The three-way struggle to buy MCI finally looked at an end yesterday after WorldCom removed a key obstacle to a deal by paying British Telecom $7bn in cash for its stake in MCI. But the takeover of MCI by WorldCom leaves BT in serious need of a partner to fulfil its aim to be a global telecoms force. Sameena Ahmad reports.

In August 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast to the starving, atom- bombed and defeated Japanese nation: "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

British Telecom yesterday opened the way to start talks on the future of MCI, its US partner, with the two rival bidders seeking to buy the company.

British Telecom's remaining hopes of completing its merger with MCI, the US long-distance giant, appeared to have evaporated last night when a second rival bidder, GTE, looked set to throw its hat into the bidding ring. But as Chris Godsmark, Business Correspondent, explains, an approach by GTE could present BT with a new alliance opportunity.

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved the $25bn merger of Bell Atlantic Corporation and Nynex Corporation, sweeping away the last hurdle to the creation of the nation's second-biggest telephone company.

Two telephone Baby Bells, Bell Atlantic and Nynex, yesterday announced plans to combine forces in the biggest telecommunications merger ever seen in America. The deal, which still faces the scrutiny of shareholders and of federal and state-level regulators, would be worth almost $23bn (pounds 15bn), making it the second-biggest merger of any kind in US corporate history, after the 1989 takeover of RJR Nabisco by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for $26.4bn.

Consolidation in world telecommunications will gather pace today when Bell Atlantic and Nynex announce a pounds 33bn merger to create America's second-largest telephone company after AT&T, The combined market capitalisation is comparable to BT and Cable & Wireless which, it emerged yesterday, have set a deadline of a month to reach agreement on their own merger. According to one report, C&W is insisting that BT first settles its feud with Don Cruickshank, the telecoms regulator.

Golf

Danielle Robinson in New York looks at the M&A activity in the wake of recent deregulation in the US

Today, ripped-up streets; tomorrow, a dazzling array of interactive services. But nobody is sure what consumers want, or how best to provide it. Laurence Blackall reports

BELL ATLANTIC, the most aggressive of the US regional telephone companies, is to make a dollars 3.5bn restructuring charge and confirmed plans with Hollywood agent Mike Ovitz for a video network.

BELL Atlantic has been granted permission to use its telephone network to carry cable television signals into the homes of its customers, in a move seen as opening the way to fierce competition between existing cable operators and the regional telephone companies.

THE TWO regional telephone companies that service the US east coast agreed yesterday to merge their cellular operations, creating a dollars 13bn ( pounds 8.4bn) company that will rival AT&T's McCaw Cellular.

BOTH PARTNERS in what was to have been the largest corporate merger - between Bell Atlantic and Tele-Communications Inc - blamed regulators for the collapse of the dollars 33bn deal, but a sceptical market appears to have been the real culprit.