In one of the first major foreign policy decisions of the new US administration, Washington and Moscow have struck a deal to extend the accord. The announcement came only a day after the 2010 New START Treaty, a threatened milestone accord between Moscow and Washington which caps nuclear warhead numbers, was salvaged from expiring in February 2021. The world was furthest from self-destruction in 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War, when the clock showed 17 minutes to twelve, according to the Doomsday Clock. It’s current board members include 13 Nobel laureates. The clock was first created by US scientists working on the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project during World War II to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war. “It’s a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage the truly civilization-ending threats of nuclear weapons and climate change,” Bronson said. “ revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly,” the group said. This year, we’re closer than ever, the scientists announced on Thursday (23 January). Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists annually adjusts its symbolic Doomsday Clock, which indicates how close humanity and the planet are to complete disaster. Doomsday Clock: 100 seconds until the end of the world

Doomsday clock 2021