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 ...
Iran on Saturday hanged Iranian-Dutch woman Zahra Bahrami for selling and possessing drugs, dismissing repeated pleas by The Netherlands which had sought details about her case. Bahrami’s execution is the latest in a slew of hangings carried out by the Islamic republic in January. Her execution takes the total number of people hanged in Iran so far this year to 66, according to media reports. “A drug trafficker named Zahra Bahrami,... [more]
Egypt’s military deployed on the streets of Cairo to enforce a nighttime curfew as the sun set Friday on a day of rioting and violent chaos that was a major escalation in the challenge to authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Still thousands in the capital Cairo defied a nationwide night curfew and were trying to storm two major government buildings — the state TV and the Foreign Ministry. Others were praying... [more]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Egypt on Friday to rein in its security forces and allow peaceful protests, escalating pressure on an important ally as demonstrations raged across the country. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak imposed a curfew and ordered troops to back up police as they struggled to control crowds who flooded the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities to demand that he step down. Clashes between protesters and... [more]
Europe is working up plans for a revamped eurozone crisis fund that could help Greece wipe away part of its debt mountain, an albatross of some 300 billion euros. European Union officials acknowledged on Friday long-denied rumours of a scheme that would allow Athens to reduce the debts, as crippling austerity and economic contraction threaten to blow repayments way off schedule. Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, speaking in... [more]
Germany’s parliament is expected to vote in favour of extending the country’s unpopular military mission in Afghanistan by one year on Friday, with a new mandate allowing for the withdrawal of troops to begin in 2011 if conditions permit. The number of Bundeswehr soldiers would remain unchanged at around 5,000, according to guidelines approved by the German cabinet earlier this month. The government also has stated that “handover... [more]
A narrow majority of MPs have voted in favour of the government’s plans to send a police training mission to Afghanistan, after ministers made a number of conditions. The vote, late on Thursday night, took place after two days of debate during which the government emphasised the civilian nature of the mission. Jolander Sap, leader of the left-wing green party GroenLinks, eventually agreed to back the project, turning the tide in the government’s... [more]
Less than half of those who describe themselves as competent internet users are guarding their personal data with anti-phishing or browser protection software, the survey commissioned by Deutsche Telekom found. Just one-third of those who claimed minimal online competence said they browse the web with protection. The survey found web surfers using mobile devices to be especially negligent, with only one-quarter subscribing to virus protection... [more]
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s eldest son said in an interview published Friday that his father opposed continuing the family dynasty into a third generation but ended up naming his youngest son as heir to keep the country stable. The comments by Kim Jong Nam, portrayed in the media as a casino-loving playboy, were published in a Japanese newspaper just as NorthKorea proposed holding parliamentary talks with South Korea — its... [more]
British police arrested five young men on Thursday as they and U.S. authorities conducted searches as part of a probe into Internet activists who carried out cyber attacks against groups they viewed as enemies of the WikiLeaks website. “The arrests were related to recent ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attacks by an online group calling themselves Anonymous,” London police said in a statement. In the United... [more]
Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s party saw its hopes for a political future dashed again on Friday as the country’s Supreme Court brushed aside its latest appeal against dissolution. The court in the capital Naypyidaw took only a few minutes to reject the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) legal bid, according to Kyaw Hoe, a lawyer for the party. Suu Kyi has all but exhausted her options in the courts to reinstate... [more]
