AMMAN - Jordan's King Abdullah dissolved parliament and called early elections yesterday, the royal palace announced on the eve of a major opposition rally to demand reforms. "The king has decided to dissolve the chamber of deputies from this Thursday and to call early elections," a statement said. It gave no date, but the monarch has said he wants polls to be held by the end of 2012. The opposition Muslim Brotherhood said earlier that it was going ahead with its planned rally in central Amman today by an estimated 50,000 supporters. Brotherhood also said it would boycott the polls as they did in 2010 to protest against the lack of reforms, AFP
WASHINGTON - Google and US publishing firms announced yesterday they had reached a settlement in a long-running copyright case over books and journals digitised by the internet giant. The settlement "will provide access to publishers' in-copyright books and journals digitised by Google for its Google Library Project" and "will end seven years of litigation", Google said. The agreement closes a copyright infringement lawsuit filed in October 2005 by five AAP member publishers, but does not affect another long-running legal action involving the Authors Guild for the massive Google Books project. AFP