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 ...
Japan’s new Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday pledged a fiscal policy overhaul to reduce the country’s massive public debt mountain, warning of a Greece-style meltdown. “Our country’s outstanding public debt is huge,” the centre-left leader said in his first policy address since taking office Tuesday. “Our public finances have become the worst of any developed country.” After decades of stimulus... [more]
If the long-running diplomatic soap opera starring German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy required a theme song, an appropriate choice might be Serge Gainsbourg’s 1969 ditty “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus” (I Love You … Neither Do I). The pair are currently engaged in another of their recurring spats – periodic episodes of policy disagreement and personal vexation that... [more]
The European Central Bank is expected to leave its key interest rate at 1 percent on Thursday as its governing council holds its first monetary policy meeting since last month’s decision to buygovernment bonds to ease the debt crisis. With markets still jittery — the euro recently hit a series of four-year lows to trade below $1.19 this week — attention will turn to the press conference President Jean-Claude Trichet holds... [more]
Japanese prosecutors on Thursday demanded two years in prison for a New Zealand anti-whaling activist on trial for assault and charges relating to his boarding of a harpoon ship in Antarctic waters. Peter Bethune, 45, of the US-based militant environmentalist group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is accused of causing chemical burns to the face of a whaler with a rancid butter stink bomb and four other charges. Chemical burns to... [more]
The Christian Democrats do not want to reduce the tax break which people can claim on their mortgages but is prepared to put up another tax only paid by home owners, CDA leader Jan Peter Balkenende said in an interview with BNR radio, one day ahead of the general election. The woningforfait [housing tax] can be used to ask the better off to show solidarity, the outgoing prime minister said. The Financieele Dagblad says changes to the home... [more]
Finance ministers from the debt-stricken euro zone sought to restore financial markets’ confidence on Monday by agreeing how to deploy a vast anti-contagion programme if needed by struggling members. Germany’s coalition government agreed in parallel to budget cuts and taxes worth 11.2 billion euros next year — and more than 80 billion euros by the end of 2014 — in the latest of a series of austerity plans being hatched... [more]
Reductions in social benefits will spearhead the deepest spending cuts in modern German history, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Monday. But education and research will be spared the axe and income and sales taxes will not be increased. Outlining the government’s long-awaited plan to get finances back in shape in the wake of the global financial crisis, Merkel spoke of an “unparalleled show of strength” to put the nation’s... [more]
Spain’s civil servants went on strike Tuesday to protest government cuts to their salaries as part of a plan to rein in a ballooning public deficit that has rattled global financial markets. Unions representing the country’s nearly three million public workers, ranging from doctors to street cleaners, called the strike last month after the government unveiled another 15 billion euros (18 billion dollars) in spending cuts over... [more]
Talks between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel planned for Monday in Berlin have been pushed back by one week after scheduling problems, a German official said. “The meeting has been postponed by one week due to scheduling reasons,” the spokeswoman for Merkel’s office told AFP. French diplomatic sources said the talks had been postponed at Germany’s request and that a new round... [more]
Asian shares and the euro plummeted Monday as traders took their lead from a slumping Wall Street and worries that Hungary’s public finances face a Greece-style meltdown. Fresh fears for the global recovery were stoked after the United States released worse-than-expected jobs figures at the end of last week. Tokyo dived 3.84 percent, or 380.39 points, to 9,520.80 as the weaker yen hit exporters, while Sydney shed 2.78 percent, or 123.5... [more]
