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 ...
British Airways is facing the threat of fresh strikes after the airline’s cabin crew overwhelmingly rejected an offer aimed at ending their long-running dispute. The Unite union said there was an 81% majority against the proposed deal in a turnout of 71%. Representatives of the cabin crew will meet Unite’s joint general secretaries, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, on Monday to discuss their next moves in the bitter row. The... [more]
The Netherlands and Italy are embroiled in a high-profile row about cheap gas exports, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday. The paper says the Netherlands wants to end the special deal for Italy established in the 1960s in an effort to stop Italy buying cheap gas from Moscow. The Netherlands has been increasing the price since the 1980s. But now Dutch gas export firm GasTerra wants Italian oil firm Eni which imports the gas to pay... [more]
A leading credit ratings agency says the debt crisis enveloping Greece could spread to affect the banking systems of the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain. Moody’s Investor Service says that although banks in some countries were not heavily affected by the financial crisis, they could be hurt if the fiscal crisis intensifies outside of Greece. The agency said in a report: “The potential contagion of sovereign risks to banking... [more]
The knock-on damage to airlines because of last month’s volcano ash cloud over Europe is becoming clear after Germany’s second biggest carrier, Air Berlin, on Thursday revealed a sharp drop in the number of seats it filled in April. As well as having 550,000 fewer seats because of the 3,500 cancelled flights, the airline had also suffered from a drop in bookings because passengers were unsure whether they’d be able to fly,... [more]
It took them a while, but Norwegian environmental advocates and some top politicians are now sounding alarms over BP’s oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and using it as another argument against oil exploration off scenic Lofoten. Government minister and party leader Kristin Halvorsen went on national radio Thursday morning, warning that what’s happened in the gulf can happen off the scenic coasts of Lofoten and Vesterålen if oil... [more]
European stocks steadied Thursday despite a plunge in Asian markets as investors worried that Greece’s debt crisis could spread to other countries but hoped that the European Central Bankcould offer some guidance and support later in the day. Britain’s FTSE 100 was flat at 5,434.41 while Germany’s DAX was up 0.1 percent at 5,964.35. France’s CAC-40 was down 0.3 percent at 3,626.88. Asian markets fell heavily, with... [more]
Greece’s only hope of avoiding bankruptcy is to take money from a joint EU and International Monetary Fund rescue package, the finance minister said Thursday during a heatedParliamentary debate overshadowed by the deaths of three people during protests against spending cuts. Greece has to impose harsh austerity measures, including slashing salaries and pensions and increasing taxes, in order to get money from the three-year package,... [more]
Google has taken the rare step of asking a California judge to declare that by linking to copyright-infringing works on Rapidshare, the search giant is not facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted songs. Last year, Blue Destiny Records, a small blues-oriented music label, sued Google, Microsoft and Rapidshare in Florida. The label claimed that Rapidshare was running “a distribution center for unlawful copies of copyrighted... [more]
A major security flaw in Facebook has allowed users to see other people’s personal information, and once again opened the social networking site to accusations of not securing user data effectively. The fault meant that users editing their privacy settings and then using Facebook’s ‘See how my profile looks to friends’ feature were able to see friends’ chat boxes and friend requests. A Facebook spokesperson... [more]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the Greekdebt crisis had put the fate of the Europe Union and Germany’s role within the bloc on the line. “The future of Europe and the future of Germany within Europe is at stake,” Merkel said in parliament in a debate on Berlin’s unpopular decision to lend €22.4 billion ($29.1 billion) in taxpayers’ money to Greece. Merkel defended the aid package... [more]
