SEX AND DEATH IN MOTHER RUSSIA

The Globe goes inside, while the Citizen and the Star (not available online) brief Russia’s announcement that it has developed a vacuum bomb powerful enough to rival nuclear bombs. Russian state TV yesterday showed footage of a Tupolev Tu-160 bomber dropping ordnance, followed by a massive explosion and footage of a multi-storey apartment building lying in ruins. "The defence ministry stresses this military invention does not contradict a single international treaty. Russia is not unleashing a new arms race," the TV broadcast stated. Vacuum bombs work by unleashing a massive shock wave that flattens its surroundings. Dubbed “the father of all bombs”—in reference to the US’s less powerful MOAB, or “mother of all bombs”—the new Russian weapon is being touted as a bomb that “does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one,” a Russian official is quoted as saying. While the world scratches its head over the notion of an “environmentally friendly” bomb, the Star and the Globe go inside with an Associated Press story reporting that Russians in the country’s Ulyanovsk region are set to celebrate the third annual “Conception Day.” Responding to Russia’s plummeting birth rate, which threatens to halve the country’s population in a few generations, the Ulyanovsk region’s governor is offering women of child-bearing age a half-day off to conceive children. Mothers of children born nine months after the holiday—on June 12, Russia’s national day—will receive prizes such as money, refrigerators or even a locally-made SUV called the UAZ-Patriot. The birth rate in Ulyanovsk is up 4.5 percent year-on-year.

Daniel Tencer is a Toronto-based MediaScout writer for Maisonneuve Magazine.

Russia unveils devastating vacuum bomb

September 12, 2007 - 6:09AM
Source: ABC

Russia says it has tested the world's most powerful vacuum bomb.

"Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," Alexander Rukshin, deputy head of Russia's armed force chief of staff, told Russian TV.

"You will now see it in action, the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site," the report said.

It showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed.

A vacuum bomb, or fuel-air explosive, causes widespread devastation.

As the bomb is dropped or fired, the first explosive charge bursts open the container at a predetermined height and disperses the fuel in a cloud that mixes with oxygen. A second charge ignites the cloud, which can engulf objects or buildings.

Also,

UK & Euro-Asian News

Russia tests world's most powerful vacuum bomb

RIA Novosti 2007-09-11 15:28:00

Russia has tested a thermobaric bomb that is the most powerful in the world, a top military official said Tuesday.

Known as a vacuum bomb, it uses a fuel-air explosive and can create overpressures equal to an atomic bomb, said Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

Because FAEs cover a wide area, they are prone to indiscriminate use, especially in or near populated areas. Since this weapon is very effective against personnel in fortifications, bunkers, and other buildings, Russian forces may be tempted to use them in towns and cities where Chechen fighters are dug in. In urban settings it will be impossible for the Russians military to limit the destructive effect of this weapon to combatants and very difficult for civilians to take shelter from the FAE's effect.
~ Human Rights Watch

See also THIS And THIS.

The latter explains how these bombs work. And this is the Google search on vacuum bomb just as of today.