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 ...
Foreign diplomats were set to kick-off on Saturday a two-day tour of Iran’s atomic sites at the invitation of Tehran, in a bid to drum up support for its contentious nuclear programme. The rare tour to Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and the heavy water installation in Arak was apparently snubbed by Iran’s key allies China and Russia, as well as the European Union. Iran had invited several envoys to the... [more]
The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to establish a ground base for its world-wide Galileo satellite navigation system on the small Norwegian Arctic island of Jan Mayen. Galileo is the European version of the US satellite-based GPS system. Norway has agreed to pay NOK 3 million towards the cost to establish the base at Jan Mayen, which will be part of the worldwide network of Galileo ground stations, Aftenposten reports. Norway... [more]
After one patient died and others suffered serious complications following Lap-Band surgery, Dr. Neelu Pal had seen enough. A petite surgical resident now aged 40, she began quietly calling patients about to undergo the weight-loss procedure at New York University’s Medical Centre, telling them she feared for their safety. Pal had previously raised her concerns with hospital officials, complaining — to no avail — about... [more]
David Warren, an Australian scientist who invented the “black box” flight data recorder, has died, defence officials said. He was 85. Warren, who died on Monday, came up with the idea for the cockpit voice recorder after investigating the crash of the world’s first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953, the Department of Defence said in a statement. He thought it would be helpful for airline accident investigators... [more]
French police said Sunday they had come under gunfire for a second successive night in a riot-hit suburb of Grenoble, only hours after French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux vowed to restore order “immediately”. Police deployed in a suburb of the French city of Grenoble to halt a wave of rioting said Sunday they had come under gunfire for a second night running. Four men were arrested in a dawn raid in the working class neighbourhood... [more]
Israel launched a military spy satellite late on Tuesday which Israeli media reports said would help it monitor Iran’s nuclear programme. The Ofek 9, which the Defence Ministry said was launched from the Palmachim air force base south of Tel Aviv, will join three other Israeli spy satellites already in space. Israeli media reports said the satellite’s high resolution cameras would enable Israel to keep a closer eye on arch-foe Iran.... [more]
EVIDENCE of life has been discovered on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan. Analysis of data sent back by NASA’s Cassini probe suggests primitive aliens are breathing in Titan’s atmosphere and feeding on fuel at the surface. The startling discoveries, made using an orbiting spacecraft, are revealed in two separate reports. Organic chemicals had already been detected on Titan but the liquid is methane, not water, and scientists... [more]
A manned mission to Mars may be decades away, but an international team of researchers will try to experience what one might be like by locking themselves up in a windowless capsule for a year-and-half – the time needed for a round-trip to the red planet. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese will not endure weightlessness, but from Thursday they will live for 520 days in the spartan conditions... [more]
Three astronauts that oversaw the final assembly stages of the International Space Station (ISS) have landed safely in Kazakhstan. Russian Oleg Kotov, NASA’s Timothy Creamer and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi touched down near the town of Zhezkazgan. The crew left Earth in December to conduct a series of experiments and complete the station which has been under construction for over a decade. Russia will ferry all crews to the ISS aboard... [more]
NASA has officially called it quits for the Mars landing craft Phoenix, two years after the stationary probe touched down on the frigid northern polar surface of the Red Planet. Phoenix, a solar-powered spacecraft roughly the size of a minivan, landed on the planet on May 25, 2008, and operated for five months, collecting and analyzing soil samples for signs of chemical compositions that would be conducive for life. But the probe went dormant... [more]
