Scientists Adjust `Doomsday Clock' as Threat Grows (Update1)
By Alex Morales
Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Scientists today moved the minute- hand on the symbolic ``Doomsday Clock'' to five minutes to midnight, to indicate growing concerns about the global nuclear threat.
The clock was set up in 1947 with a time of seven minutes to midnight, and movement of the minute-hand symbolizes growing or declining threat, with midnight representing destruction by nuclear war. For almost five years, the hand has stood where it began, at seven minutes to midnight. It has only been moved 17 times before, fluctuating between 2 and 17 minutes to midnight.
The hand was moved forward two minutes today, reflecting concerns that the world is heading toward ``a second nuclear age,'' and also that climate change poses a threat to stability, said Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the magazine which set up the clock in 1947.
``Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices,'' Benedict said in a conference call with reporters, reading from the board's statement. ``We stand on the brink of a second nuclear age.''
The scientists decided to adjust the clock because of reasons including the perceived nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia, and the continued ``launch-ready'' status of arms in the U.S. and Russia.
Sanctions
``North Korea's recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran's nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S. emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth,'' the board said in its statement, published on the bulletin's Web site.
The United Nations on Dec. 23 imposed sanctions on Iran, following allegations by the U.S. that the Islamic Republic was using nuclear-power plans to disguise a weapons program, a violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea tested its first nuclear bomb Oct. 9, leading to a UN Security Council resolution banning sales of military equipment and luxury goods to the east Asian nation.