Yahoo Inc Chairman Roy Bostock and three other directors will step down as the struggling company ploughs ahead with an internal overhaul, including discussions on dealing with its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. The corporation - once a Web powerhouse but now agonizing over a range of options to revive flagging growth - on Tuesday said it appointed former Rovi Corp CEO and International Business Machines Corp veteran Alfred Amoroso and ex-eBay COO Maynard Webb as independent directors. Yahoo's board has come under fire from investors impatient with the company's persistent inability to effect a turnaround, and frustrated with the apparent indecisiveness of stakeholders over ...
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has vowed to fight an "anti-business culture" in Britain, warning that a row overexecutive pay and bonuses threatens the country's fragile economic recovery. "Let me say something about the row over bonuses and pay," Osborne said in a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses. "Of course rewards for failure are unacceptable -- and those who believe in the free market are the first to say so. But a strong, free market economy must be built on rewards for success." The Labour Party has heaped pressure on the ruling coalition to curb excessive pay for top executives, using a House of Commons debate to demand the return ...
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Tuesday he is resolved to settle a longstanding territorial dispute with Russia at an annual rally calling for the return of all four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido in northern Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported. "We'll continue to make steady and determined efforts to move ahead with negotiations," Noda said, stressing the need to sign a peace treaty with Russia. The four islands - which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories - has been the subject of a territorial dispute between the two nations since the end of World War ...
Amanda Knox's Italian lawyer has filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy, a Knox family spokesman inSeattle said Monday. In October, an Italian appeals court overturned the young Seattle woman's murder conviction in the 2007 death of her British roommate in Perugia. But the same court upheld Knox's conviction for slander — for falsely accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of involvement in the slaying. Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence. Knox later said she was "manipulated" during her lengthy police interrogation. An appeal of the slander conviction was filed Monday, Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott confirmed. He doesn't know when the Italian ...
The Dutch railway will remain 'vulnerable' during wintry weather but Dutch Rail (NS) and track operator ProRail did not help matters during the current cold snap by the late introduction of schedule adjustments to cope with the conditions, transport minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen told parliament in a briefing on Tuesday. The NS and ProRail assumed on Thursday of last week that there would be three to five centimetres of snow. When the forecast was increased on Friday morning to between 10 and 15 centimetres, it was too late to change the timetables automatically, Schultz van Haegen told parliament. Drivers and conductors ...
Greece can leave the eurozone without damaging monetary union, European digital affairs commissioner Neelie Kroes says in an interview with the Volkskrant on Tuesday. Kroes, a member of the Dutch ruling right-wing Liberal party VVD, is not a supporter of Greece exchanging the euro for the drachma, but says: 'It is absolutely not a case of man overboard if someone leaves the eurozone.' The commissioner is very critical of the new Greek government and says they are not fulfilling their promises. 'Too few spending cuts, too little restructuring,' she says. She says the Greeks should follow the example of Italy where the new ...
Mitt Romney hopes his presidential campaign hasn't ignored Rick Santorum's aggressive attacks for too long, as caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota on Tuesday could reshuffle the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum largely bypassed Florida and Nevada to blanket the two caucus states with criticism of Romney and lay the groundwork among conservatives who have great sway in the process. RivalNewt Gingrich praised Santorum's strategy as shrewd even as he signaled he had no interest in exiting the four-way race, which also includes Ron Paul. "I think that Santorum's going to have a pretty good day," Gingrich told reporters on the eve of the caucuses. "He targeted differently than I ...
Glencore and Xstrata agreed an all-share merger worth $90 billion (56 billion pounds) on Tuesday in the industry's largest ever deal, creating a commodities powerhouse spanning mining, agriculture and trading. Glencore, the world's largest diversified commodities tradinghouse, will issue 2.8 new shares for each Xstrata share in a deal they said was a "merger of equals." The ratio is a 15.2 percent premium to Xstrata shareholders compared with its share price last Wednesday before word leaked out about the merger talks, a joint statement said. "A merger between Glencore and Xstrata offers a unique opportunity to create a new business model in our industry to respond to ...
US White House hopeful Mitt Romney aims for another big caucus win in Colorado on Tuesday, as his well-oiled campaign machine works to cement his position as the Republican front runner in the US presidential race. Polls suggest he should triumph easily in the western US state -- where he scored 60 percent in 2008 -- although there is a tighter race in Minnesota, where last-placed Rick Santorum is hoping to snatch a win. Romney's main rival, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, is battling to stay in the race after two heavy losses in a row to the former Massachusetts governor, who ...
