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 ...
The latest rumour about the Royal Wedding is that Kate Middleton has designed her own wedding dress. She reportedly started coming up with ideas as soon as Prince William proposed. It is then claimed the bride-to-be took her plan to an established dressmaker. Now apparently all finished, the gown is said to be ivory satin and lace, with pearl button detail and a 10 foot train. Kate is thought to have been inspired by her History of Art... [more]
Train drivers at five major private rail operators will again go on strike Monday afternoon and will not return to work until Thursday. Rail union GDL announced the strike, which will run from 2 pm Monday to 2 am Thursday. Only last week, drivers from the five firms walked off the job for 48 hours over better pay. In total, the drivers have been on strike for 119 hours since March. They are demanding a single wage scale for all train drivers... [more]
Chinese jewellery factory owner Zhou Mingwang sums up the global appeal of this month’s British royal wedding with one line: “It’s a love story.” But, he adds with a sly smile, the much-ballyhooed April 29 union of Prince William and girlfriend Kate Middleton is also a great business opportunity for Zhou and his fellow entrepreneurs in this eastern China factory town. Zhou, 32, has sold more than 100,000 replicas... [more]
Would you spend more than $12,000 on a Pez dispenser commemorating the upcoming royal wedding? Would you do it for charity? It appears someone is prepared to fork over that kind of cash for a plastic wedding memento, as an auction for a special edition set of William and Kate Pez dispensers closed Sunday evening with an official winning bid of 8,200 pounds. That’s $12,869.90 in Canadian funds, according to the Bank of Canada’s... [more]
The maker of BlackBerry devices said Sunday it has been told that possible new restrictions proposed by Emirati authorities on the popular gadgets would apply to other smartphones too. The Gulf federation’s telecommunications regulator has outlined plans to limit access to the Blackberry Enterprise Server system, which provides the most secure form of communication on the devices. It is used by many international companies and government... [more]
European nationals who do not have a job or who cannot financially support themselves will have to leave the Netherlands within three months, if new rules the government is planning to introduce come into force. The aim of the new measures is to ‘better regulate the arrival and departure’ of migrants from other EU countries, ministers say. It is not yet clear if and how the measures conflict with EU rules on the free movement of people. ‘The... [more]
A Swedish woman accused of trumping up rape accusations while on holiday in Greece exemplifies a persistant view in the Mediterranean country that Swedish women bring false rape complaints to get payouts from special ‘rape insurance’. In 2008, Swedish ‘Anna’ went on holiday to the Greek island of Samos. On her last night she claimed to have been brutally raped and beaten, according to Sweden’s TV4. After reporting... [more]
The US President has rounded on Republicans expressing doubts over whether he was born in America saying it will backfire on them at election time. Barack Obama said most people knew he was born in Hawaii and were more concerned about rocketing fuel prices and rising unemployment than his birth certificate, in an interview with ABC News. The question of the President’s place of birth was thought to have been settled long ago after... [more]
A FORMER UN weapons inspector has been convicted of having unlawful contact with a minor, after being nabbed in an online sex sting. Scott Ritter, 49, exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as a 15-year-old girl and masturbated even after the undercover officer stressed during the chat that he was a minor, prosecutors said. A jury in the US state of Pennsylvania found Ritter guilty on six counts today, with sentencing set... [more]
Catherine Middleton will spend her last night as a single woman in the royal suite of London’s Goring Hotel, it was reported today. According to the Sun, the bride-to-be booked the luxury five-room suite for the night of April 28, the day before she marries Prince William. Hotel bosses are said to have spent more than $A230,000 renovating the top-floor apartment ahead of her stay. Photographs published in the newspaper show the suite... [more]
