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Tech giants unite against Google By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley Not everyone in the coalition wants the deal blocked, some want revisions Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library.Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle told BBC News.

Critics have claimed the settlement will transform the future of the book industry and of public access to the cultural heritage of mankind embodied in books. The Internet Archive scans around 1000 books a day at 10 cents a page "The techniques we have built up since the enlightenment of having open access, public support for libraries, lots of different organisational structures, lots of distributed ownership of books that can be exchanged, resold and repackaged in different ways - all of that is being thrown out in this particular approach," warned Mr Kahle. The non-profit Internet Archive has long been a vocal opponent of this agreement. It is also in the business of scanning books and has digitised over half a million of them to date. All are available free. As the 4 September deadline approaches, the number of groups and organisations voicing their opposition is growing. But with three of the world's best-known technology companies joining the chorus, the Open Book Alliance can expect to make headlines the world over.

In its defence, Google has argued that the deal brings great benefits to authors and will make millions of out-of-print books widely available online and in libraries. In a statement, the company said: "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."

News that Germany and France have, with a mini-bound, escaped recession must be the most ominous development of the week.

For those within this system, Germany had been an extremely comfortable place until the downturn. But the apparent failure of its export-driven social model changed all that. As a result, Germans had begun to campaign for a responsive political system.

In all sorts of ways,  Germans had begun to realise that the economy - and thence German society - had reached the end of the post-war path. The worry is that today’s GDP figures will drive them back to the old, familiar way of thinking.

Has enough time passed for a more impartial assessment of the man

Our traditional response to a person's death can be summed up by the Latin "de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est" - roughly translated "don't speak ill of the dead". But in the information age, where the news keeps on rolling and the notion of deference has long since been replaced by a fascination with fame, how does the old maxim hold up?

Leith believes politicians like Vaz make a "category error" when they posture in this way. "They appropriate cultural events. You wouldn't really expect Michael Jackson to ratify the Countryside Act 2000 so why should parliament say what a jolly good dancer he was?"

The 50-year-old star is portrayed in the play Mercy Madonna of Malawi by a black male actor in a blonde wig

It also attempts to depict how people in the African country viewed the case.

Without taking sides, it asks whether it is right for a child to be taken away from her culture if it means enjoying a life of privilege.

We sat on the ground and the message from all these fishermen was along the lines of: "They may be talking about an economic crisis in Europe but if you want a real crisis it's right here in Senegal."

A very animated and infuriated Abdoulaye told me that his son left for Spain in a fishing boat five years ago, and was now living a far better life than he was. "I am 45-years-old and I don't have half of what he has now, like a nice house and a car," he said, adding that he would do all he could to send more of his relatives to Europe. None of these young men referred at any stage to the risks of getting to Europe even though hundreds - probably thousands - have died at sea in recent years. Senegal looks to Europe more than most countries I have visited. Not so much to Spain, but to the old colonial power, France, which has maintained strong links.

If it were not for the West African street traders, the whole of Europe would be squinting and struggling to keep their trousers up, judging by the number of people I have met who said they made their living selling these goods on the streets.

Pressure on Gordon Brown to agree to a televised debate between the three party leaders increased when the main news channels proposed a series of debates during the election campaign

Negotiations in the build-up to previous elections have been derailed by haggling over the structure of a debate, including the timing of opening speeches, the role of the moderator, and whether questions would be taken unscripted from a studio audience or agreed in advance.

We think that our technology will create a new way of tagging

can be interrogated from far away by a standard mobile phone camera

However, the team also thinks they could be used in consumer applications, such as supermarkets, where products could be interrogated with a shopper's mobile phone

London's and Riyadh's policies towards each other have been driven primarily by pragmatic considerations of political and economic advantage. Certainly religious and political issues of conviction, matters of pride and intercultural communication have, on occasion, come to the fore – such as King Faisal's decision to impose an oil boycott, the furore in 1980 over the documentary Death Of A Princes

s, or the often ill-informed British media commentary about the nature of Saudi politics. On their own, such issues tend not to reorient policy very significantly or for very long. Yet they do have the potential to complicate relations even when neither government wants them to.

more than one in four Europeans had never used a PC

People above the age of 65 and the unemployed were the least active online

Nearly 70% of people under the age of 24 use the internet every day, compared to the EU average of 43%. But this same group is reluctant to pay to download or use online content, such as music or video, with 33% saying that they would not pay anything at all.

Australia is disturbed by China's detention of an Australian executive; China is angry that Australia allowed a Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer, to visit.

Australia sells huge amounts of natural resources to China and, despite hitches in the relationship, signed a new gas deal this week with PetroChina.

"China has significant interests in Australia. China's interests in Australia go to its long-term needs for its resource security," Mr Rudd said.

A Chinese man suspected of stealing a prototype for the fourth generation iPhone has committed suicide.

"We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect," Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, told reporters. 'Humiliating'

On 13 July, Sun reported that he was missing one of the 16 units in his possession.

The latest Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll is a significant blow to President Obama’s flailing presidency, just 7 months since taking office. According to Rasmussen, a highly influential pollster, Obama’s approval rating now stands at just 47 per cent, with 52 per cent disapproval, and 37 per cent strongly disapproving.

At the same time in his first presidency in August 2001, George W. Bush’s approval ratings stood at around 55-59 per cent in most major polls, with roughly 35-38 per cent disapproval. It was not until Spring 2004 that Bush’s ratings were as low as Obama’s figures in today’s Rasmussen poll – more than three years into his first term of office. The White House will point to other surveys that show stronger approval for Obama, but all leading polls demonstrate that support for the president is eroding. The Obama presidency is sinking faster than almost any other in recent US history, largely because he is trying to force a radical left-wing agenda on a nation that is still far more conservative than liberal, that overwhelmingly believes in limited federal government, free enterprise and decentralization of power.

It is hardly surprising that Obama’s standing in the polls is declining. He has launched a highly ambitious, ideologically driven agenda to transform the United States by expanding the role of the state at the expense of the individual, while at the same time weakening America’s defences and undercutting its standing on the world stage. It is a recipe for failure, and a left-wing vision for the future which fortunately is being rejected by the American people.