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Missing plastic explosives from Iraq...here's an interesting campaign nugget that characterizes the positions of both Presidential candidates at the same time; specifically, the type of plastic explosives and the unique history of that type. Sen Kerry argues that the explosives must have been taken by looters-despite any proof of this-and that it might well be in the hands of terrorists. Pres Bush says we just don't know what happened to the explosives as they were there before the invasion, and not there after; ie, it could have been looters, or it could have been Saddam who moved the explosives. It's...

WASHINGTON -- Iraqi officials reported that thieves looted 377 tons of powerful explosives from an unguarded site after the US-led invasion last year, the top UN nuclear official said yesterday. And a former weapons inspector said he had counted about 100 other unguarded weapons sites that may have been stripped of munitions for use in the wave of attacks against US soldiers and Iraqi civilians The explosives that were looted from the Al Qaqaa nuclear facility, apparently in April and May of 2003, had been sealed and monitored by international nuclear inspectors before the invasion. The explosives were monitored because...

http://www.globalterroralert.com/zarqawi-apc.wmvhttp://www.globalterroralert.com Globalterroralert.com (10/13/04): Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement in Iraq has released two new video clips, including video of a roadside bombing attack on a U.S. armored vehicle near the city of Mosul. The video features human body parts later retrieved from the scene of the ambush.

Janesville teen hurt by shrapnel in toilet explosion (Published Friday, August 27, 2004 02:00:01 PM CDT) Gazette Staff A Janesville teen injured by shrapnel from an exploding toilet was treated and released at Mercy Hospital on Thursday. The 19-year-old, who will be a sophomore this fall at UW-Madison, told police she had lit an M-80 firecracker inside the home because "she just wanted to see what would happen," according to police reports. After she lit the firecracker, she threw it into the toilet to try to extinguish it, but the M-80 exploded. The explosion amputated the tip of her...

CAMP TAQQADUM, Iraq - A Marine patrol near Husaybah took note of a child playing with an unusual object May 5. The object looked like it could be part of an improvised explosive device. The Marines quickly moved the child away to a safe distance and secured the area. Marines found the object to be an anti-personnel mine rigged as an IED buried in the ground. The patrol coordinated for an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to dispose of the mine. It was detonated in-place later in the day. Unit officials said the Marines' "excellent attention to detail" prevented the loss...

(CBS) For years, CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, scientists have tried to understand the dynamic nature of Yellowstone National Park. "It's beautiful up here, everybody should see this at one time or another," says one appreciative observer. Scientist Lisa Morgan may have unlocked one piece in the puzzle, deep below the park's biggest lake. "It is kind of the last unmapped frontier in Yellowstone National Park," says Morgan. What she found looks more like the surface of the moon. Using sonar she's identified a massive bulging dome the size of seven football fields. The only other underwater dome in...

Workers Taped Together Explosive Pieces By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Workers at the only U.S. factory for dismantling nuclear weapons risked an explosion this month by taping together broken pieces of high explosive being removed from the plutonium trigger of an old warhead, federal investigators said. The unorthodox handling of the unstable explosive increased the risk that the technicians would drop it and set off a "violent reaction," the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said Tuesday in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites). Such a reaction could have "potentially unacceptable consequences," board...

Debate erupts anew: Did Thera's explosion doom Minoan Crete? William J. Broad Thursday, October 23, 2003 For decades, scholars have debated whether the eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean more than 3,000 years ago brought about the mysterious collapse of Minoan civilization at the peak of its glory. The volcanic isle (whose remnants are known as Santorini) lay just 110 kilometers from Minoan Crete, so it seemed quite reasonable that its fury could have accounted for the fall of that celebrated people. . This idea suffered a blow in 1987 when Danish scientists studying cores from the Greenland...

Just announced on CNN--they think the powder is explosive, not chem weapons.

January 17, 2003 Explosive evidence found in a 13th-century shipwreck off the coast of Japan By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent JAPANESE underwater archaeologists have found evidence of the great invasion fleet sent by Kublai Khan in the 13th century, which tradition says was destroyed by a kamikaze or “divine wind” sent by the Emperor’s deified ancestors to save Japan from its enemies. Only a small proportion of the force was Mongol, the evidence shows: the majority was drawn from conquered China, and used advanced weaponry including shrapnel-filled projectile bombs. The discovery, by Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for...

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — Three U.S. soldiers were injured in two separate incidents in eastern Afghanistan and B-52 bombers were called in to protect a U.S. base that came under rocket attack, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers were treated for facial lacerations Wednesday after an explosive detonated under their vehicle 30 miles northeast of Jalalabad. A second device exploded without hurting anyone and a third was discovered unexploded. Another U.S. soldier was hit in the abdomen by a gunshot Wednesday at Kandahar Air Field. Col. Roger King, a spokesman for the U.S. military in...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --  More than half the explosive-detection machines now at airports are not being fully used to screen checked baggage, even as the government plans to buy hundreds more of the minivan-sized equipment, the Transportation Department said Thursday.</p> <p>Inspector General Kenneth Mead said the machines should screen at least 1,250 bags a day, but only 12 of 138 machines are reaching that level. Transportation Security Administration head John Magaw acknowledged the problem and said it would be fixed as trained federal baggage screeners replace private employees.</p>

After a 'Dirty Bomb' Explodes he age of terrorism is forcing all of us to learn a whole new vocabulary that describes potential threats and their consequences, if for no other reason than to calibrate how terrified we should be as each new menace emerges. The latest worry came yesterday with the revelation by Attorney General John Ashcroft that an American terrorist associated with Al Qaeda has been planning to explode a radiation-laced "dirty bomb" in the United States. We can fervently hope that no such weapon is ever exploded here. But should one ever be detonated, it is important...

BERLIN (AP) - The German parliament was closed Friday as police sniffer dogs searched the building for explosives after two men were found carrying chemicals, a parliamentary spokesman said. Security staff at the Reichstag building in downtown Berlin apprehended the men in a washroom, said the spokesman, Hans Hotter. He said the chemicals appeared to be saltpeter — which is used in gunpowder — salt and charcoal. A parliamentary official who spoke on condition of anonymity had said earlier that the men were journalists for the Hamburg-based magazine Max. Hotter declined to confirm that, saying the two hadn't been able...