In the end it seems that politicians in all parties preferred to defuse a political time bomb together rather than face the blame on their own for failing to do so or for it blowing up in their faces.

BBC: How the leaders reached Leveson deal

In the United Kingdom, the Food Standards Agency, described as a food watchdog, wants to defuse the so-called obesity time bomb and is considering such methods as a ban on TV advertising aimed at children, health warnings on foods high in salt, sugar and fat, and requiring school vending machines to offer healthy alternatives, according to press reports.

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The court heard Capt Head was a "stubborn Yorkshire woman" who had wanted to defuse the second bomb despite the dangers.

BBC: Capt Lisa Jade Head

Three members of a bomb-disposal squad were killed in 2010 when the device they were trying to defuse in the German town Gottingen went off.

CNN: Experts defuse unexploded WWII bomb in central Berlin

In 2003 Hansen wrote a widely distributed (but not peer reviewed) paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb? in which he argues that human-caused forcings on the climate are now greater than the natural ones, and that this, over a long time period, can cause large climate changes.

FORBES: Yes! We Should Defund The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change