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 ...
Iran is open to holding further talks with six world powers over its nuclear programme, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, a day after the failure of the latest round of dialogue in Istanbul. “They have talked for a few rounds, but we never expected that issues would be resolved during these few sessions because of the record and mentality of the other parties,” the hardliner said in a speech aired live on state television... [more]
EU Agriculture Commissioner Bacian Ciolos said Saturday that Brussels was ready to step in to aid pork farmers hit by a slump in prices sparked by a German contamination scare. “If in the next few days the pork market continues in the same direction, we must be ready to take the measures available to us to avoid a fall in prices,” he said at Berlin agriculture fair. The discovery of high levels of toxic dioxin in pork from German... [more]
Norway’s red/green government coalition is losing ground according to the latest poll from Infact. The poll, made for VG, shows that the coalition now has the support of 35.8 per cent of the voters. In the 2009 election, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labour Party alone received 35.4 per cent of the votes. According to the poll, Labour is now supported by only 26.3 per cent. Coalition partner Senterpartiet (Agrarians) drops... [more]
China says its president’s recently concluded state visit to the United States was “fruitful” but the two countries need to work on trust so that sensitive issues do not create misgivings. Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in comments published in Sunday’s People’s Daily newspaper that the visit by President Hu Jintao came at a time when the world is undergoing “profound and complicated changes.” Yang... [more]
The BBC has apologised to Japanese viewers after the country’s embassy complained to the corporation over jokes broadcast on quiz show QI. In an episode of the programme screened before Christmas, panellists joked about the experience of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both of the atomic bomb strikes towards the end of the Second World War. Presenter Stephen Fry described Mr Yamaguchi, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima on August... [more]
Former prime minister Tony Blair is due to make a much-anticipated second appearance before the Iraq war inquiry. He has been recalled to explain possible gaps and inconsistencies almost a year on from his last session before Sir John Chilcot and his panel. Since then, the inquiry has heard from scores more witnesses and it is thought that some provided evidence which contradicted that given by Mr Blair. Sir John and his team have now also... [more]
US President Barack Obama has hailed the inspiration of the “sober but soaring” idealism of John F Kennedy exactly 50 years after the assassinated president John F Kennedy was sworn-in. Obama told a packed crowd at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington that Kennedy’s lessons endured for people both at home and abroad. “But we cannot forget: we are the heirs of this president who showed us what is... [more]
Tony Blair played the “anti-French card” by falsely blaming then-president Jacques Chirac for the collapse of talks at the United Nations on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an aide told Britain’s war inquiry Wednesday. Stephen Wall, Blair’s former EU adviser, said the ex-prime minister ordered his media chief Alastair Campbell to tell journalists that Chirac had threatened to veto any Security Council resolution —... [more]
President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao have agreed to a ‘dialogue’ on human rights, following a day of high-profile meetings. The US president told a news conference at the White House that the US will continue to push for freedom of speech, assembly and religion for the Chinese people. President Hu also called for greater cooperation between the Chinese and US militaries in order to build trust. President Hu’s... [more]
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi charged Wednesday that an enquiry launched by Milan magistrates into his relationship with an underage girl was politically motivated. “There’s been no graft, no incitement to prostitution, not even of a minor,” Berlusconi said in a television address on SKY Italia. The prime minister’s comments came as Milan magistrates launched an enquiry into allegations Berlusconi hooked... [more]
