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 ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind French President Nicolas Sarkozy in his tough re-election battle on Monday, saying the two right-wingers were from the same "political family". Despite accusations in both countries of interference, Merkel used a visit to Paris for a joint Franco-German cabinet session to make clear her support for Sarkozy, who has increasingly cited Germany as a model for France. "We belong to the same political family. He supported me and it is natural that I support him in his campaign," Merkel said during a joint television interview with Sarkozy to be broadcast later on French and ...
Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt thinks that Swedes need to be prepared to work a lot longer than they do today in order to keep the same living standard as when they were working. “The pensions scheme isn’t based on magic. It is a welfare ambition based on large-scale re-distribution and citizens’ own work. If people think that we can live longer and shorten our work life, then pensions will get lower,” Reinfeldt said in interview with daily Dagens Nyheter (DN). According to Reinfeldt, the expectation to retire at 65 is a problem in Sweden today. He thinks that Swedes may have to ...
Google has confirmed it will stop automatically directing users of its China search site to its Hong Kong site after Beijing said the company would lose its mainland internet licence if the tactic continued. Google shut down its China-based search engine on March 22 to avoid co-operating with the communist government’s internet filtering and has rerouted users to its unfiltered site in Hong Kong. But Google said regulators told the... [more]
Google is singing a new tune and is getting serious about offering a music service to rival Apple’s iTunes and grab a piece of the $4.2 billion digital music pie. The search giant has been in talks with music labels about rolling out a song download store for a growing number of devices that run on its Android mobile operating system. In a sign that the company is making music a priority, Andy Rubin, a former Apple engineer who is... [more]
Australia announced a police investigation into Google amid accusations the internet giant breached privacy laws, becoming at least the second country to investigate the company’s Street View mapping services. The Australian investigation comes as more regulators and consumers watchdogs around the world are complaining that Google does not take people’s privacy seriously enough. Google maintains that its users’ privacy... [more]
A pedestrian injured by a motorist while following an online route has filed a lawsuit claiming Google supplied unsafe directions. Lauren Rosenberg filed a lawsuit seeking more than $100,000 (£68,000) in the US District Court in Utah. It also named a motorist she says hit her. Ms Rosenberg used her phone in January to download directions from one end of Park City to the other. Google Maps led her to a four-lane street without footpaths... [more]
German consumer protection minister Ilse Aigner says that internet giantGoogle could face “more than 50,000″ lawsuits in Germany because of its controversial virtual photo service Street View. Aigner told news magazine Focus that there is a rising tide of lawsuits confronting Google in the country. “If the wave of legal objections continues, we expect that it could be more than 50,000 by the end of the year,”... [more]
Australia’s communications minister has calledGoogle’s privacy policy “a bit creepy” in personal attacks against the head of the company and fellow Web giant Facebook in an Internet filtering row. Stephen Conroy said Google had committed the “single greatest breach in the history of privacy” by collecting private wireless data while taking pictures for its “Street View” mapping service,... [more]
Federal regulators are clearing the way for Google to buy a mobile ad service called AdMob. Regulators concluded that the $750 million deal is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for advertising on wireless devices. The Federal Trade Commission says that while the deal raises serious antitrust issues, those concerns are overshadowed by Apple Inc.’s push into the market, too. Apple bought another online mobile... [more]
Internet giant Google has agreed to make a cash offer of 421 million kroner (54.5 million euros, 68.2 million dollars) for Norway’s Global IP Solutions (GIPS), a voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) processing firm, the two groups said on Tuesday. The offer has already been accepted by about 50 percent of GIPS’ shareholders and is recommended by its board. It is conditional to the acceptance of 90 percent of shareholders, the... [more]
The German consumer protection minister is strongly criticizing Google after the U.S. internet giant acknowledged a privacy breach. Ilse Aigner’s ministry said in a statement Saturday the recent “alarming incident” shows that Google still lacks an understanding of the need for privacy. The statement said “sccording to the information available to us so far, Google has for years penetratedprivate networks, apparently... [more]
Google is halting the collection of WiFi network information for its controversial “Street View” mapping service after admitting it mistakenly gathered personal data sent over unsecured systems. The Internet giant had insisted previously that it was only collecting WiFi network names and addresses with the Street View cars that have been cruising cities around the world taking photographs for the Google Maps service. “It’s... [more]
