this year for a low-speed ICE derailment at Cologne station in which nobody was hurt.

Wiesbaden, Germany  - After months of political manoeuvring, a German Social Democratic (SPD) leader on Friday unveiled details of her legislative takeover bid in the central state of Hesse.

Andrea Ypsilanti said she would invite legislators to elect her as premier on November 4, leading a minority coalition government with the Greens and counting on the votes of the Left party.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) immediately accused Ypsilanti of breaking a pre-election promise not to ally with the Left, which embraces former East German communists and western leftists.