IT'S 2 MINS TO MIDNIGHT
Mounting concerns about the possibility of a nuclear war, along with US President Donald Trump's "unpredictability" have pushed the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" to two minutes before midnight, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said Thursday.
The clock -- which serves as a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying the planet -- was moved forward by 30 seconds, to as near as it has ever been to the hour of the apocalypse.
"In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago -- and as dangerous as it has been since World War II," said a statement by the group of intellectuals across the fields of international affairs, science, environment and security.
Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists described 2017 as "perilous and chaotic," a year in which "we saw reckless language in the nuclear realm heat up already dangerous situations."
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947. Its time has changed 20 times since then, ranging from two minutes to midnight in 1953, when US and USSR were testing hydrogen bombs, to 17 minutes before midnight in 1991.
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