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 American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker’s online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks. Revelations that the U.S. Justice Department obtained a court order to examine data held by Twitter Inc. on Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian who sits on the country’s Foreign Affairs... [more]
Former party pals Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were unexpectedly reunited on Thursday after turning up as guests to the same Hollywood dinner party. The Toxic hitmaker cut wildchild Hilton out of her life in 2008 after suffering a headline-grabbing breakdown which saw her lose custody of her two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline and being placed under her father’s conservatorship. Spears has since cleaned up her act and has been... [more]
Supermodel Miranda Kerr is a new mum, according to unconfirmed reports. The Aussie, who wed Orlando Bloom in July went into labour in Los Angeles on Thursday and gave birth hours later, reports X17.com. Kerr, 27, revealed she was expecting a month after she and Bloom wed. She began experiencing contractions the day after Christmas but it proved to be a false alarm, according to Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph. Gossip blogger Perez... [more]
Royal Bank of Scotland should not be “leading the way” when it came to bankers’ bonuses, the Prime Minister said. But David Cameron warned against “banker-bashing”, saying that it was too easy to make banks the “scapegoats” for the recession. Mr Cameron’s comments came after it was reported RBS chief executive Stephen Hester will take home an estimated £6.8 million in bonuses, salary and other... [more]
A US congresswoman was in critical condition Sunday after being shot in the head when a gunman opened fire at a public event, killing six people in an attack that shocked the nation. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, 40, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, was meeting constituents at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona, when the assailant unleashed a volley of automatic fire. A nine-year-old girl and a federal judge... [more]
Despite rumors to the contrary, former presidential hopeful John Edwards is not engaged to Rielle Hunter, sources close to the couple tell ABC News. “I do not believe it to be true,” Hunter’s attorney, Alan Duncan, told ABC News when asked about a report in The National Enquirer that Edwards had proposed over a December vacation, just weeks after the death of his estranged wife Elizabeth Edwards. Another source close to... [more]
Denmark’s Crown Princess Mary has given birth to twins – a boy and a girl – the royal court has announced. The palace said Mary became the proud mother of “two fine children” at the Rigshospitalet hospital in Copenhagen. “Both mother and children are doing well,” the court said. The boy, weighing 5lb 14oz (2.7kg) was the first to be born, while his sister, weighing 5lb 10oz (2.6kg), was delivered... [more]
Britain’s royals will benefit from changes to freedom of information laws meaning their letters will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest, the justice ministry said Saturday. The ministry said it planned to introduce “enhanced protection” for communications with Queen Elizabeth II’s family and household as part of wider reforms to information laws brought in six years ago. “Communications... [more]
Former members of Parliament (Stortinget), Anders Talleraas and Magnus Stangeland have been sentenced to jail terms after having been found guilty of pension fraud by an Oslo court. Talleraas was sentenced to six months in jail for having received NOK 2.7 million in excessive pension payments, while Stangeland received a 60-days sentence for having accepted NOK 536.195 in excessive payments. In addition they were also ordered to pay NOK... [more]
Prime Minister Julia Gillard Saturday warned that massive flooding in Australia’s northeast would recede only slowly, as some communities learned they could be isolated by rising waters for weeks. Muddy floodwaters have inundated a huge area of Queensland state, cutting off roads and railway lines, destroying crops, swamping mines and forcing hundreds of people to leave their homes. “The scale of the floodwaters, the sheer size... [more]
