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 ...
Ambassadors and senior diplomats in The Hague are guilty of exploiting and imprisoning their domestic staff. Embassy servants have told Radio Netherlands Worldwide and Dutch dailyTrouw their stories of abuse. An Indonesian domestic servant working for a South American diplomat had to hand in her passport and employment contract, was forbidden to leave the house and had to work seven days a week for a low wage. A Philippine servant of a former... [more]
The right wing Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet – FrP) suffers a marked decline on the latest poll made for the newspaper VG, folllowing a sex scandal involving one of their high-profile politicians. (Photo: FrP leader Siv Jensen) FrP drops 4.7 percentage points on the March poll, and is now supported by 20.8 per cent of the electorate. The poll was made after the news broke that FrP’s candidate for Stavanger mayor and also ... [more]
Thousands of British police officers were preparing for tens of thousands of people to descend on London Saturday for a huge protest march against the government’s harsh austerity measures. Trade unions organising the rally said more than 100,000 demonstrators would turn out to oppose cuts introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to tackle Britain’s record deficit. Scotland Yard said around 4,500 officers would... [more]
Iran on Friday dismissed the UN human rights council’s appointment of an investigator to monitor abuses there for the first time since 2002, the state news agency IRNA reported. “This resolution is unjust, unjustifiable and totally political, and has been approved despite the reticence of certain countries, under pressure from the United States,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. “The objective of... [more]
Japan needs to be careful about taking on new debt to fund relief and reconstruction after this month’s deadly earthquake and tsunami, and may review its plan to cut the corporate tax, top economic officials said on Friday. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the government aimed to get its first emergency budget ready by the end of April and suggested it would not rely heavily on extra borrowing to fund it, reflecting worries over... [more]
The German president’s wife Bettina Wulff is opening the annual horticultural exhibition at Keukenhof in Lisse. Her husband President Chritian Wulff and Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander will attend the ceremony. A tulip will be named after Bettina Wulff during the opening ceremony. The theme this year at the famous gardens close to the bulb fields on the Dutch coast is ‘Germany, a country of poets and thinkers’. The... [more]
The Dutch parliament has agreed to deploy Dutch troops on board a number of Dutch merchant ships to protect them against piracy in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. The only party to vote against the measure was the Socialist Party, which said too many things about the mission were unclear. The first Dutch sailors will embark in the Indian city of Mumbai on Wednesday. Thirty sailors will join two tow boats sailing under the Dutch flag... [more]
The Norwegian embassy to Japan and its staff will temporarily be moved from Tokyo to Kobe, the Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs (UDI) has announced. Kobe is located 430 kilometres west of Tokyo, and here the Norwegian Embassy will lease office space from the Norwegian classification company Veritas, NRK reports. - The move is a security precaution, says UDI spokesman Frode Andersen. He says it is based on the unclear situation with... [more]
Russia’s bid to build a rival to a US-backed gas pipeline to Europe received a major boost this week when the project was joined by the hydrocarbon subsidiary of the German powerhouse BASF. Wintershall’s preliminary agreement to acquire a 15 percent stake in South Stream for about €2 billion provides the vital stamp of approval that Russia’s Gazprom gas giant needed from the European Union’s biggest economy. The... [more]
Coalition forces bombarded Libya for a third straight night Monday, targeting the air defenses and forces of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, stopping his advances and handing some momentum back to the rebels, who were on the verge of defeat just last week. But the rebellion’s more organized military units were still not ready, and the opposition disarray underscored U.S. warnings that a long stalemate could emerge. The air campaign by... [more]
