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Topics: World News, United Nations
Joe Harker
Our species faces nuclear annihilation and one wrong move could trigger Armageddon, according to the head of the United Nations.
UN secretary-general António Guterres today warned the world that we faced 'a nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War'.
Speaking at a UN conference in New York attended by representatives of countries signed up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he called for more to be done to free humanity from the looming threat of nuclear weapons.
He argued that with almost 13,000 nuclear weapons still ready to be used around the world the idea that humanity was safe from nuclear annihilation was never going to be off the table.
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He also said he'd visit the site of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing on the 6 August anniversary, the city being the world's first target of a nuclear weapon.
Guterres called on nuclear superpowers around the world to 'put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons' by giving up the planet ending weapons.
He said: "We have been extraordinarily lucky so far.
"But luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict. Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.
"Eliminating nuclear weapons is the only guarantee they will never be used."
The UN secretary-general pointed towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the ongoing tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East as evidence of a 'worrying world around us'.
He's not wrong, as Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has become bogged down and there are fears over what Putin might do if his invasion continues to fail in meeting its objectives.
The Russian leader has previously threatened to deploy new missiles which can carry nuclear warheads before the end of the year once they have been fully tested.
Russian TV has shown simulations of them nuking the rest of Europe, with Putin's propagandists boasting how they could wipe out major European capitals leaving 'no survivors'.
Meanwhile, according to Sky News, North Korean dictator and self styled 'supreme leader' Kim Jong Un said his secretive country was ready to deploy their nuclear arsenal 'accurately and promptly'.
In a world where the tensions keep rising it really would be a benefit to all of humanity if we didn't have stockpiles of nuclear weapons capable of condemning the world to death and destruction.
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