Legendary pop singer Whitney Houston was found dead Saturday at a Beverly Hills, California, hotel, officials said. She was 48. The entertainer, whose incredible talent was discovered at an early age, was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. (6:55 p.m. ET) at the Beverly Hilton hotel despite resuscitation efforts, a police spokesman said. Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen said there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent" and that the cause of her death is being investigated. Houston's bodyguard found her body, said Courtney Barnes, publicist for hip-hop artist Ray J, who was dating the pop diva. According to her official website, Houston sold ...
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 ...
Japan’s prime minister, attempting to build support for painful fiscal reforms, said Saturday that the country should be alarmed by ratings cuts in Europe and must tackle its massive public debts to avoid becoming the next target. Japan’s debt is more than twice its gross domestic product, higher than any of the struggling European economies whose fiscal problems have set off a eurozone crisis that has reverberated in markets... [more]
The US government is concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran over US objections, and has stepped up contingency planning to safeguard US facilities in the region, The Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper said President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a series of private messages to Israeli leaders, warning about the dire consequences of a strike. Obama... [more]
THE group of major banks negotiating on a write-down of Greek sovereign debt say they have not reached a deal on its debt, including any new write-down. “There has been no agreement on any Greek deal or a specific ‘haircut’,” said Charles Dallara, the head of the Institute of International Finance which is representing the banks in EU negotiations. “We remain open to a dialogue in search of a voluntary agreement.... [more]
Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro- zone countries, stripping France andAustria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area. “Today’s rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully... [more]
Queen Beatrix is right to say Geert Wilders is talking nonsense by describing Muslim headscarves as a symbol of female oppression, prime minister Mark Rutte said on Friday after the weekly cabinet meeting. ‘There are an awful lot of women who wear headscarves and they are not all oppressed,’ Rutte said. On Thursday, the queen, who was on a state visit to Oman, told reporters Wilders was talking nonsense for criticising her decision... [more]
The anti-Islam PVV in Limburg has sacked one of its provincial councillors for describing a Labour party colleague as ‘a piece of sicked-up halal meat made from a Turkish pig’. The comment was made a year ago by PVV number two Cor Bosman in an email to 20 supporters after Labour councillor Selçuk Öztürk gave an interview to a local magazine. The decision to sack Bosman was taken at an emergency meeting on Friday morning after news... [more]
First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy says she is ready to hit the campaign trail for her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy. “If my husband is candidate for the presidential elections, I will take part as much as possible,” Bruni-Sarkozy told Le Parisien. Sarkozy has not yet officially confirmed that he will run in this year’s presidential elections, but in reality there is little doubt in France that he will. Bruni-Sarkozy... [more]
SStandard & Poor’s has decided to downgrade France’s top-notch credit rating but will spare Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, an EU government source told AFP on Friday. “France loses its triple-A rating,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Standard and Poor’s Corp earlier on Friday declined to comment on rumours on the markets that it was about to downgrade several eurozone... [more]
Joran van der Sloot has been given a 28 year sentence in prison in Lima for the aggrevated murder of 21 year-old Stephany Flores in May 2010. This means with a sentence reduction for the amount of time he has spent on remand, he will released in 2038. After which he will be deported from Peru. Earlier this week the Dutchman pleaded guilty to all charges hoping to be given a reduced sentence. The Public Prosecution had demanded 30 years in... [more]
U.S. allies in Asia and Europe voiced support for Washington’s drive to cut Iran’s oil exports, although fear of self-inflicted pain is curbing enthusiasm for an embargo thatTehran says will not halt its nuclear program. The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, said on Thursday that the nuclear program was also too strong to be derailed by assassinations of nuclear scientists, a day after the fourth such killing. As... [more]
