Mysterious substances that were discovered in three plastic containers this evening in Palm Springs turned out to be a non-lethal acid-based substance, emergency crews said. The owner of Airport Quick Lube on Airport Center called firefighters just before 3 p.m. after he found the three containers outside his building. He opened one of the containers and a "vapor" was released into the air, Palm Springs Fire Chief Mark Avner said.
A label on the containers indicated they carried a chlorine-based substance. "(But) it was not the substance that's supposed to be in the container," Avner said. Authorities blocked off the street while the Riverside County Hazardous Materials Response Team inspected the containers. They cleared the area just before 6 p.m.
http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/NEWS01/71105018/1006/news01
Explosives missing from rural construction site (Canada)
Monday, November 5, 2007 The RCMP are looking for a number of dynamite sticks missing from a rural Alberta drill site. A crew working in the rural location near the village, about 105 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, found the explosives missing at the end of their shift on Friday and called police the next day.
Two Hills RCMP said the dynamite sticks are five centimetres in diameter, 20 centimetres long and covered in brown wax paper tubing. They warned anyone who finds them not to touch the material and to call police immediately. The RCMP did not disclose exactly how many sticks are unaccounted for.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/11/05/missing-dynamite.html
Azerbaijan says eight militants captured, including al-Qaida associate
November 6, 2007
BAKU, Azerbaijan: Authorities in Azerbaijan said Tuesday they had detained eight Islamic radicals, including an Arab man with apparent ties to al-Qaida, and seized a large weapons cache.
The announcement came a week after officials said security forces had thwarted a plot by Islamic militants to attack the U.S. Embassy and other government buildings in Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country with a secular leadership.
The Arab man — detained over the weekend in Sumgait, the ex-Soviet republic's third largest city — was identified as Abu Jafar. His nationality was not released. The other seven have Azerbaijani-sounding names, and they were said to have fought in conflict zones abroad.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/06/europe/EU-GEN-Azerbaijan-Alleged-Militants.php
Not suprising. People in CA will dump their trash anywhere. However, these containers probably result from some illegal activity. At least they just didn't dump it on the side of the road.