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 ...
BARCELONA plans to be the first large city in Spain to ban the use of the full-face Islamic veil in public buildings, its mayor says. Jordi Hereu says he will sign a decree which will apply in all public spaces such as the city hall and municipal covered markets and creches. “It should not be possible that someone enters into a place without being identified,” the Socialist mayor said yesterdatyy. He said the measure is not aimed... [more]
The Conservative Party (Høyre) wants foreign criminals convicted in Norway to serve their sentence in special prison blocks, with limited facilities and without the usual on-the-job training. Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg said this as she presented the party’s own plan for combating crime to the party’s Central Committee. The plan calls for an extra 2000 police officers in place before 2015, and an average of two... [more]
Controversial former Augsburg bishop Walter Mixa has returned to live at the bishop’s palace despite his resignation over alleged child abuse and misuse of church funds, a media report said on Monday. Mixa, who stepped down in April following accusations that he beat children at aCatholic orphanage in the 1970s and 1980s, returned to his quarters at the palace on Saturday because he had apparently had nowhere else to stay. “He lives... [more]
European Union countries will coordinate budget plans starting next year, rather than making their own national choices, Italy’s Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Sunday. “This year is the last in which national budgets will be made,” Tremonti told a conference, according to Italian news agencies. “The economic policies will all be done at the same time of the year, all together in the same way. There will... [more]
Swiss businessman Max Goeldi will leave Libya on Sunday for home, three days after being freed from a Libyan jail for visa offences, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told reporters. “Goeldi will leave Libya today,” Calmy-Rey told reporters after a meeting with Libyan officials. She also said that Libya and Switzerland have signed an “action plan” to solve a bitter diplomatic row that saw Goeldi stuck in... [more]
Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency is providing funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban in Afghanistan, a new study by the London School of Economics (LSE) claimed, reports said Sunday. The report, based on interviews with nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan earlier this year, claims to have the most concrete evidence yet of direct links between the ISI and the militants, the BBC and Sky News reported. Some of those... [more]
Joachim Gauck, the former East German civil rights activist and candidate for president, has stirred things up by criticising the government’s savings plans for not being socially fair. Gauck was put up by the opposition parties as an alternative option for head of state to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s choice of Lower Saxony state premierChristian Wulff. The former Protestant pastor, who earned national respect for his sensitive... [more]
Several Norwegian airports are closed, after more than 1000 security guards went on strike for higher pay on Saturday morning. Helicopter traffic to North Sea oil installations is also affected. Stokmarknes, Førde and Hammerfest airports will be closed. In addition, there will be no departures from Molde Airport. Haugesund airport will be kept open during the weekend. At Oslo Airport Gardermoen, 59 out of 670 security guards will walk... [more]
Angry onlookers shouted “Disgrace!” and “Murderer!” at Joran van der Sloot on Friday after a judge ordered him jailed on first-degree murder and robbery charges in the beating and strangling death of a young Lima woman. Prosecutors said the Dutchman, who was taken to a segregated block of an eastern Lima prison, acted with “ferocity and great cruelty” in killing 21-year-old business student Stephany... [more]
Pope Benedict on Friday begged forgiveness from God and victims of child sexual abuse by priests and promised that the Catholic Church would do everything in its power to ensure that it never happens again. The pope made his comments, some of his clearest ever about the sexual abuse scandal that has swept the Church around the world, during a homily in St Peter’s Square to conclude the Roman Catholic Church’s “Year of the... [more]
