BUSINESS BRIEFS
Yahoo sales chief resigns
Advertiser Staff and News Services
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. said yesterday that its chief domestic sales officer, Wenda Millard, resigned and the company will merge its search and display advertising departments in the U.S. as the Internet powerhouse fights to catch up with online search leader Google Inc.
Yahoo said it hopes the latest shakeup will streamline the way it sells advertising to customers who increasingly want to buy ads across a variety of formats, from being linked to search terms to popping up as a graphical display to being shown as video.
ASIA ECONOMIES FACING 'A SHOCK'
SINGAPORE — Asian economies may have overcome the 1997-98 financial crisis, but they face new threats such as income disparity, climate change and a possible global economic meltdown, government and business leaders said yesterday.
"A shock will come at some point," Singapore Second Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam warned attendees at the World Economic Forum on East Asia.
About 300 government and business leaders are at the two-day meeting organized by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum.
CALIF. GROCERY WORKERS VOTE
LOS ANGELES — Grocery workers across Southern California began voting yesterday on whether to give their union leaders the authority to call a strike against their employers in the event already- stalled contract talks with the three supermarket operators reach an impasse.
Employees at Albertsons, Ralphs and Safeway Inc.'s Vons and Pavilions began voting yesterday morning, said Mike Shimpock, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers.
Three-year contracts covering 65,000 workers at 785 stores from San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield south to San Diego expired in March.
