India's Bharti targets Bangladesh

Regulators in Bangladesh have approved Indian phone company Bharti Airtel's proposed $300m investment in the country's fourth largest mobile firm.

If the plan is finalised, Bharti will be the first Indian telecom operator to enter Bangladesh's highly competitive mobile market.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world.

It already has more than 50 million subscribers and the number is expected to double by 2015.

Price war

Bharti Airtel is India's leading mobile phone service provider and is now planning to buy a nearly 70% stake in Abu Dhabi-owned Warid Telecom, which has nearly three million customers in Bangladesh.

Bharti Airtel, which has twice failed to seal a merger with South Africa's MTN Group, wants to diversify because of intensifying competition and a price war in India.

Bangladeshi officials hope that the Indian company will invest more than $1bn in the next few years.

But Bharti Airtel will face stiff competition from market leaders such as the Bangladesh-Norway joint venture Grameenphone, which has more than 40% of the market share.

Mobile phones have become popular in Bangladesh mainly because the networks cover virtually the entire country and call rates are among the cheapest in the world.

Mobile phone companies like Bharti Airtel hope that the introduction of additional services like banking and money transfers will attract new customers and boost revenue.

US lifts HIV/Aids immigration ban

he US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country.

President Obama said the ban was not compatible with US plans to be a leader in the fight against the disease.

The new rules come into force on Monday and the US plans to host a bi-annual global HIV/Aids summit for the first time in 2012.

The ban was imposed at the height of a global panic about the disease at the end of the 1980s.

It put the US in a group of just 12 countries, also including Libya and Saudi Arabia, that excluded anyone suffering from HIV/Aids.

The BBC's Charles Scanlon, in Miami, says that improving treatments and evolving public perceptions have helped to bring about the change.

Rachel Tiven, head of the campaign group Immigration Equality, told the BBC that the step was long overdue.

"The 2012 World Aids Conference, due to be held in the United States, was in jeopardy as a result of the restrictions. It's now likely to go ahead as planned," she said.

In October, President Obama said the entry ban had been "rooted in fear rather than fact".

He said: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country."

Italy's Berlusconi vows to defeat mafia by 2013

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to defeat organised crime in the country by 2013.

"The mafia is a pathological phenomenon that we want to defeat once and for all by the end of this term in office," Mr Berlusconi told Italy's national radio.

"No government in the history of the republic has acted with as much determination and efficiency in the fight against criminal organisations".

Italian police have arrested hundreds of people in recent anti-mafia raids.

Those being held are accused of extortion, arms dealing and drugs trafficking.

Earlier this month, mafia informant Gaspare Spatuzza made an allegation that a Sicilian Mafia boss convicted of 1990s bombings had boasted of ties to Mr Berlusconi.

Gaspare Spatuzza said the Mafia boss claimed to have Mr Berlusconi's support.

A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi, who denies the allegations, suggested the Mafia was trying to discredit the prime minister.