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 ...
Another day, another scam, only the latest to come to light has been described by Intego’s Mac Security Blog as a “vast” phishing attack comprising a “well-crafted” email. Targeting anyone with an Apple ID, the bogus email, which claims to come from appleid@id.apple.com, informs recipients that their billing information records are out of date. “Failure to update your records will result in account termination,” it says. Unlike... [more]
Tokyo Electric Power Co <9501.T> asked a government-backed bailout body on Tuesday for an additional 690 billion yen (5.6 billion pounds) to help compensate victims of the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant. To help Japan’s biggest utility, known as Tepco, meet costs running into trillions of yen for compensation and cleanup, the government had already agreed in November to provide 890 billion yen through a bailout... [more]
North Korea has agreed to suspend its enriched-uranium nuclear weapons programme, a key United States demand for the resumption of disarmament talks, according to news reports. Yonhap news agency and the Chosun Ilbo daily quoted an unidentified diplomatic source saying the Washington had also agreed to provide the North with up to 240,000 tonnes of food aid. Pyongyang pledged “to implement initial measures of denuclearisation that... [more]
Bill Gates on Thursday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant”. Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumours that he was considering a full-time comeback to the US software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he was busy working with the... [more]
Search engine giant Google on Thursday formally launched the construction of a new data centre in Singapore to cope with the explosive growth of Internet traffic in the Asia-Pacific region. “I think it’s safe to say this is the fastest-growing region in the world in terms of Internet usage and we have a very strong Google business here,” Google’s Southeast Asia managing director Julian Persaud told AFP. “So... [more]
Nine former Siemens executives and agents of the German industrial giant have been charged in the United States with allegedly bribing Argentine government officials, according to the US authorities. The nine, including a former member of Siemens’ central executive committee, were accused of involvement in a scheme to secure a $1 billion contract with the Argentine government to produce national identity cards, the US Justice Department... [more]
Several Chinese companies with offices in Amsterdam are going expand their staff here and one new Chinese IT company is opening an office in Amsterdam, the municipality says following a visit to Beijing by Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan. During the trip, the mayor of Beijing announced he will visit the Dutch capital this week. The exact dates and programme have not yet been disclosed. Huawei, a large Chine telecom and IT firm, has... [more]
Iran’s first nuclear power plant has been hooked up to the national grid supplying 60 megawatts of its 1,000 megawatt capacity, the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation announced on Sunday. “Last night at 11:29 pm (1859 GMT), the Bushehr power plant was connected with 60 megawatts to the national grid,” the organisation’s spokesman Hamid Khadem Qaemi, told Al-Alam television. The connection of the Russian-built... [more]
An early warning radar system will be deployed in Turkey within the NATO missile defense program, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said on Friday. “The deployment of this [missile defense] element in Turkey will constitute our contribution to the defense system being developed within the new NATO [defense] strategy and will strengthen the defense potential of NATO as well as our national defense system,” Unal said. Talks... [more]
The Metropolitan Police is looking at whether to widen the scope of its phone-hacking investigation amid claims the Duchess of Cambridge and Tony Blair were victims. Labour MP Tom Watson alleged the former prime minister was targeted by private detective Jonathan Rees. Mr Watson also claimed Mr Rees, a contractor to News International, targeted “at least one former home secretary”. The MP spoke following a statement by the Home... [more]
