Earthquake rocks western Indonesia

Update October 1, 11.30 PM: SCTV reports the dead victims reaches 530 people. Presiden SBY said this quake in Padang, West Sumatra is bigger than the one in Yogyakarta.

Update October 1, 7.20 am: Metro TV reports about 75 people are reportedly dead so far.

Update September 30: Detik.com reports that there are at least four people reportedly dead.

A powerful quake brings down houses on Indonesia’s Sumatra, AFP reports

Indonesia’s meteorological agency says a powerful earthquake has shaken western Indonesia.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami alert for Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Thailand.

The Indonesian agency said the tremor had a magnitude of 7.6. Its epicenter was just off the coast of Sumatra

The U.S. Geological Survey put the strength at 7.9.

CNN gives more details:

The quake was recorded about 33 miles from Padang, the capital city of West Sumatra, which is home to more than 800,000 people.

… The quake struck at about 5 p.m. local time.

Several buildings in Padang were damaged, Metro TV reported. People were seen running out of their homes and toward the hills.

TVOne pictures from the scene showed people milling around outside in the city.

Phone lines were apparently down in many parts of Padang. Indonesia’s Tempo Interactive, a media outlet based in Jakarta, had trouble reaching its correspondent in the West Sumatra city, according to journalist Purwani Diyah Prabandari.

“I hope it’s just the cell phone connection,” Prabandari told CNN.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a tsunami watch for Indonesia, India, Thailand and Malaysia, but canceled it soon after.

The temblor did generate a tsunami just under one foot high, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

Tsunami strikes in Pacific

Another tsunami, this time in Pacific with 8.3 richter scale, reports BBC

A tsunami triggered by a strong quake in the South Pacific has killed more than 100 people in several islands.

At least 77 people were reported dead in Samoa, more than 25 in American Samoa and at least six in Tonga.

Residents and tourists fled to higher ground as whole villages were destroyed. Boats were swept inland and cars and people out to sea.

The 8.3-magnitude quake struck at 1748 GMT on Tuesday, generating 15ft (4.5m) waves in some areas of the islands.

The Samoa islands comprise two separate entities – the nation of Samoa and American Samoa, a US territory. The total population is about 250,000.

A general tsunami warning was issued for the wider South Pacific region but was cancelled a few hours later.

Read More in Blogger Blogspot now Easy

Creating an expanded posts or a post summary which is known as “Read More”, “Continue Reading”, “Read the rest of this entry”, in blogger.com / blogspot used to be a tedious task. You need to read and implement this article in order to have a “Read More” in a blogspot post.

Not anymore. With Google Sidewiki, what you need is just put the code  in a blog post whenever and wherever necessary. Precisely like “Read More” in wordpress.

Here’s the simple guide:

1. Login to your blogger.com
2. Click “Setting” -> Basic.
3. Scroll down to Global Setting -> check the “Update Editor” -> Save Setting. Done.

Now, try to write an article.
1. Click Posting -> Click COMPOSE (if the post editor not already in a Compose mode)
2. Click tab “Insert Jump Break” the tab on the right side.
3. Now, click the “Edit HTML”. There will be a code 
4. Write above the code something you want to show on the front page, and below the code the post you want to hide and will be shown only after a reader click the “Read More” button.

Other functionalities of Google sidewiki and an intro

Sidewiki is a new Toolbar feature that lets you add helpful information alongside any page. These entries are visible to any Sidewiki user and can easily be posted to your blogs on Blogger.

Functionalities:

Improved Image Handling

When you upload an image to the new post editor it will appear as a thumbnail in the image dialog box. That way, you can upload several images at once, and then add them into your post at your convenience. The thumbnails will be available until you close the post editor.

When you add an image from the dialog into your post it will be placed at the insertion point instead of at the top of the post.

In wordpress, this function has already been there. In blogger / blogspot the picture we want to insert used to be placed on the top by default, we have to move to where we want it to be. With this new editor the problem is gone.

If you don’t like where an image is in your post, you can drag it around to another spot. If you drag it towards the left side of the editor it will float to the left, likewise for the right, and if you leave it in the center it will be centered. You can drag the image between paragraphs and other block elements. Unlike in the current editor, dragging in the new editor preserves the link to the full-size version of the image.

