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 ...
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Monday shrugged off support for Fiji’s military dictatorship from nine of the 16 nations attending this week’s Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland. Key and his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard have worked hard in recent years to make Fiji a pariah state in the Pacific over the military’s refusal in the wake of a 2006 coup to hold democratic elections until 2014. However, 11 leaders... [more]
FUNNYMAN Eddie Murphy has surfaced as the front-runner to host the 84th Academy Awards, with reports he will be the only name put forward for the job. Deadline.com says the 50-year-old actor will be formally suggested to the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences by Oscar producer Brett Ratner when he meets with the committee on Tuesday. Murphy is said to have “shown interest” in the gig, but the deal is yet to be signed... [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]
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit Palestine’s city of Gaza in September 13 or 14 to put an end to an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, country’s Haberturk newspaper said on Sunday, quoting sources in the government. The sources told the paper that the prime minister would get to Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing as new Egyptian authorities gave their approval for that. Israel... [more]
Russian billionaire and the leader of the Right Cause party Mikhail Prokhorov said on Sunday he suggested cutting state stakes in Russia’s mass media to limit governmental influence on it. “We advocate that (the government) should not own more than a blocking pack in federal media,” Prokhorov told reporters, adding that the mass media freedom would allow Russian society to be more “healthy”. He also said that... [more]
BRITISH comedy legend Rowan Atkinson and former Bond girl, Rosamund Pike, have walked the red carpet in Sydney for the world premiere of their latest film, Johnny English Reborn. In the sequel to the 2002 spy-comedy Johnny English, Atkinson reprises his role as the unlikely secret service agent, who is called in to stop a group of international assassins from taking down the Chinese premier. Atkinson and Pike were joined in Sydney by... [more]
THE West must not repeat the same mistake in Libya as it did in Iraq, Italy’s foreign minister said, warning against a full-scale purging of military officials and bureaucrats from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. “Why destroy all the structure, all the apparatus in Libya like we have done in Iraq, making a big mistake,” Franco Frattini told reporters at an economics forum in the Lake Como resort town of Cernobbio. “We... [more]
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard dismissed mounting speculation about her future, vowing to stay in the job despite a crushing court blow to the government’s asylum-seeker policy. The nation’s highest court on Wednesday scuttled Canberra’s proposal to send 800 boat people to Malaysia, in a huge embarrassment for Gillard and her fragile Labor government, sparking fevered talk that her days are numbered. The Sydney... [more]
Uzbekistan on Thursday marked 20 years since independence from the USSR, as its president pledged political and economic reform in ex-Soviet Central Asia’s most populous nation. In 1991, Uzbekistan “put an end to the period of colonial oppression and dependency,” said President Islam Karimov at the festive ceremony on the eve of the independence day. “No matter what threats were voiced against our country, and no... [more]
Forbes has released a list of the world’s most powerful women. For the third straight year, there are no Russian women on the list. German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the list. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 12%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left:... [more]
