New York - US manufacturer 3M overcame the economic slowdown in its home market with strong international sales in the third quarter, the company said Tuesday.

Profits rose 3 per cent over the year earlier period to 991 million dollars, the St Paul, Minnesota maker of products like Post It notes and Scotch tape said. Revenue rose more than 6 per cent to
6.6 billion dollars.

The earnings were above analysts' expectations, but the company warned profits for the year could still fall below predictions as the economic downturn spreads worldwide.

San Francisco - Yahoo Inc was to announce at least 1,000 job cuts, possibly as early as Tuesday when it releases its quarterly earnings report, two newspapers reported.

The job cuts would be at least as many as the 1,000 jobs axed in January by the internet portal, which is struggling to compete with Google Inc for online advertising dollars, The Wall Street Journal and California's San Jose Mercury News reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Taipei - Taiwan's Fubon Financial Holding, the island's second-largest financial group, Monday said it would buy the Taiwanese life insurance unit of Dutch banking giant ING Life Insurance.

"The acquisition will cost 600 million US dollars and we all believe it is a great deal for both Fubon Financial and ING in terms of business strategy and financial decision," Fubon president Victor Kung said.

Tokyo - Stock markets across Asia see-sawed Friday between small gains and losses, as investors reacted to mixed signals from Asia's economies, with most markets ending the week down, not able to recover from the earlier plunge.

   Countering the trend, Tokyo stocks climbed Friday after an overnight surge on Wall Street to end trading up almost 3 per cent as investors bought back shares battered by the previous day's losses.

   The Nikkei 225 Stock Average jumped 235.37 points, or 2.78 per cent, to close at 8,693.82. Tokyo's broader Topix index of all first-section issues also gained 29.77 points, or 3.44 per cent, to 894.29.

   The recovery came after Japan's benchmark index plunged 11.41 per cent Thursday.

Riga/Tallinn - The most valuable company in Estonia is the local subsidiary of Swedish bank Swedbank, according to a new list of the Baltic nation's top 100 businesses issued October 17.

Hansapank, recently rebranded to match the Swedbank name of its parent company, is worth 71.7 billion Estonian kroons (5.6 billion euros) according to the annual GILD100 rankings produced by Tallinn- based investment house GILD Bankers.

Second place was taken by electricity generator Eesti Energia, worth 1.6 billion euros, with another Scandinavian-owned bank, SEB, in third place with a market value of 1.2 billion euros.

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities have ordered the South Korean-owned Miwon condiment company to suspend operations at one of its production lines for discharging pollution into the Red River north of Hanoi, provincial officials said Friday.

Miwon Vietnam, which makes about 30,000 tons of soy sauce and other condiments per year, is the second foreign company punished by Vietnamese authorities for environmental violations in the past two months.