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 ...
Police in Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, arrested four people during the early hours of Sunday on probable cause suspected of preparing terrorist crime, confirmed Sara Kvarnström, press officer of the Swedish Security Services (Säpo), to news agency TT. “The arrest was made with the help of the National Task Force and Gothenburg’s police force,” she said. The National Task Force (Nationella insatsstyrkan) is... [more]
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is making preparations for a Greek insolvency, according to newsweekly Der Spiegel. His officials are reported to be preparing for several scenarios that might arise should Athens go bankrupt. There are two possible outcomes, in the view of the ministry. Either the country stays in the euro zone, or it re-introduces its former currency, the drachma. A key consideration in Schäuble’s thinking... [more]
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said he is confident the euro will survive and that the European Union will emerge stronger from the current economic crisis. Speaking as European markets tumbled on renewed fears over the risk of recession and eurozone debt, Barroso expressed confidence that the fiscal consolidation and structural reform efforts underway would work. “I think Europe will get out of this crisis stronger... [more]
Around 1,000 potential Islamist terrorists live in Germany, 128 of whom could be classed as capable of carrying out attacks, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said Monday. “We have almost 1,000 people who could be described as possible Islamist terrorists,” he told the Bild daily, adding that 128 could be considered ‘dangerous” and capable of committing attacks. He said that around 20 of those had received... [more]
ICELAND’S former prime minister Geir Haarde has become the first political leader to be tried over the global financial crisis, as proceedings begin to decide if he can be held accountable for his country’s banking sector collapse. Haarde, 60, who arrived minutes before proceedings began at today looking cheerful and accompanied by his wife, asked the court for a third time to dismiss the charges, which he has called a “farce.” Haarde... [more]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed hope on Monday that all contracts under 2011 state defense order will be concluded by the end of this week. “I hope that by the end of this week all these contracts, including in shipbuilding, the missile industry and aircraft industry, will be concluded,” Putin said at a meeting of United Russia activists. “We must guarantee the quantity and the quality of armaments along... [more]
Russian actor and writer Ivan Okhlobystin has announced his intention to run for the presidency next year. Okhlobystin, a well-known actor, TV personality and ex-Orthodox priest, said he had made the decision after “much consideration.” He is also the creative director of the mobile phone company Euroset. While it is still unclear which one of Russia’s ruling duo will run in the March 2012 elections, communist leader... [more]
Former Slovenian prime minister Janez Jansa and four others went on trial on Monday over alleged bribery in the former Yugoslav republic’s biggest ever defence deal. “All together it is just a farce,” Jansa, prime minister from 2004-8 and now head of the main centre-right opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), told journalists as he arrived at Ljubljana’s municipal court. Jansa, 52, has been charged with “complicity... [more]
The embezzlement trail of former French president Jacques Chirac is due to open Monday, despite his lawyers’ claims that he is medically unfit to attend. Chirac is also accused of breach of trust and using public funds to pay his campaign workers. Jacques Chirac’s embezzlement trial opens Monday with his lawyers arguing that the French former president is too unwell to attend but insisting that the case must still go ahead. The... [more]
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition could face a further drubbing at the polls on Sunday in a regional election in Germany’s poorest state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have been junior coalition partners to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the sparsely populated state on the Baltic shore but could be knocked out and replaced by the Left party or even the Greens. Voter... [more]
