WASHINGTON - PRESIDENT Barack Obama cracks open the federal treasury on Monday to small businesses with plans for billions of dollars in government loans for the struggling sector that employs an estimated 70 per cent of American workers.

The program represents the next step in the administration's massive spending aimed at braking the economy's plunge, and it could blunt opposition Republican complaints that Mr Obama was doing to little to ease the pain of small businesses.

ST POELTEN (Austria) - AN AUSTRIAN man accused of fathering his daughter's seven children as he locked her in a basement for decades pleaded guilty to incest but insisted he was innocent of murder and enslavement charges as his trial opened on Monday.

Josef Fritzl hid his face behind a blue file folder as a judge began the proceedings under heavy security in St Poelten, 65 kilometres west of Vienna. Fritzl pleaded guilty to incest and false imprisonment, but only partially guilty to charges of coercion and rape. He pleaded not guilty to murder and enslavement.

ISLAMABAD - PAKISTAN pledged on Monday to restore its deposed top judge and end a crackdown on activists, caving in under mass protests to try to defuse a crisis that took the nation to the brink of chaos.

Main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif welcomed what he called an historic achievement and promptly called off a mass protest march that had been due to descend on the capital on Monday, averting widespread fears of unrest.

MADAM Amutha Valli Krishnan, 53, the woman who lost her suit in the 'exorcism case', has to pay costs of more than $372,000 for taking on the Novena Church.

She had unsuccessfully sued the church, two priests and six church goers for psychiatric ailments resulting from what she claimed was an exorcism ritual.