Nuclear threat still hangs over our world, 80 years on

THIS week marks the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, despite a subsequent so-called “nuclear taboo” over future use of such weapons, the threat to human life and the global economy may be greater now than it has been in recent decades.

The danger is at least twice as great: first, a growing possibility that a country could use nuclear weapons again, perhaps by accident or miscalculation as much as design; and second, the risk of a bomb being stolen and used by terrorists.

While the risks are hard to quantify, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its so-called Doomsday Clock one second closer to midnight this January, signalling that the world is the closest it has ever been to a nuclear holocaust.