This one is even better than wordpress can do

You can easily resize or remove an image with the image size “bubble.” Click on the image (Firefox 3 users may need to double-click) to bring up the bubble, and resize the image instantly. You can resize any image, including ones added by URL, but if you resize an image that was uploaded through the post editor we resample the image on our servers to keep the download size small.

Other New Features
# Add your location to your posts with geotagging
# Posts are now timestamped at the date and time they are published, not when they were orignally created.
# Vertical resizing. You can now change the height of the post editor by dragging the resize handle in the lower right (near the labels field). The size is saved in a per-user, per-blog preference.
# Easy link editing in Compose mode. Just click a link and you’ll have the option of changing its URL or removing the link
# Full Safari 3 support on both Windows and Macintosh. The old editor is pretty quirky on these browsers, but the new editor works as you’d expect.
# New Preview dialog that shows your post in a width and font size approximating what you’d see on a blog.
# Placeholder image for tags (such as those from video embeds) so that you can see and drag them around Compose mode.
# New toolbar. This toolbar looks better, loads more quickly, and has undo and redo buttons. By popular demand, the full justification button has returned. We’ve also added a strike through button and improved the color palettes.

See and learn more here and here.

Israel must shed nuclear arms says Iran

United States should concentrate on getting Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, instead of criticising Tehran’s nuclear programme, says Iran.

Iran’s foreign ministry has said the United States should concentrate on getting Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, instead of criticising Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The comments came after Hillary Clinton last week said the US would arm its allies in the Gulf region if Iran built a nuclear weapon.

“There is no need for the US to provide a defence umbrella for the neighbouring countries,” Hassan Qashqavi, a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Monday.

“It is enough to tell its ally, the Zionist regime and convince it for the issue of disarmament and dismantle its own 200 nuclear warheads from the occupied territories.

Israel’s Nuclear Weapon Capability

From the Risk Report
Volume 2 Number 4 (July-August 1996).

Today, Israel is the world’s sixth most powerful nuclear state, with a stockpile of more than 100 nuclear weapons and with the components and ability to build atomic, neutron and hydrogen bombs. Israel’s nuclear program began and still operates under tight secrecy, but in the 1980s a series of revelations showed the crucial role played by foreign suppliers.

France launched Israel on the nuclear path in the late 1950s by building the Dimona reactor, which is still the source of Israel’s plutonium–its main nuclear weapon fuel. The reactor’s heavy water, essential to achieve a chain reaction, was supplied by Norway in 1959. In 1963, when the reactor started operation, the United States supplied four more tons of heavy water.

Israel got other nuclear help from the United States, which also supplied a small 5-megawatt (thermal) research reactor at Nahal Soreq. The reactor started in 1960, but cannot produce significant quantities of plutonium. Instead, the reactor offered an early training ground for Israeli nuclear technicians. Later in the 1960s, Israel was widely thought to have smuggled more than 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium out of a nuclear materials plant in Pennsylvania. More details

Israel Rejects Nuclear Arms Ban, Blame Muslims

“Until the Muslim world .. behaves like Western Europe, there can be no debate on nuclear disarmament,” says Ehud Barak. Meaning, until all Muslims support Israel occupation in Palestinian land, they are still a threat to Israel. Old song with the same naivete.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insisted today that his government will not consider signing any treaty calling for a nuclear-free Middle East because of the “unruly” nature of the Muslim nations in the region.
Ehud Barak

“Until the Muslim world from Marakesh (Morocco) to Bangladesh behaves like Western Europe, there can be no debate on nuclear disarmament,” Barak declared in an editorial published by Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israel is actually the only country in the Middle East which possesses a nuclear arsenal, though it only occasionally admits that this is the case. The nation launched a 1981 attack on Iraq over suspicions it might be attempting to acquire a nuclear weapon. It has already repeatedly threatened to attack Iran over its civilian nuclear program.

US Condemns Iranian Missile Tests

The White House on Monday condemned Iran’s latest missile tests as “provocative” and called on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to provide inspectors “unfettered access” to its nuclear facilities.