Washington  - The Obama administration Tuesday launched an all-out effort to stabilize the financial sector with a plan to inject up to 2 trillion dollars into the system through new government guarantees, lending and harnessing private capital.

The moves are designed to keep banks afloat, restore credit availability to US consumers and help homeowners and small businesses, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in Washington as he announced the multi-pronged approach aimed at pulling the US out of its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for a summit of world leaders to discuss efforts to complete a new Kyoto Protocol by year's end.

The high level conference will take place on the fringes of the annual UN General Assembly session in September, which will be attended by government leaders of all 192 UN members.

"Reaching a new climate agreement this year will require direct involvement of world leaders," Ban said. "I have been consulting actively about the best way to engage them."

Washington  - General Motors Corp, the largest US automaker, Tuesday unveiled plans to eliminate 10,000 salaried jobs around the world and cut pay by up to 10 per cent in an effort to prove to Washington it is a viable company.

The company is trying to hang on to 13.4 billion dollars in government loans, which could be withdrawn if GM does not come up with a survival plan.

About 3,400 of 29,500 US salaried workers are to be dismissed by May, the Detroit-based automaker said in a statement, Bloomberg financial news reported.

Los Angeles  - Controversy grew Tuesday about Nadya Suleman, the single mother of octuplets who now has 14 children under the age of 8.

Though Suleman has claimed she is able to support her huge brood and did not take welfare payments, reports said that she received food stamps for her six older children and social security payments for three children with disabilities.

Suleman also told NBC that she had no income besides student loans and that she paid over 100,000 dollars of her own money to get the fertility treatment that led to the octuplets.

Washington  - As the Obama administration prepared to unveil the next boost for the US financial system on Tuesday, the government has already spent about 300 billion dollars under past president George W Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP).

The second half of the 700-billion-dollar TARP plan is at the disposal of President Barack Obama, and was to be included in Tuesday's announcement by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

To date, the following money has been spent on stabilizing the finance system and loosening credit:

New York, Feb 10: Actor Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend Israeli model Bar Refaeli missed being on the cover of last year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue as she was not able to keep mum about it.

Refaeli will definitely be one of the girls aiming to be on the cover of this year's issue, as will Aussie model Jessica Hart.

"If she can keep her mouth shut. It''s very secretive, and the magazine likes to keep people guessing. Last year, she opened her mouth about it, so they gave the cover to Marissa Miller instead," the New York Post quoted insiders as saying of Refaeli.