New York - Months after increasing his stake in Ford Motor Company, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is pulling back from the suffering automaker.

His Tracinda Corp sold 7.3 million shares of Ford stock on Monday for 2.43 dollars each, he had purchased the shares for 8.50 dollars earlier this year. Tracinda is also considering unloading its remaining 133 million shares.

The move comes days after Kerkorian had put 50 million shares of his MGM Mirage casino behind the 600-million-dollar credit line he had used to buy Ford stock, Bloomberg financial news reported.

Baghdad  - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said that the security pact with the US, also known as Status of Forces Agreement, is unlikely to win approval in Iraq's parliament before the US presidential election on November 4.

The pact would lay down the legal basis for a continued US military presence in Iraq after a UN mandate expires in December

Zebari told al-Arabiya satellite news station Tuesday that Iraq still hoped to enact the pact before the end of this year, when the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the US presence expires. But he acknowledged difficulties reaching agreement among Iraqi political leaders.

Vienna/Paris  - Air France-KLM has dropped its bid for Austrian Airlines AG, a spokesman said in Paris on Tuesday.

With the French-Dutch airline out of the race for buying the 42.75-per-cent stake of the Austrian flag carrier currently owned by the state, German Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Russian carrier S7 are likely the only other contenders.

However, Air France-KLM had informed Austrian Airlines that it was interested in continuing talks, the spokesman said.

Earlier, Air France-KLM had complained about the high price and a lack of transparency regarding the Austrian company's books.