IBT Staff Reporter

Talk of a future for bankrupt Saab, maker of quirky Swedish sedans that once dazzled car enthusiasts worldwide, is little more than a pipe dream, industry analysts say.

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and smartphones, reported a record quarterly profit on Friday, aided by one-off gains and best-ever sales of high-end phones.

A rating downgrade on Friday left Hungary's debt rated junk across the board, underscoring investors' doubts about the government's willingness to change its controversial policies in return for aid to stave off a financial crisis.

LG Electronics Inc said on Friday it would unveil its first Google TV next week, joining Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co in partnering with the search giant to get a foothold in the emerging Internet TV market.

Best Buy Co stood by its profit outlook for the financial year despite a 1.2 percent same-store sales decline in the key selling month of December, allaying some concerns that all its holiday sales were driven by profit-sapping discounts.

Volunteers working at the London Olympics have been warned not to give away breaking news about athletes or disclose the location of politicians and celebrities through online comments or pictures posted on social media sites.

Employment grew solidly last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, offering the strongest evidence yet of an acceleration in economic activity.

Israeli officials said on Friday they were concerned the country may be under cyber attack after a wave of credit card code thefts in the past week by a hacker who claims to be operating out of Saudi Arabia.

The indictment of three Swiss bankers employed by Switzerland's oldest private bank sheds light on an obscure corner of hidden offshore wealth: the relationships some smaller banks have with bigger banks for moving clients' money around the world.

Stocks, commodity prices and the dollar moved higher on Friday while safe-haven government bonds fell after better-than-expected U.S. jobs data for December confirmed the recovery in the world's biggest economy is strengthening.

Corporate America's worst nightmare lives in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, loves browsing in flea markets and has a lop-eared brown and white pet rabbit named Crackers.

Claims against Porsche and Volkswagen filed with a German court have reached 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion), the court said, as compensation demands pile up for allegedly holding back crucial information from shareholders.

Employment grew solidly last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, offering the strongest evidence yet of an acceleration in economic activity.

A collapse of the euro and break-up of the European Union would have catastrophic consequences for the global financial system, billionaire investor George Soros was quoted as saying.

Japan's Seven & I Holdings posted a rise in third-quarter profit on Friday as convenience store sales stayed strong, but rival Aeon Co's earnings undershot strong year-earlier results, as retailers worry that profit growth could stall.

The ousted British CEO of disgraced Olympus Corp, who blew the whistle on a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, dropped his bid to return to lead the medical device maker, blaming cozy ties between its management and big Japanese shareholders and saying the saga had taken its toll on his family.

The euro zone's economy deepened its downturn at the end of 2011 as retail sales fell and sentiment soured, but the first improvement in the business climate in 10 months offered hope that an expected recession may be mild.

European Central Bank policymaker Athanasios Orphanides called for Eurozone leaders to abandon plans to make private sector investors help reduce Greece's debts - a move likely to get little traction with the currency bloc's paymaster, Germany.

Stocks firmed on Friday on hopes that U.S. jobs data due later in the day will show a stronger outlook for the world's biggest economy, but the euro hit a 16-month low on worries over the region's economic health and further debt sales due next week.

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp recorded a worse-than-expected yearly profit decline in the fourth quarter, and the first decline in two years, as its models scrambled to compete with Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy range.

The Eurozone's economy deepened its downturn at the end of 2011 as retail sales fell and sentiment soured, but the first improvement in the business climate in 10 months offered hope that an expected recession may be mild.

The euro is likely to survive 2012 despite the debt crisis in the euro currency zone, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Friday.

Japanese retailer Aeon Co <8267.T> posted a 9 percent rise in nine-month operating profit, helped by cost cuts, the merging of several separate general merchandise store chains and increased sales of higher-margin store brand goods.

Japan's top retailer, Seven & I Holdings <3382.T>, posted a 23 percent rise in operating profit for the first nine months of the business year as customer visits to its convenience stores rose and reconstruction efforts boosted sales at its supermarkets in quake-hit areas.

A monthly gauge of online labor demand in the United States fell in December, but was still up 8.0 percent from a year ago, a private research group said on Friday.

LG Electronics Inc said on Friday it would unveil its first Google TV next week, joining Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co in partnering with the search giant to get a foothold in the emerging Internet TV market.

The American Economic Association, the world's largest association of economists, on Thursday beefed up disclosure guidelines on the potential conflicts of interest of authors who publish work in the group's journals.

MF Global's bankruptcy trustee, Louis Freeh, has refused to turn over some documents to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission , which is investigating what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer funds, the Wall Street Journal said.

U.S. employment likely grew solidly last month, but the jobless rate probably rose from a 2-1/2 year low as improving conditions lured some Americans who had given up looking for work back into the labor market.