SBC Communications to acquire AT&T
San Antonio: SBC Communications Inc has agreed to acquire AT&T Corporation in a US$16 billion transaction that would create the nation's largest communications company, an SBC spokesman has said.

The decision followed late-night meetings by directors of SBC, the nation's second-biggest regional phone company, and the 120-year-old icon AT&T, whose roots stretch back to 1875, with founder Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone.

According to the spokesman, documents were signed early on Monday after SBC's board of directors approved the deal. Board members of AT&T approved the transaction on Sunday evening. The acquisition is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

AT&T, once known as Ma Bell, handled the nation's telephone calls before it was broken apart 21 years ago.
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OPEC: No change in prices but to hold output levels
Vienna: OPEC said on Sunday that oil prices near the $50 barrel range would remain high through the spring. But the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has also decided to keep its production ceiling unchanged.

OPEC's current quota of 27 million barrels a day was decided on in December, when the group agreed to shave output by 1 million barrels. But the 10 members of the group subject to the quota - Iraq is not bound by a limit - have been overproducing by a total of 500,000 barrels daily.

Al-Sabah said prices have been driven higher amid fears of a cold winter in Europe and North America, where demand for heating oil is high. The group also decided to temporarily suspend its price band of $22 to $28 a barrel, which was set in March 2000 and has largely been ignored since 2004.
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