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 ...
As many as 160 people were feared dead after an AirIndia plane arriving from Dubai crashed and burst into flames at dawn Saturday as it overshot a precarious hilltop runway in southern India while trying to land in the rain. Dense black smoke billowed from the Boeing 737-800 aircraft surrounded by flames just outside the Mangalore city’s Bajpe airport in a hilly area with thick grass and trees. Firefighters sprayed water on the... [more]
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton kicked off a three-nation tour of Asia on Friday that was supposed to focus on U.S.-China economic issues but is being overshadowed by a crisis over North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean warship. Clinton landed in Japan for the first leg of the tour that will also take her to China and South Korea. At all three stops, her agenda will be dominated by heightened tensions stemming from... [more]
South Korea’s president said Friday his country was caught in a “perfect military ambush” when a NorthKorean torpedo sank a naval warship, but called for a cautious response to the disaster that left 46 sailors dead. President Lee Myung-bak made the comments at an emergency national security meeting convened one day after an official report concluded that North Korea was responsible for the deadly sinking of the South... [more]
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]
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]
A U.N. sanctions draft resolution against Iran has no legitimacy, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a close ally of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying on Wednesday. “The draft being discussed at the United Nations Security Council has no legitimacy at all,” Fars quoted Ahmadinejad’s senior adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi as saying. The United States handed a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council... [more]
Iranian film director Jafar Panahi has started a hunger strike in prison, his wife told an opposition website on Tuesday. Panahi, winner of many international awards and a supporter of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in last year’s disputed presidential election, was arrested in early March along with his wife and daughter. His family was later released and he was taken to Tehran’s Evin prison. “I was taken to interrogation... [more]
At least four people have been killed when Thai soldiers stormed into a fortified protest camp in Bangkok, smashing through barricades with armoured vehicles. Once inside the protest zone, troops fired M-16 rifles at fleeing protesters and shouted: “Come out and surrender or we’ll kill you.” Sky News’ Ashish Joshi, in Bangkok, said: “I counted the bodies of at least two protesters lying on the ground, shot by... [more]
South Korea’s foreign minister said Wednesday it was “obvious” that North Korea sank one of the South’s warships in March, killing 46 sailors. Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters that investigators have enough evidence of North Korean involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan to take Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council. Yu’s comments are the first by a South Korean official clearly pointing... [more]
South African airport security has been exposed ahead of the World Cup, appearing to ridicule claims by the host country its defences are water tight. Undercover radio reporters managed to take steak knives, screwdrivers, razors, pairs of scissors and even syringes on to flights without detection. The Eyewitness News reporters tested 10 flights at various host city airports. “In more than half of the incidences, we managed to get on... [more]
