Mortars hit Green Zone during Biden visit

Three mortar rounds struck harmlessly inside Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday night during a weekend visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
No damage or injuries were reported from the bombardment, which occurred about 10:30 p.m. Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET).
The district, formally known as the International Zone, houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. But there were no injuries or damage reported from the shelling, Iraqi Interior Ministry and U.S. officials told CNN.
The district was a frequent target of rocket and mortar attacks during the worst of the war that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003. A similar attack struck during a Biden visit in September.
Biden landed in Iraq on Saturday to celebrate the U.S. Independence Day holiday with American troops, the White House said.
He also met with Iraqi political leaders, including Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and with former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose political coalition narrowly won an election in March.
Iraqi political factions are still negotiating who will lead the new government following that vote. Biden told them after their meeting that "you must have all voices represented in this government for it to be successful," and noted later that a country's second election -- not its first -- is "the most important election in a country's history."
"Now there's a new parliament that's been seated, and when the new government is formed, it will mark something absolutely extraordinary -- a peaceful transition of power encompassing all the people of Iraq, maybe for the first time in their history," Biden said during remarks Sunday at Camp Victory, the U.S. base near Baghdad's airport.

And Biden said the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq will continue as scheduled, with the pullout expected to be complete by the end of August. But he said 50,000 Americans will remain to train and support Iraqi forces, and the United States will remain engaged with Iraq "diplomatically, politically, economically, culturally (and) scientifically."

Source: CNN

Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo fight Google Books

Three Google rivals join in opposition to the search giant's settlement with authors and publishers that let it sell books online.

NEW YORK , Three of Google's biggest online rivals have joined the fight against a court settlement that would give Google the rights to sell millions of books on the Internet.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) confirmed Friday that it has agreed to join a coalition opposing the Google deal. Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) have also joined, according to published reports.

The coalition, called the Open Book Alliance, opposes a settlement reached last October between Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild. The settlement would allow Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) to display portions of books online and sell digital copies of them.

A court will review the agreement for approval on Oct. 7. The coalition said it is considering whether it will file a challenge to the settlement with the court.

"We've been having a range of conversations with rather diverse organizations that have interest in speaking together to articulate concerns about the settlement," said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive and spokesman for the Open Book Alliance. "We'll raise the possibility of ways that the settlement may be changed or altered to create a more open market for books."

Google's online book initiative, called Google Books, has cataloged 1 million public domain books with expired copyrights. The tech giant's settlement was reached after the publishers and authors associations sued Google for copyright infringement in late 2005 over the company's plans to scan and copy millions of books from library collections -- many of which are still under copyright.

The settlement would give authors and publishers $45 million whose copyrighted books are scanned without permission.

The Justice Department's antitrust unit announced in April that it is looking into the settlement.

In addition to the three big companies that plan to join the coalition, the opposition group is made up of the nonprofit group Internet Archive and various library associations from across the country.

Requests for comment from Yahoo and a coalition representative were not immediately returned. Amazon, which makes the popular Kindle e-reader, and sells digital books on its online store, declined to comment.

A formal announcement from the group is expected next week.

Source : CNN