Michael Armstrong, AT&T's chairman, is himself working to shift AT&T from being America's long-distance operator into a dominant presence in the local market.The third partner in this complex alliance is John Malone, who built TCI. For AT&T, TCI was the way to link itself to millions of homes across the country and gain access to the local telephone market. A deal earlier this month gave Microsoft a $5bn stake in AT&T, in exchange for the telecoms behemoth's promise to use Microsoft technology in its set-top boxes.But why is a telecoms company involved in set-top boxes, the gadgets that drive cable television? Because AT&T, in one of the biggest and most important media deals of the decade, has bought TCI, the second-largest cable company in the US. Mr Gates is steering the company through the transition from a reliance on personal computers and their software, to the Internet, interactive services and the devices that accompany them. Buoyed by a $20bn (pounds 12.5bn) cash pile, Bill Gates has struck a series of complex deals that put him at the centre of the empire building. Remember the idea of the "information superhighway"? This is it, or will be.Microsoft, the software giant based in Washington state, has been leading the dance for the past few weeks. The race is on to develop the "broadband" channels to shift more information faster.

As telephony and television move towards digital services, it makes increasingly little difference whether the 1s and 0s that are carried over wireless, cable or telephone lines represent soap operas, e-mail or a conversation with your mother. And their influence is rapidly expanding to Britain. At stake are the "pipes" down which new digital services will go, the software and the boxes that relay and shape them, and their content. Bill Gates of Microsoft, Michael Armstrong of AT&T and John Malone of Liberty Media Group are at the heart of a set of interlocking corporate structures that resemble nothing so much as the Holy Roman Empire. It is at an early stage, but already key figures in the industry have assembled vast webs of intricate alliances, cross-ownership and partnership. Slowly, dimly, the shape of a new corporate world is coming into shape in America and Europe, built around wireless, cable, telephone and satellite.

THINK OF it as medieval Europe, with shifting combinations of kings, princes, barons, the church and city-states forming into rival leagues and alliances But this is not about religion or land It is about control of technology and communications. Ewen then fled across the border into France, killing a 39-year-old man and wounding two people while trying to steal cars (AP). The man then went to a nearby flat, killing Robert Fisne, 37 and his wife, Joey and gravely injuring their 11-year-old daughter. A disco employee and a customer were killed and several other people wounded. Ewen was from Beckingen, in the Saar region of western Germany near the French border.Police said the violence began when he fired into a crowd of about 20 people at about 4am at a disco in Dillingen, in the Saar.

Ewen a 36-year-old road worker, was convicted in Germany in 1992 on a rape charge and was released from prison in 1996.German prosecutors believe revenge may have been the motive for killing the couple, who had testified recently against Ewen on burglary charges. Ewen had not been seen since Sunday, when he allegedly shot dead five people, including a Frenchman and his British wife. He then locked himself in a room and refused to let in cleaning staff. Helicopters and hundreds of police accompanied by tracker dogs had been searching the thick forests of the Moselle region. He arrived at the hotel early on Monday, with no baggage and wearing dirty clothes.