News In Brief

In a new round of layoffs, Motorola said it will eliminate 7,000 jobs from its cellphone division to cut costs in a slowing sales environment. Last month, the Schaumburg, Ill.-based high-tech giant announced it would cut as many as 4,000 jobs from its semiconductor business.

Tyco International said it will pay $9.2 billion for CIT Group Inc., the world's largest publicly held commercial finance company. Tyco, which is based in Bermuda but maintains operational headquarters in Exeter, N.H., has aggressively used acquisitions to spur growth. It controls more than 200 businesses in five industry segments, among them electronics and healthcare. CIT Group is based in New York.

The $742 million American Airlines bid for the assets of Trans World Airlines was approved by a federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del. American, which also will assume $3.5 billion in debt, said the TWA name will disappear as the nation's longest-flying airline. American also said it expects to offer jobs to most of TWA's 20,000 workers and could close the sale by early April.

In chain-reaction style, financial markets across Asia were reeling from Monday's sharp losses on Wall Street. Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index closed Tuesday at 11,819.70, its lowest level since Jan. 28, 1985, after plunging to 11,710.33 early in the day. Selling pressure was heaviest on high-tech stocks. Seoul's Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 3.13 percent. In India, the Bombay Sensex dropped to a 22-month low, closing down 6.03 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 283 points, or 2.06 percent. Singapore's Straits Times index sank below the symbolically important level of 1800, dropping 2.8 percent to its lowest close in nine months. Markets in Australia and Malaysia also fell.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor