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 ...
European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet has blamed Germanyand France for helping to pave the way to the current debt crisis in the eurozone by setting a poor fiscal example. In remarks published on Sunday in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Trichet said that by compromising the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in 2004, the powerhouses had allowed budgetary discipline to slacken. “I wish the German public... [more]
European austerity measures to tackle the soaring debt crisis have sparked “despair” and will cut too deep, a senior trade union official warned Friday, as he announced a protest action day. John Monks, head of the European Trade Union Confederation, who met EU and employers’ officials in Brussels, said there was “despair and alarm at the prospects of growth in Europe as all countries, not just those in distress,... [more]
World stocks fell Tuesday and the euro continued to slide as Europe’s shaky government finances and concerns about slower growth in China made investors jittery. London’s FTSE index was down over 101 points, or 1.96 percent, at 5086.97. The CAC 40 index of leading French shares was down more than 73 points, or 2.09 percent, at 3,434.18, while Germany’s DAX dropped over 103 points, or 1.73 percent, to 5,861.28. The euro... [more]
Some 45,000 home owners face a risky combination of having high housing costs and a mortgage which is bigger than the value of their home, according to the government’s social policy unit SCP. Before the recession, 30,000 households were in a similar position, the SCP says in a report out on Wednesday. But unemployment and lack of savings have forced up the number of households in a potentially difficult situation. The SCP say housing... [more]
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in an apparent criticism of Germany, called for a “carefully designed global approach” to financial reform on Wednesday as he arrived in Europe for talks on a euro zone debt crisis that is shaking world markets. European shares rallied from nine-month lows but the euro remained under pressure amid continuing signs of banks’ reluctance to lend to euro zone counterparts exposed to... [more]
The bank of Spain says it has stepped in to bail out a regional savings bank after merger talks with another similar entity broke down. Bank of Spain director Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said early Saturday that the step had been taken to guarantee Cajasur, an Andalucian savings bank based in the southern city of Cordoba and run largely by the Catholic church, could continue operating as normal. Fernandez said the bailout came after Cajasur... [more]
Germany’s governing coalition on Friday managed to push a billion-euro rescue package for the eurozone through parliament after warning the future of Europe’s single currency was at stake. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition of Christian and Free Democrats backed controversial legislation approving Germany’s share of a €750-billion ($914-billion) emergency fund for troubled nations using the euro. Finance Minister... [more]
The European Central Bank has not started “printing money” in response to the continent’s debt crisis, its chief Jean-Claude Trichet insisted Wednesday. “We haven’t changed monetary policy,” the ECB president told Europe 1 radio in France, promising that the bank would not abandon its inflation target or let the euro collapse. “I am more confident than ever in the future of the euro,” he said,... [more]
Greece on Tuesday will ask the European Union and International Monetary Fund for a first tranche of debt aid worth 20 billion euros (26 billion dollars), a finance ministry source told AFP. A first instalment of the emergency loan package amounting to 14.5 billion euros from the EU and 5.5 billion euros from the IMF “should be available, possibly within the day,” the ministry source said. The ministry will send a letter... [more]
Sweden’s Finance Minister Anders Borg argued on Monday that the UK has a clear self-interest in helping to back the European Union bailout fund as Londonwould be hit hard by a bank financing failure. “It is completely unrealistic to think one cannot help” by contributing to the stability fund, Borg told reporters in Stockholm upon returning from Brussels, where EU finance ministers agreed to the €750 billion... [more]
