51.   Malaysia unveiled Tuesday a blueprint for its flagging telecommunication industry that would erode the monopoly of national telecoms firm Telekom Malaysia, officials said.

52.   Nigeria has extended by two weeks the deadline for bids to manage its telecoms firm NITEL, officials said Thursday.

53.   Nigeria invited international operators to manage its telecoms firm Tuesday after the failure of a deal with a foreign-led consortium to buy a majority stake in it.

54.   Other telecoms firms also suffered.

55.   Six telecom firms competed for the five licences.

56.   Telecoms firms were broadly lower in line with their weak overseas counterparts, dealers said.

57.   The company said the lower-than-expected earnings were caused by competition from private telecom firms and by an economic slowdown.

58.   The energy firm said it may have to take additional writeoffs of the debts from the telecom firm.

59.   The merger would be the first between major Japanese telecoms firms.

60.   The mobile operator is controlled by Portuguese telecoms firm Sonae.com.