PANORAMA.

• Position: Not

REGIONAL

GLOBAL CROSSING chose French telecom company Alcatel to build the US$700-million South American portion of Global's vast fiber optic network. Alcatel will design, manufacture and install the South American Crossing system, part of Global's global system for data, voice, video and Internet transmissions.

UNITED AIRLINES is spending nearly $27 million to build a new cargo facility at Miami International Airport. The facility should open at the end of next year.

SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, together with two of its entertainment companies, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment, bought an equity stake in yupi.com, a Spanish-language Web portal.

AMERICA ONLINE and Big Entertainment signed a multi-year agreement under which BigE's movie Web site, Hollywood.com, and its online studio store, BigE.com, will be placed on AOL Latin America--a joint venture between AOL and Venezuelan media conglomerate Cisneros Group. Under the terms of the deal, AOL and Cisneros Group will become shareholders in Florida-based Big Entertainment. By the end of this year, services from AOL and its CompuServe unit will be available in Latin America, beginning with Brazil, an Internet market with an estimated 2.2 million users. BigE.com and Hollywood.com content will be translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian market and into Spanish for subsequent launches in Mexico and Argentina and other parts of Latin America.

HAMBURG SÜD, the German shipping company, bought Crowley American Transport's South American liner services, which includes trade lanes between the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf toasts and South America's East Coast, West Coast and Venezuela. Hamburg will operate the newly acquired routes separately from its Columbus Line and Alianca services.

IDT CORP, a U.S. telecommunications company, bought a 10% stake in the underwater cable project of Spain's Telefónica. The cable is expected to go into service next year and will connect the major Latin American and Caribbean cities with the United States.

PREVENTION, a U.S. health magazine, and Miami-based Ideas Publishing Group will publish a Spanish-language edition of the magazine, titled Prevention en Español The magazine will be published monthly, beginning in November 1999 and distributed in the United States and 20 Latin American countries. Ideas Publishing Group also publishes Discover en Español, Glamour en EspañoL Newsweek en Español, and Teen en Español. Prevention is published by Rodale Press.

ARGENTINA

ERICSSON, a Swedish telecommunications equipment maker, landed two contracts worth $400 million to supply new national wireless networks for two operators, Telecom and Telefónica. Currently, only 2.5 million Argentines--about 8% of the population--have/own a mobile telephone.

ARGENTINA and the United States signed an aviation pact that will eventually allow unrestricted flights between the two countries. Immediate access is being granted to U.S. and Argentine cargo carriers. Continental Airlines wasted no time, submitting its application to fly to the South American country the day after the two governments made their "open skies" announcement.

EL SITIO, an Argentine portal, is now an Internet service provider. The firm, whose investors include Hicks, Muse, Tale & Furst and the Cisneros Group, bought Internet service providers in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. The purchase will net the company a combined...