The fiscal 1999 foreign aid spending bill also provides $12.6 billion for US aid programmes around the world, a slight cut from this year and an amount the White House has said is inadequate to meet US foreign policy commitments. Clinton's senior advisers would recommend he veto the bill, the Office of Management and Budget said in its official policy statement.

No challenge to the IMF funding was expected before the Senate takes its final vote on the legislation late Tuesday or Wednesday, shifting the battleground to the House where a companion bill includes only $3.4 billion for the agency.

In a letter to House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, US treasury secretary Robert Rubin urged Congress to quickly approve the IMF funding package, saying: ``We simply cannot afford any furtherdelay.''

Several lawmakers also spoke out on Tuesday in favour of the IMF, a day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its second biggest drop ever.

``At worst the crisis could trigger a new round of contagion, sending Western stock markets crashing and the world into recession,'' Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, told lawmakers, urging them to act.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who oversees foreign aid spending, said he had become a convert to the administration's position on the IMF given the economic turmoil in Asia and Russia and the threat of similar problems in Latin America.

``While I was less concerned in the spring about the IMF's financial standing, I now believe the time has come for Congress to complete our commitment,'' he said during the debate.

In addition to full support of the IMF, the Senate bill sets out reforms in the management of the agency, which McConnell said will begin to shed some light on its policies and put it on soundfinancial footing.

The overall foreign aid provided is about half a billion dollars below last year's level, an amount which required cuts in many programmes.

``The amount in this bill is a pittance for a superpower that has important interests on every continent,'' Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said.

The largest share of the foreign aid, $2.1 billion, is set aside for military and economic assistance to Israel and Egypt as provided in the Camp David peace accords. This reflects a decision to impose a gradual, 10-year reduction on funds for the Middle East.

The Senate approved a resolution endorsing the United Nations Security Council proposal that two Libyan suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing be transferred to the Netherlands so they can stand trial before the Scottish court there. They urged Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to complete the transfer promptly, and if he does not comply, urged the administration to support a multilateral oil embargo on Libya.

The Senate isconsidering plans to reallocate $35 million in funds set aside for North Korea's nuclear energy programme to an anti-terrorism effort and to add nuclear weapons restrictions to the existing programme.

The legislation provides $740 million for former Soviet states including $210 million for Ukraine, $90 million for Armenia and $95 million for Georgia. Aid to Eastern Europe and the Baltics was set at $432.5 million with no more than $200 million to go to Bosnia.