Questões de Inglês

George Soros and Doomsday Clock Warn of Trump-Inspired Nuclear War
On Thursday, both the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and George Soros suggested Trump would destroy the world, despite positive news from North Korea.

(By Tyler O’Neil)

  Leftist fearmongering about President Donald Trump literally destroying the world flared up again, as liberal billionaire donor George Soros joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in predicting a Trump nuclear Armageddon. They did so despite recent — and historic — rapprochement between North and South Korea, for which Trump has been (at least partially) credited.

  “It is with considerable concern that we set the Doomsday Clock, as of today,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, announced during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It is two minutes to midnight.”
  “To call the world’s nuclear state dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” Bronson said.
Soros echoed the theme, halfway across the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
  “Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power,” Soros declared, CNBC reported. “The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real.”

  The leftist billionaire warned that the United States’ unwillingness to accept North Korea’s power is “a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy.”
  Soros centered his criticism around Trump, suggesting the president wants to create a “mafia state” in the United States, similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Not only the survival of open society but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” he declared. “The rise of leadership such as Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the United States have much to do with this.”
  These statements seem ill-timed after representatives of North Korea and South Korea reached a landmark decision to send a joint delegation of athletes to the Olympics in South Korea. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in thanked Trump for contributing to this development. Trump “made a huge contribution to make inter-Korean talks happen [and] I’d like to express my gratitude,” Moon said.
  Trump took credit for the talks in a tweet. “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North,” the president tweeted. “Fools, but talks are a good thing!”
  Trump’s contribution may be debatable, but the rapprochement suggests that the threat of nuclear war with North Korea has not necessarily increased since last year.
  The Doomsday Clock, first used in 1947, is a metaphor meant to show how close humans are to destroying the world. The clock came this close to midnight only once before, in 1953, after both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear bombs within six months of one another.

  In recent years, hysteria about climate change has pushed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to accelerate the threat measure. Last year, the organization rated the clock at 2 minutes, 30 seconds, an unusual move — perhaps to enable a slow progression under the Trump presidency.
  Indeed, a Bulletin representative explained that the 2017 move focused largely on one person — Donald Trump.
  “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president [sic] of the United States, his words matter,” wrote Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University and chairman of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin, and David Titley, a member of its science panel, in a New York Times op-ed.
  The Bulletin’s measure suggests that the world is closer to global catastrophe than most of the time during the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis — when the clock stood at 7 minutes.
  Trump has a blustery manner, and his tweets toward North Korea have indeed been aggressive, but do most people really think the world is inches away from nuclear war? Trump has been president for a while, and no missiles have flown. What reason will the Bulletin cite next year, when they increase the clock to 1 minute, 30 seconds?
  Perhaps the scientists should rethink their message when they find themselves making the same statements as a major Leftist donor. Should science be so partisan?
(Adapted from: http://www.pjmedia.com, January 25, 2018)

George Soros and Doomsday Clock Warn of Trump-Inspired Nuclear War
On Thursday, both the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and George Soros suggested Trump would destroy the world, despite positive news from North Korea.

(By Tyler O’Neil)

  Leftist fearmongering about President Donald Trump literally destroying the world flared up again, as liberal billionaire donor George Soros joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in predicting a Trump nuclear Armageddon. They did so despite recent — and historic — rapprochement between North and South Korea, for which Trump has been (at least partially) credited.

  “It is with considerable concern that we set the Doomsday Clock, as of today,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, announced during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It is two minutes to midnight.”
  “To call the world’s nuclear state dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” Bronson said.
Soros echoed the theme, halfway across the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
  “Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power,” Soros declared, CNBC reported. “The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real.”

