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 ...
Embattled oil refiner Petroplus said on Thursday that lenders had frozen access to its remaining credit lines in a further blow to the firm in the process of shutting down three of its refineries. “Access to all credit lines under the Revolving Credit Facility have been suspended,” pending the outcome of ongoing talks with lenders, the Swiss firm said in a statement. Petroplus, Europe’s largest independent oil refiner,... [more]
Three Swiss bankers were indicted in the United States today, accused of hiding $US1.2 billion ($A1.16 billion) in assets of US clients seeking to avoid declaring their full wealth to tax authorities. The bankers, Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller, were accused of “conspiring with US taxpayers and others” in a massive tax fraud scheme. In an indictment, the three bankers were said to have been client advisers at the... [more]
The euro zone will tackle its debt crisis this week by offering more cash to the IMF and long-term liquidity to banks, while moving toward tighter fiscal rules, after ratings agency Fitch cast doubt on its capacity to respond decisively. “We all know that Europe has not been able to convince markets that its governance set-up and its measures against the crisis were enough,” Italian Deputy Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli said... [more]
The Czech Republic and Hungary have said they will not sign the new European Union pact unless tax harmonisation plans are dropped. The announcement comes less than one week after the EU summit hailed as bringing unity to all but one of its member nations. In Brussels, 26 of the 27 members of the EU backed new fiscal rules to keep budgets in line, with only the UK abstaining. Neither Hungary or the Czech Republic uses the euro, and tax harmonisation... [more]
Authorities at the Auschwitz memorial say that the European Commissionhas donated €4 million to help preserve the site of the World War II Nazi death camp. The authorities said in a statement Wednesday that the money will be used to help preserve women’s barracks of the Birkenau part of the camp. It will also be used to strengthen and improve the security of the archive building, to expand the database system and to modernize... [more]
US authorities have given Switzerland until Tuesday to transmit data from tax evaders in the United States who have stashed assets away in Swiss banks, the SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday. The United States has asked for detailed information on US nationals who have hidden their money in Switzerland, the paper said, basing its report on a three-page letter from the US deputy attorney general James Cole, dated August 31, addressed to the... [more]
European governments wrangled over how best to keep Greece from defaulting on its mountain of debt, with one of them acknowledging for the first time that they had discussed a restructuring — a risky move to delay or cut debt repayments. Monday’s meeting was meant to focus on getting final approval for a euro78 billion ($110 billion) bailout for Portugal, but growing concern over Greece — and the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn,... [more]
Google is threatening to wipe photographs of streets and houses in Switzerland from its online maps unless the country’s supreme court overturns a ruling requiring an absolute guarantee of anonymity for people captured by the popular Street View service. Shutting down Street View in an entire country would be the Internet search giant’s most extreme response yet to growing complaints it is violating people’s privacy. The... [more]
Swiss food giant Nestle said Friday its first quarter sales fell 9.3 percent, hit by the strong Swiss franc and costs arising from its sale of eyecare group Alcon. Sales for the period fell to 20.3 billion francs (€15.7 billion). “Sales were impacted by -9.8 percent from foreign exchange and by -5.9 percent from divestitures net of acquisitions,” the group said in a statement. The world’s biggest food company also... [more]
Applications for asylum in Switzerland rose 18.1 percent in the first quarter of 2011, official figures have shown. The new statistics published by the Swiss Federal Migration Office show that 4,371 applications were registered in the first quarter – 671 more than the first quarter a year before. The month of March, during which weather conditions were good, saw a peak of 1,874 requests, 612 more than the previous month. The mild... [more]
