BUSINESS BRIEFS
Yahoo hopes to gain advertising edge over Google
Advertiser Staff and News Services
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. believes it's poised to revolutionize online advertising after years of being outmaneuvered by rival Google Inc.
But the slumping Internet pioneer might not get the chance to show off the latest improvements to its online advertising platform unless it can convince increasingly impatient investors that the new approach will produce a bigger payoff than Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited offer to buy the Sunnyvale-based company for more than $40 billion.
Hoping to gain wiggle room, Yahoo is releasing more details about its effort to become a one-stop shop for selling and distributing online display ads — the Internet equivalent of billboards.
The upgrade, called "Amp," won't be available until sometime this summer, and then only on a limited basis among more than 600 newspaper publishers trying to recover some of the revenue that the Internet has siphoned from their print editions.
Nevertheless, Yahoo will begin promoting Amp today with an online video demonstration of a system it promises will make it easier for advertisers to aim their messages at specific demographic groups across scores of Web sites.
BIG NATIONS AGREE AID MUST INCREASE
TOKYO — The world's richest nations agreed yesterday that industrially advanced countries must increase their aid to Africa and other impoverished areas despite economic slumps at home.
The agreement came on the second day of talks in Tokyo between the ministers of the Group of Eight industrialized nations and emerging nations such as Brazil and China.
Harder economic times in the G-8 nations — Britain, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, Russia, Germany and Japan — have made it harder for them to meet assistance goals.
Officials from the emerging donor nations Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa also attended the meeting.
Japan Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said the ministers reaffirmed the need for G-8 countries to strengthen aid to needy areas, while at the same time striving to improve their own economies.
He said ministers also discussed growing threats of climate change and rising food prices.
N. ZEALAND, CHINA TO SIGN TRADE PACT
WELLINGTON, New Zea-land — New Zealand today will become the first developed country to sign a free-trade agreement with China, giving the island nation's farm exporters unfettered access to the world's fastest-growing major economy.
The agreement covering trade in goods, services and investment will be ratified by Prime Minister Helen Clark and China's Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing today. Almost half of New Zealand's exports are agricultural products.
China's expanding middle class, 25 times the entire population of New Zealand, will be able to satisfy its developing appetite for Western-style foods with Kiwi lamb, butter, cheese and fish.
TRAVEL DELAYS STILL PLAGUE HEATHROW
LONDON — Passengers faced more travel misery at London's Heathrow airport yesterday after heavy snow and continued baggage-handling problems led to further cancellations and delays.
Airport operator BAA said that 185 flights into and out of the airport were canceled yesterday, mostly because of snow and ice. The weather wrecked efforts to finally run a full schedule at Heathrow's Terminal 5, which opened with great fanfare on March 27 but has been plagued by troubles since.
A major problem with the terminal's baggage-handling system has forced cancellation of hundreds of flights and created a backlog of thousands of bags. The problem was to have been cleared up over the weekend, but on Saturday, BAA announced discovery of a software glitch, causing even more cancellations.
