UN chief: We’re just ‘one misunderstanding away from nuclear annihilation’

Authored by politico.eu and submitted by boomboss81
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”

Guterres, speaking at the start of a conference in New York of countries belonging to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, said this was a “time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War,” pointing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also “many other factors around the world.”

He called on countries to “reinforce and reinform” the treaty and urged them to continue working toward a world free of nuclear weapons, as this is the “only guarantee” that they will not be used.

The conference was supposed to take place two years ago but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The treaty entered into force in 1970 to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to promote nuclear disarmament as well as peaceful use of nuclear energy. Some 191 countries have signed up to the treaty, including the five nuclear states.

In a letter to the conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there can be “no winners” in a nuclear war and no such war should ever be started.

_Miserable_Bastard_ on August 1st, 2022 at 20:28 UTC »

To give some context to this, he said "humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

Thus has been a common stance for ages, he did point out that this may have increased by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, but, putin, as much as I don't trust him, seeks to be cooperating with the idea of non-nuclear aggression, which is at least something

MaximumEffort433 on August 1st, 2022 at 19:38 UTC »

I live about 40 minutes outside of Washington DC, I'm not too worried, if there's ever a nuclear war I probably won't even notice it.

/s... mostly

Berdinkydink on August 1st, 2022 at 19:15 UTC »

Not this again. Who the hell keeps putting belligerent children in charge of weapons of mass destruction?