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THE DOOMSDAY clock stays dangerously close to midnight as the world reaches the most dangerous moment ever.
Scientists have revealed today just how close we are to the end of the world as the clock stayed at 90 seconds to the feared midnight hour.
The Doomsday Clock remained at 90 seconds to midnight
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The update came at 3pm UK time or 10am local time in Washington DC.
Like last year, time still stands at 90 seconds away from midnight – the closest it has ever been to striking midnight, which symbolises the end of the world.
Humanity has been moving towards the brink of WW3 as tyrants Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have sent a chilling warning to the West as they vowed to form a “New World Order”.
Warnings of a potential new world order had already been given by Putin’s warmonger foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who told the West that their time of “global domination” is over.
And veteran Russian MP Alexander Osovtsov said World War Three has already begun for the West’s enemies and “we’re all participating in it”.
Meanwhile, Baltic states are racing to bolster defences on their borders with Russia and Belarus as Europe braces for an all-out war.
The Middle East has also become a powder keg unsettled by Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas, Iran-backed Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea, and recent clashes and strikes between Iran and Pakistan.
The Doomsday Clock operates as a wake-up call for the world about global threats such as nuclear war, dangerous technologies and mass health concerns.
Used as a metaphor to signal how close the human race is to self-destruction by its distance from midnight, it is reset around the same time in January each year by varying lengths.
Dr Pavel Podvig, an expert on Weapons of Mass Destruction at the UN, told The Sun that nuclear war is a “truly terrifying prospect” – and something that must be ruled out.
He warned of the dangers of “unstable personalities” being in charge of nuclear arsenals – including Putin and Kim Jong-un.
Pavel also said that unpredictable “accidents” in warzones could lead to uncontrolled escalation and warned of the deaths of billions of people.
He told The Sun: “The number of nuclear weapons that exist, they would have the potential to end the life as we know it, and the numbers are truly terrifying.
“It runs from the tens of millions of people dead in that in the matter of hours. And I’ve seen estimates that suggest that the consequences, like the nuclear winter, would could lead to the death of billions of people.
“I’ve seen the simulations and estimates, and the numbers, and there could be 40 to 50 million people dead in the matter of a couple of hours.
“So it is [a] truly terrifying prospect… That’s something we want to rule out to make sure that this could never happen.”
But Pavel did say that a nuclear war is unlikely to happen – despite Vladimir Putin’s threats.
He told The Sun that it wouldn’t make “any military sense” for Moscow to unleash nukes on the battlefield.
“We are not there at the point when the very existence of Russia is in danger. We are not anywhere [near] there.”
Although the threshold for making a decision to unleash nuclear weapons is high, they exist and they can be used, Pavel said.
The UN expert also explained how escalation could lead to nuclear war.
“My worst case scenario would be that Russia at some point may decide to escalate the conflict and actually attack native states in one way or another,” he said.
“And then we we may enter into this kind of a cycle of responses that could start.
“And I’m sure that if something like that would happen, it would start with the conventional conflict of national attacks.
“But then again, there are ways for this this kind of exchange to escalate to a nuclear level.”
Other scenarios include the “unstable personalities” in charge of nuclear weapons – including Vlad and Kim.
And another is unpredictable “accidents”, particularly in active warzones.
Pavel also painted a chilling picture of Vlad’s access to weapons of mass destruction.
He said: “There is a button on the president’s desk that he could push and everything fly.
“We don’t know exactly how people would behave in these kind of circumstances.
“But it is very difficult to imagine the president summoning his generals and basically telling them, ‘okay, you just go ahead and you just kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people in one go’.”
What is the Doomsday Clock?
The Doomsday Clock operates as a wake-up call for the world about global threats such as nuclear war, dangerous technologies and mass health concerns.
Used as a metaphor to signal how close the human race is to self-destruction by its distance from midnight, it is reset around the same time in January each year by varying lengths.
In 1953 it was set to just two minutes before midnight after the US and Soviet Union began testing nuclear weapons.
Ever-increasing nuclear threats in 2018 again saw it set to two minutes, one minute and 40 seconds in 2020 and just 100 seconds in 2021 and 2022.
It’s smallest number – one minute and 30 seconds – came last January.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – creators of the clock – formed it in 1947 based on the nuclear threat.
It wasn’t until later that natural risks like climate change were considered as well.
Despite it’s concerning meaning – it is meant to serve as a warning and is not a real clock.
Even if it strikes midnight – all hell will not break loose.
But the scientists who created it and view nuclear war as our biggest threat intend it to be taken seriously as an indicator of how dangerous the world has become.
And in our current climate, amid a backdrop of exploding global conflict, it could well be set closer to midnight in 2024.
AFP
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English (US)