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 ...
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]
Espen Fadnes from Molde won this year’s World Base Race, and became ”The world fastest flying human being”. He used 18.68 seconds on the flight from the top of 1066m Gridsetskolen mountain. Fadnes competed with 27 men and five women from various countries around the world, using nothing but gravity, dressed in a wing suit, trying to perform the perfect aerodynamic flight from mountaiun top to sea level. It is the third... [more]
Around two million people were estimated to have shown up to a stretch of the A40 autobahn in the Ruhr area on Sunday for the ‘Still Life’ festival which promised to replace speeding cars with a huge range of cultural events. The project – part of the Ruhr 2010 European capital of culture season – involved completely closing the 60-kilometre stretch of the motorway between Duisburgand Dortmund, filling it with up to 20,000... [more]
The mother of 14-year-old Laura Dekker has dropped her objections to her daughter’s plan to sail the world alone. Writing to daily AD, the Dutch sailor girl’s mother Babs Müller states that her daughter should be given the opportunity to realise “her dream” of becoming the youngest girl ever to sail solo around the world. It is not immediately clear why Ms Müller changed her mind, after she wrote to another daily... [more]
Sweden, being an archipelago with islands separated from each other by the Baltic Sea and Lake Malarn, requires an effected means of media and mass communication in order to easily communicate and receive information from any part of the country. The national capital of Sweden which is the City of Stockholm is sort of like Sweden in miniature because the city is also scattered among water bodies and is comprised of 14 major islands. Unlike... [more]
The first full day of Scotland’s largest music festival came to an end with a bang as US rapper Eminem took to the stage. A loud bang, later attributed to electrical error interrupted the controversial star’s encore as he closed the festivities at T in the Park on Saturday night. As the sun set over Balado Airfield in Kinross-shire, the rapper headlined the most eclectic line-up in the festival’s history for his only UK... [more]
Oslo Airport Gardermoen has been ranked Europe’s most effective airport for 2010 by the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS). Altogether 37 airports in Europe were considered. The Copenhagen Airport has for the past several years been ranked the number one airport in Europe, with the Oslo Airport (OSL) in second place. One reason for receiving the Europe Airport Efficiency Excellence Award is that Oslo Airport handles more flights,... [more]
Quoting unnamed sources, Norwegian media have over the past days reported more details of the PST surveillance which led to the arrest on Thursday morning of three men suspected of planning terrorism. From these reports it has become clear that the three suspects must have been followed very closely by the PST (Police Security Service) over considerable time, probably at least a year. One report relates that when one of the suspects wanted... [more]
The Security Service of the Norwegian Police (PST) has observed that asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Norway are increasingly being monitored by intelligence services from their own homelands. Foreign intelligence services are sending agents posing as asylum seekers to Norway, and their mission is to map other asylum seekers from their homeland, NRK reports. The PST confirms that this is an increasing problem. - We can’t present... [more]
The city of Bergen’s new Light Rail transport system (Bybanen) was opened Tuesday. The first stage is 9.8 km long and runs from the city center to Nestun, with 15 stops in all. Among the passengers on the inauguration run was Queen Sonja. The old Bergen street car system was closed down in 1965, after the narrow streets filled with parked cars made it impossible for the tramway to operate. Work was started in the 1970s on plans for... [more]
