Chan's Personal Blog

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck in a rural area about 9 miles (15 km) northeast of San Jose, California, Silicon Valley's biggest city, on Tuesday night, causing minor damage.

The earthquake was felt across the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond just before 8:05 p.m. (3:05 a.m. British time on Wednesday).

There were no immediate reports of major damage but the San Jose Mercury News Web site reported phone service failed in a part of Palo Alto, home to Hewlett-Packard computer company and Stanford University.

It said the quake caused minor damage and residents poured out of apartments in downtown San Jose to survey the damage. San Jose in the 10th most populous U.S. city.

"It was pretty significant. you could actually hear the rumbling of the ground. It was a good shake," said Nick Muyo, a spokesman for the San Jose Police Department.

US Internet search engines in China were being hijacked and directed to Chinese-owned Baidu, analysts said Wednesday, speculating that the move was in retaliation for Washington's award to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Analysts at Search Engine Roundtable, a website focusing on Internet search, said Chinese users trying to search on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft websites were being directed to the Chinese search engine.

Google confirmed the blocking of its Chinese search engine and Microsoft said it was looking into the matter.

"It seems like China is fed up with the US, so as a way to fight back, they redirected virtually all search traffic from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to Baidu, the Chinese based search engine," analysts Danny Sullivan and Barry Schwartz wrote at Search Engine Roundtable.

Stephen Harper moved yesterday to defuse the issue of Afghanistan before a potential fall election and drove a wedge into the Liberal Party by appointing former deputy prime minister John Manley to lead a blue-ribbon study group.

The Prime Minister's appointment of Mr. Manley as head of a five-member group on Canada's future role in the war-torn country beyond February of 2009 prompted deep anger among Mr. Manley's fellow Liberals.

"What gives, John?" one of his former advisers asked. "This was one area of weakness of the Conservatives. And he's just thrown Stephen Harper a lifeline in the form of himself." [...]

Rudyard Griffiths, co-founder of the Dominion Institute, which has been pressing for Ottawa to appoint such a panel, said the process buys time not only for the Tories, but also for the Liberals.

He called the move by Mr. Harper "a brilliant piece of politics and brilliant piece of public policy."

The panel has been asked to examine four options including the status quo; complete withdrawal from Afghanistan; a transfer to another region of the country; or refocusing efforts on reconstruction that would allow for a new military contingent from another country to take the Canadian combat role.