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 ...
A court in southern China upheld the death penalty Friday of a former police chief convicted of taking bribes from local gang leaders. The Chongqing Municipal Higher People’s Court rejected the appeal from Wen Qiang, 55, who was convicted of taking bribes worth millions from gang members while he was director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau, a report on the court’s website said. Wen’s case has been the biggest... [more]
Mexico is dusting off urns containing skulls and bones of the country’s Independence War heroes to try to confirm their identities decades after the remains were stored in a Mexico City monument. Soldiers will remove the urns from a mausoleum within the monument on May 30 and carry them through the Mexican capital in a procession before handing the bones over to forensic anthropologists. Historians have long questioned the listed... [more]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday took up her campaign for greater financial market regulation and stricter EU budgetary rules at a meeting in Berlin with top officials from around the world. Having warned this week that the euro is in “crisis” after banning so-called naked short selling, Merkel and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called the conference to build pressure ahead of a G20 meeting in Canada next... [more]
All newly arrived immigrants should undergo courses in core societal values and be taught about how Swedish society works with municipalities obliged to offer 60 hours of teaching, a government inquiry has proposed. “Without knowledge of fundamental societal values an important prerequisite to be able to live and work in Sweden is lacking,” writes Erik Amnå, who led the government inquiry, in a debate article in the Dagens Nyheter... [more]
Political parties in The Hague are eagerly awaiting the independent verdict on their election manifestos, to be published on Thursday by the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). Its ‘what-if’ scenarios outline the likely economic impact on The Netherlands, should election manifestos be fully implemented by the winning party. It is expected that the CPB statement will play a prominent role in the campaign leading... [more]
More than 1500 workers in the cleaning industry went on strike Thursday morning, after arbitration between the union and the management failed in the early hours of the morning. This means that the daily cleaning at several firms and institutions will not be carried out. Toilets will not be cleaned and garbage cans will not be emptied. Shopping centra, office buildings, the University of Oslo and public broadcasster NRK are among institutions... [more]
Greek workers held a general strike against the government’s austerity measures Thursday, two weeks after the previous day of protests deteriorated into rioting in which three people died in a burning bank. Ferries stayed tied up at port, buses, the Athens metro and trains suspended services, and many banks were closed. Schools shut down while public hospitals were working with emergency staffing levels. Demonstrators are protesting... [more]
South Korea accused North Korea on Thursday of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship in March, killing 46 sailors in the country’s worst military disaster since the Korean War. President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the provocation following the release of long-awaited results from a multinational investigation into the incident. North Korea, reacting swiftly, called the results a fabrication and warned... [more]
The suspected military leader of the armed Basque separatist group ETA has been arrested, French police say. Four suspected members were held during dawn raids, including the man thought to be ETA’s current military chief, Mikel Kabikoitz Karrera Sarobe. Reports say three were picked up in the southern town of Bayonne and the fourth in a nearby village. Five ETA leaders have been arrested in France in the last two years. Share this:... [more]
Norway and the other Nordic countries are intensifying global efforts to prevent international tax evasion by signing agreements with Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St. Lucia. The new agreements represent the continuation of a major project by the Nordic Council of Ministers to enter into information exchange agreements with international offshore financial centres worldwide. Since the autumn of 2007 the Nordic countries have... [more]
