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 ...
Japanese police sealed off roads leading into an evacuation zone around a radiation-spewing nuclear power plant Friday to enforce an order meant to keep residents from sneaking back to their homes. Road blocks with large flashing “Off Limits” signs were set up along major streets leading into the 12-mile (20-kilometer ) zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors, where nearly 80,000 people were hurriedly evacuated after... [more]
A South Korean container ship has been attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean and gone missing, its owner said Thursday. The 75,000-ton Hanjin Tianjin with 14 South Koreans and six Indonesians on board reported an attack at 5.15am Thursday Korean time (2015 GMT Wednesday), Seoul-based Hanjin Shipping said in a statement. “We have been informed that today our mother vessel… has been attacked by the pirates near the Gulf of Aden... [more]
Asylum seekers torched nine buildings at an Australian detention centre in a night of wild riots with a handful still on rooftops Thursday, reviving debate over the country’s immigration policies. The riots kicked off late Wednesday at the Villawood Detention Centre in western Sydney with an estimated 100 detainees involved at the height of the drama. Firefighters were at one stage pelted with roof tiles and pieces of furniture as... [more]
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday declared the 20-kilometre (12-mile) evacuation area around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant a legal no-entry zone. The move, due to come into effect at midnight local time (1500 GMT), came after police found more than 60 families still living inside the zone around the plant that was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami. The plant, where reactor cooling systems were knocked out, has... [more]
Greek authorities were saying that Swedish women were out to cash in on fake rape claims as early as 2002. Another Swedish woman has come forward telling the story of how she was mistreated after reporting a rape on the island of Kos in 2002. Last week the case of ‘Anna’, who was told she was trying to cash in on a special Swedish ‘rape insurance’ after reporting a rape in 2008, kicked off a media storm in Sweden. The second woman,... [more]
Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander will be camping on an ice cap in Greenland in May. His stay is at the invitation of the World Wildlife Fund. He will be accompanied by polar travellers Philip de Roo and Marc Cornelissen who will help him prepare for the experience. The prince will visit researchers from the European Space Agency, who process the data from the Cryosat satellite from a base in Greenland. Cryosat works out the precise extent... [more]
Volkswagen unveiled a new “bolder, more dynamic and masculine” model of its iconic Beetle this week – the third generation of the classic German car of which more than 20 million have been sold. The 2012 Beetle “breaks free of the geometry of the previous model” and aims to be more sporty and macho, the Wolfsburg-based carmaker said in a statement released on Monday evening. “The Beetle is now characterised by a clean, self-confident... [more]
Train drivers at five major private rail operators will again go on strike Monday afternoon and will not return to work until Thursday. Rail union GDL announced the strike, which will run from 2 pm Monday to 2 am Thursday. Only last week, drivers from the five firms walked off the job for 48 hours over better pay. In total, the drivers have been on strike for 119 hours since March. They are demanding a single wage scale for all train drivers... [more]
If Antarctica’s icecap melts, the sea off the Dutch coast will rise by 120 centimetres, an official report says, but if Greenland’s icecap melts the North Sea will only rise by 40 centimetres. The study into regional effects of rising sea levels was published on Friday on the website of the National Weather Centre. It was carried out by the Utrecht University, the Delft University of Technology and the weather centre. The impact of global... [more]
European nationals who do not have a job or who cannot financially support themselves will have to leave the Netherlands within three months, if new rules the government is planning to introduce come into force. The aim of the new measures is to ‘better regulate the arrival and departure’ of migrants from other EU countries, ministers say. It is not yet clear if and how the measures conflict with EU rules on the free movement of people. ‘The... [more]
