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 ...
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will succeed former UK prime minister Gordon Brown as co-chair of a U.N. group looking at ways to raise funds to help poor nations to combat climate. In February, Brown, the then British prime minister, was named by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to co-chair the group of 19 leading experts with Ethiopian Premier Meles Zenawi. Stoltenberg, head of Norway’s Labour Party, has been among members... [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]
More than 45,000 municipal employees are on strike, and another 400 union members are joining in the nationwide walkout from Monday morning. Bergen and Narvik will be hardest hit. Even more schools and day-care centers will be closed by the strike, which in addition also hits municipal administration, technical services, libraries, home care and nursing homes. Share this: {lang: 'en-US'} function open_win(url,id)... [more]
OIL pouring into the Gulf of Mexico from a fractured well spread around a 320km radius but broke into thousands of small spills, a top U.S. coast guard official said today. “This spill is just aggregated over a 200-mile radius around the wellbore, where it’s leaking right now, and it’s not a monolithic spill,” said Admiral Thad Allen, in charge of the U.S. operation against the leak. “It is literally hundreds... [more]
The government plans to cut at least 10,000 civil servant jobs as well as allowing the work agency to decide how much to pay unemployed people, according to details leaked to the media as budget talks started on Sunday. Chancellor Angela Merkel has called her government to meet on Sunday and Monday to decide on measures to reduce the federal budget by around €10 billion every year until 2016 in order to get control of debts. As the... [more]
Seven of 19 activists from the Rachel Corrie aid ship which tried to run the Gaza siege were expelled from Israel on Sunday as calls grew for an end to the crippling blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave. The remaining 12 would be deported later on Sunday, an Israeli official said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defending an earlier botched raid which left nine dead, insisted Israel would never allow a situation in which arms could... [more]
Mariah Carey stayed mum on reports she’s pregnant with her first child when she made her first public appearance since quitting Tyler Perry’s movie over health concerns. The singer was preparing to start work on Perry’s adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, when she walked away from the project after seeking her doctor’s advice for a... [more]
The U.N.’s humanitarian chief acknowledged frustration Sunday with the slow progress in providing shelter to the 1.5 million Haitians still homeless because of the Jan. 12 earthquake, and said a large amount of work needs to be done as the hurricane season bears down on the struggling nation. John Holmes told The Associated Press that the complex process of finding available land for transitional shelters, slow decision-making by... [more]
Russia urged NATO forces in Afghanistan on Sunday to crack down harder on drug production and smuggling, and offered to help put a security ring around the country. The international community should classify Afghan drugs as a threat to peace and security because they have become an important source of funds for the Taliban and other insurgent groups, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said in a speech. Insurgents and international... [more]
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that North Korea may stage more “provocations” while being held to account for the sinking of a South Korean warship that has inflamed cross-border tensions. Gates, who met counterparts from Japan and South Korea on the sidelines of an Asian security conference that wrapped up in Singapore Sunday, called for a united front but admitted Washington and its allies had limited options. Attention... [more]
