New Delhi, Nov 7 : Union Minister of Communications and IT A. Raja reiterated on Friday that India will allocate spectrum for next generation wireless networks as planned earlier.

Successful bidders would be allocated the spectrum by the end of January after holding an auction, the Minister said.

The decision is likely to affect all leading telecom operators.

According to reports, India expects to earn 40-50 billion rupees in revenues annually from a higher spectrum fee to be levied on mobile telecom.

Brussels - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday urged his European Union colleagues to agree on how to reform global finance amid strong resistance from Sweden and scepticism among several other member states.

"We have no choice other than to reach an agreement," Sarkozy said at the start of Friday's extraordinary EU summit. "For Europe to count, we must be united."

Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU until the end of the year, is hoping that a unified European position will put the 27-member bloc in the driving seat when Group of 20 leaders meet in Washington next week to discuss ways of avoiding a repeat of the current market turmoil.

Tokyo  - Japanese electronics companies Panasonic Corp and Sanyo Electric Co began negotiations Friday on a capital and business partnership.

The two companies plan to settle the talks by the end of December for Panasonic to undertake a tender offer in January to acquire a majority of shares in Sanyo and make it a subsidiary in April.

If the merger is successful, Panasonic would become Japan's largest electronics manufacturer.

Panasonic hopes to secure a basic agreement with Sanyo's three shareholders - Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, the Daiwa Securities SMBC group and the Goldman Sachs group.

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai was shuttling between African capitals Friday in an attempt at winning the hearts and minds of regional leaders ahead of a crisis summit on Zimbabwe that finally promises some tough talking.

Rabat, Morocco - Moroccan politicians Friday welcomed a decentralization announced by King Mohammed VI as part of the search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict.

Rabat was seeking "serious" negotiations under the United Nations to solve the three-decade conflict, which opposes Morocco to the Saharawi independence movement Polisario Front, government spokesman Khalid Naciri said.

The negotiations should, however, be based on an autonomy for the desert territory, instead of a 1991 UN plan for a regional referendum on independence, Naciri stressed.

Stockholm  - Climate issues including how to tackle global warming were to top discussions at a gathering of some 30 religious leaders and policy-makers from various faiths of the world, Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd said Friday.

The two-day meeting was to adopt a manifesto that contains "demands and commitments," Wejryd said of the envisaged document to be signed November 28 in Uppsala, north of Stockholm.

"We call on international policy- and decision-makers to take certain steps and we also call upon our own faiths to be active," he said of the tract.