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 ...
The United States has botched the handling of inmates at Guantanamo, holding men for years without reliable evidence while releasing others who posed a grave threat, according to leaked secret files. The trove of more than 700 classified documents released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks showed US officials struggling with often flawed evidence and confused about the guilt or innocence of detainees held at the prison at the US naval... [more]
Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that he hopes to meet with North Korea’s reclusive leader during a visit aimed at assessing severe food shortages and discussing the revival of nuclear disarmament talks. Carter is making the three-day visit to North Korea this week accompanied by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland and former Irish President Mary Robinson. The four are... [more]
A controversial US pastor was briefly jailed after a court said his planned protest outside a mosque was likely to provoke violence and he refused to pay a $1 bond. Terry Jones, who achieved notoriety by burning the Koran as part of a campaign against what he calls “radical Islam”, initially declined to make the payment in protest. But the token $1 the 59-year-old and supporter Wayne Sapp, 42, were told to each pay under the... [more]
Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip has been named at the head of list of “the top ten most beautiful royal men”, while his sister Madeleine had to settle for seventh on the female equivalent. The website BeautifulPeople.com describes itself as “an exclusively beautiful community” and promises that they wont be ”filtering through unattractive people” on their pages. The site argues that it is “fair and democratic”,... [more]
Almost three years after the global financial crisis, Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been slammed in a US Senate report for allegedly recklessly pushing worthless mortgage-backed securities to investors. The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations this week said the bank had wittingly pushed high-risk assets known as collateralized debt obligations (CDO) that would help cause the United States’ worst economic collapse since the... [more]
The US President has rounded on Republicans expressing doubts over whether he was born in America saying it will backfire on them at election time. Barack Obama said most people knew he was born in Hawaii and were more concerned about rocketing fuel prices and rising unemployment than his birth certificate, in an interview with ABC News. The question of the President’s place of birth was thought to have been settled long ago after... [more]
A FORMER UN weapons inspector has been convicted of having unlawful contact with a minor, after being nabbed in an online sex sting. Scott Ritter, 49, exchanged explicit messages with a detective posing as a 15-year-old girl and masturbated even after the undercover officer stressed during the chat that he was a minor, prosecutors said. A jury in the US state of Pennsylvania found Ritter guilty on six counts today, with sentencing set... [more]
With time growing short, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that he remains confident that a government shutdown can be avoided this weekend if negotiators can build on constructive talks held at the White House. Differences remain despite the progress, but Obama announced that talks would continue through the night in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown this weekend. “It’s going to require a sufficient sense of... [more]
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai deplored the burning of the Koran by a fundamentalist U.S. pastor in an hour-long video teleconference on Wednesday and condemned deadly violence sparked by the incident, the White House said. Karzai and Obama discussed a range of topics in the call, including the gradual handover of security in Afghanistan from U.S. and NATO troops to Afghan control. “The two leaders agreed... [more]
A militant preacher in Florida whose Koran burning triggered deadly riots in Afghanistan has vowed to lead an anti-Islam protest outside the biggest mosque in America. The planned demonstration could further inflame tensions over the Koran burning, which led to two days of protests in Afghanistan that included the killings of UN staff and stoked anti-Western sentiment across the Muslim world. “Our aim is to make an awareness of the... [more]
