SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling Internet company, as it tries to revive its revenue growth and win over disgruntled shareholders under a new leader.The surprise departure, announced Tuesday, comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as its CEO.Thompson is the fourth CEO in less than five years to try to turn around Yahoo ― a challenge that Yang was unable to pull off during his own tumultuous 18-month reign as th

Denmark, home to the world’s biggest household debt burden, won’t lose its top credit rating any time soon as stable public finances and a current account surplus offset the risks, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s said.“Denmark is not a country we are particularly worried about,” Fitch Managing Director Edward Parker said in an interview in Stockholm Tuesday. “We are not expecting over the near term to be taking negative action on Denmark.”Denmark, which is struggling to emerge from a burst h

SINGAPORE (AFP) ― Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Tuesday he may earn more than the U.S. president but Barack Obama has much better perks such as free travel on Air Force One and holidays in Camp David.Mounting a vigorous defense of the high salaries of Singapore ministers, Lee said the city-state cannot emulate the lower pay structures of bigger countries like the United States or Britain.Lee’s ruling People’s Action Party has been on the defensive since general elections in May l

CAIRO (AP) ― Hosni Mubarak, on trial for his life, is ferried to court by helicopter from a presidential hospital suite. His sons and co-defendants swagger in wearing designer track suits and no handcuffs. His security chief is treated with near reverence by police in the courtroom.For activists in Egypt, the scenes only deepen their feeling that the authoritarian system the ousted president oversaw remains largely in place, almost a year since the 18-day uprising that toppled him.When Mubarak’s

MADRID (AFP) ― A Spanish judge who gained international attention by pursuing former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet went on trial himself Tuesday, accused of abuse of power in an illegal wiretapping case.Judge Baltasar Garzon appeared in the Supreme Court in Madrid in one of three cases which his defenders say are politically motivated bids to stop him prosecuting crimes dating from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.Garzon, 56, is alleged to have ordered illegal wiretaps in a corruption ca

TOULOUSE, France (AFP) ― The widow of a Frenchman who died on the Costa Concordia luxury liner gave a chilling account Monday of how her husband sacrificed his life by giving her the only life jacket they had.“I owe my life to my husband,” said Nicole Servel, 61, whose husband Francis was one of at least six people to die when the luxury liner ran aground off the Italian coast on Friday night. “He said to me ‘jump, jump’. And as I don’t know how to swim, he gave me his life jacket. I was hesitan

WASHINGTON, Jan 17, 2012 (AFP) - Protestors linked to the "Occupy" movement apparently threw a smoke bomb over the White House fence on Tuesday, capping a day of protests in Washington, the Secret Service said.No arrests were made after demonstrators from the Occupy DC group marched on the White Hou

PARIS (AFP) ― Europe’s stock markets mostly rode out Standard and Poor’s downgrade of several eurozone players when they reopened stable on Monday, but the single currency itself remained under pressure.Meanwhile, in a sign of trouble to come, European banks stowed record sums in the ECB for safe keeping and a top IMF official warned the eurozone faces a “downward spiral” if it fails to get its governance in order.France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy received a boost when Moody’s declined to match

STRASBOURG (AFP) ― European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Monday downplayed the importance of ratings agencies after Standard & Poor’s mass downgrade of eurozone countries, saying markets had priced in the action.“I think what we should do is to learn either to do without them or with them but to a much more limited way than we do today,” said Draghi, in his capacity as head of the European Systemic Risk Board.“To a great extent, markets anticipated these ratings changes and priced their as