OK, I'm up for teasing!! How come my butterfly's disappeared and yours didn't??
Here's a little news story I haven't seen before (getting back to business) ;-)
Dirty Bomb Warheads Disappear
Stocks of Soviet-Era Arms For Sale on Black Market
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page A01
TIRASPOL, Moldova -- In the ethnic conflicts that surrounded the collapse of the Soviet Union, fighters in several countries seized upon an unlikely new weapon: a small, thin rocket known as the Alazan. Originally built for weather experiments, the Alazan rockets were packed with explosives and lobbed into cities. Military records show that at least 38 Alazan warheads were modified to carry radioactive material, effectively creating the world's first surface-to-surface dirty bomb.
The radioactive warheads are not known to have been used. But now, according to experts and officials, they have disappeared.
The last known repository was here, in a tiny separatist enclave known as Transdniester, which broke away from Moldova 12 years ago. The Transdniester Moldovan Republic is a sliver of land no bigger than Rhode Island located along Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine. Its government is recognized by no other nation. But its weapons stocks -- new, used and modified -- have attracted the attention of black-market arms dealers worldwide. And they're for sale, according to U.S. and Moldovan officials and weapons experts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41921-2003Dec6¬Found=trueMore good news..................sounds more like a spy novel........................
Smugglers Enticed by Dirty Bomb Components
Radioactive Materials Are Sought Worldwide
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page A01
TBILISI, Georgia -- When police caught up with him on May 31, Tedo Makeria was headed toward Tbilisi's main rail station, his lethal cargo hidden in boxes lined with lead so thick his taxi sagged from the weight. The suspicious policeman who halted the cab had barely cracked the trunk when he noticed the boxes and the distinctive labels that warned, "Danger: Radiation."
More police arrived within minutes, and a Geiger counter was produced. As Makeria smoked nervously in the back seat, the officers flipped the instrument's "on" switch and watched the needle leap off the screen.
"At first we were just shocked," Maj. Leri Omiadze, the ranking officer at the scene, recalled later. "Then we all started backing away slowly."
Inside Makeria's boxes were two capsules of highly radioactive metals -- strontium and cesium -- of a type that terrorism experts say can be used in a dirty bomb, a device that spews radiation but does not trigger a nuclear explosion. A third container held a vial of brown liquid that Georgian police identified as the substance used in mustard gas, one of the earliest chemical weapons. Only later did police learn Makeria's role in the affair. He was a courier for criminals trading in components and materials for weapons of mass destruction.
In a scheme still not fully understood, the boxes were delivered to Makeria by another Georgian, a man with a history of drug offenses. Makeria's job was to carry the boxes by train from Tbilisi to Adzharia province, a troubled enclave on Georgia's southwestern frontier.
From there, police believe, they were to be transported by other couriers across the border into Turkey or perhaps even Iran, for delivery to an expectant customer. The buyer's identity remains unknown.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A21879-2003Nov29¬Found=true