UN Head Warns Humanity Faces Threat Of 'Nuclear Annihilation'

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.

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.

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.