As President Christian Wulff remains mired in allegations of impropriety, anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) has called for politicians to use the case as a chance to open up German politics. “We are very concerned that people seem to be starting to think that all politicians behave like Wulff, and that would be fatal,” Christian Humborg, TI Germany’s managing director told The Local. “I think the Wulff affair is a wonderful opportunity for German politicians to react to the cynical attitude that this is normal, and improve things,” he said. He said the fact that the authorities were investigating whether Wulff and his ...
All but one of 14 German banks put under a European Union stress test passed, an official statement said on Friday, with Hypo Real Estate, a property and municipal funding specialist owned by the state, the only one to fail. “HRE is the only German bank to fall short of the six percent tier 1 capital ratio in the most severe stress scenario,” a joint statement issued by the German central bank and financial sector stabilization... [more]
THE world’s strongest beer can be yours for a mere £500 ($855) a bottle. The blond Belgian ale, named The End of History, is an astonishing 55 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV) and is presented in a case made from stuffed animals, including stoats and squirrels. Made by BrewDog, based in Scotland, the beer is infused with fresh juniper berries and nettles from the Scottish Highlands and was developed using an extreme freezing technique. Hundreds... [more]
Overweight people and others who pursue unhealthy lifestyles should have to pay more into Germany’s healthcare system to cover the extra costs they create, a conservative politician said on Thursday. Marco Wanderwitz, a federal MP from the state of Saxony and head of the conservative Christian Democrats’ group of young parliamentarians, said the health costs created by fat people should not forever be borne by the rest of... [more]
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has turned down Israel’s bid to buy a sixth naval submarine, two warships and torpedoes from it at deep German discounts, the U.S. journal Defence News reported. The decision was conveyed to an Israeli Defence delegation in Berlin on July 7, effectively ending a year of negotiations that Israel had hoped would yield German subsidies of up to one-third on the total price of $1.6 billion (1.0... [more]
A Dutch court will hand down judgment Friday in the first trial of a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship dumped waste alleged to have killed 17 people in Ivory Coast in 2006. Multinational Trafigura, waste treatment company Amsterdam Port Services (APS), and the Ukrainian captain of the Probo Koala ship were tried with three others for allegedly breaking environment and waste export laws on Dutch territory. They all pleaded not guilty... [more]
Chinese authorities have closed several beaches and an island resort near the major port of Dalian as they try to clean up an oil spill that has affected crude shipments, state media said Wednesday. Tourists were barred from Bangchui island and city beaches amid ongoing efforts to clean up the slick that stretches over at least 183 square kilometres (70 square miles) of ocean, the China Daily newspaper said. More than 23 tonnes of oil-eating... [more]
Goldman Sachs could turn out to be a mere mortal after all. The investment bank on Tuesday said that its quarterly earnings tumbled 82 percent, steeper than forecast. A trading and underwriting slump tempered profits and raised questions about whether the firm is losing its ability to outsmart the competition. “We’ve grown accustomed to Goldman bucking the trends in (investment banking), but this quarter it seems like maybe they’re... [more]
Heather Mills has reignited her feud with Piers Morgan after slamming CNN’s decision to replace beloved TV host Larry King with the newsman. Last month Sir Paul McCartney’s ex-wife had a complaint against Morgan dismissed by the Press Complaints Commission after the TV judge berated her in a newspaper column. Now Mills has lashed out at Morgan again following reports he has signed a multi-million dollar deal to replace King when... [more]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked increasingly alone Monday after another key ally, the mayor of Hamburg, jumped ship as part of a mass exodus of experienced conservatives. Ole von Beust, leader of Germany’s second-largest city, which is also one of 16 regional states, announced he was quitting in August for personal reasons with another three years to go in his term. He is the sixth conservative state premier to leave his... [more]
Talks between the two Liberal parties D66 and VVD, Labour and the left-wing greens GroenLinks are heading towards a crucial phase this week, the NRC reports on Monday. The talks are now entering their third week and none of the party leaders would comment in any detail before Monday morning’s session. In the meantime, it is apparent that the VVD have the most to lose from joining forces with the three left of centre parties, the... [more]