  The leftist billionaire warned that the United States’ unwillingness to accept North Korea’s power is “a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy.”
  Soros centered his criticism around Trump, suggesting the president wants to create a “mafia state” in the United States, similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Not only the survival of open society but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” he declared. “The rise of leadership such as Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the United States have much to do with this.”
  These statements seem ill-timed after representatives of North Korea and South Korea reached a landmark decision to send a joint delegation of athletes to the Olympics in South Korea. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in thanked Trump for contributing to this development. Trump “made a huge contribution to make inter-Korean talks happen [and] I’d like to express my gratitude,” Moon said.
  Trump took credit for the talks in a tweet. “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North,” the president tweeted. “Fools, but talks are a good thing!”
  Trump’s contribution may be debatable, but the rapprochement suggests that the threat of nuclear war with North Korea has not necessarily increased since last year.
  The Doomsday Clock, first used in 1947, is a metaphor meant to show how close humans are to destroying the world. The clock came this close to midnight only once before, in 1953, after both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear bombs within six months of one another.

  In recent years, hysteria about climate change has pushed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to accelerate the threat measure. Last year, the organization rated the clock at 2 minutes, 30 seconds, an unusual move — perhaps to enable a slow progression under the Trump presidency.
  Indeed, a Bulletin representative explained that the 2017 move focused largely on one person — Donald Trump.
  “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president [sic] of the United States, his words matter,” wrote Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University and chairman of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin, and David Titley, a member of its science panel, in a New York Times op-ed.
  The Bulletin’s measure suggests that the world is closer to global catastrophe than most of the time during the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis — when the clock stood at 7 minutes.
  Trump has a blustery manner, and his tweets toward North Korea have indeed been aggressive, but do most people really think the world is inches away from nuclear war? Trump has been president for a while, and no missiles have flown. What reason will the Bulletin cite next year, when they increase the clock to 1 minute, 30 seconds?
  Perhaps the scientists should rethink their message when they find themselves making the same statements as a major Leftist donor. Should science be so partisan?
(Adapted from: http://www.pjmedia.com, January 25, 2018)

George Soros and Doomsday Clock Warn of Trump-Inspired Nuclear War
On Thursday, both the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and George Soros suggested Trump would destroy the world, despite positive news from North Korea.

(By Tyler O’Neil)

  Leftist fearmongering about President Donald Trump literally destroying the world flared up again, as liberal billionaire donor George Soros joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in predicting a Trump nuclear Armageddon. They did so despite recent — and historic — rapprochement between North and South Korea, for which Trump has been (at least partially) credited.

  “It is with considerable concern that we set the Doomsday Clock, as of today,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, announced during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It is two minutes to midnight.”
  “To call the world’s nuclear state dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” Bronson said.
Soros echoed the theme, halfway across the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
  “Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power,” Soros declared, CNBC reported. “The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real.”

  The leftist billionaire warned that the United States’ unwillingness to accept North Korea’s power is “a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy.”
  Soros centered his criticism around Trump, suggesting the president wants to create a “mafia state” in the United States, similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Not only the survival of open society but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” he declared. “The rise of leadership such as Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the United States have much to do with this.”
  These statements seem ill-timed after representatives of North Korea and South Korea reached a landmark decision to send a joint delegation of athletes to the Olympics in South Korea. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in thanked Trump for contributing to this development. Trump “made a huge contribution to make inter-Korean talks happen [and] I’d like to express my gratitude,” Moon said.
  Trump took credit for the talks in a tweet. “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North,” the president tweeted. “Fools, but talks are a good thing!”
  Trump’s contribution may be debatable, but the rapprochement suggests that the threat of nuclear war with North Korea has not necessarily increased since last year.
  The Doomsday Clock, first used in 1947, is a metaphor meant to show how close humans are to destroying the world. The clock came this close to midnight only once before, in 1953, after both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear bombs within six months of one another.

  In recent years, hysteria about climate change has pushed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to accelerate the threat measure. Last year, the organization rated the clock at 2 minutes, 30 seconds, an unusual move — perhaps to enable a slow progression under the Trump presidency.
  Indeed, a Bulletin representative explained that the 2017 move focused largely on one person — Donald Trump.
  “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president [sic] of the United States, his words matter,” wrote Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University and chairman of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin, and David Titley, a member of its science panel, in a New York Times op-ed.
  The Bulletin’s measure suggests that the world is closer to global catastrophe than most of the time during the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis — when the clock stood at 7 minutes.
  Trump has a blustery manner, and his tweets toward North Korea have indeed been aggressive, but do most people really think the world is inches away from nuclear war? Trump has been president for a while, and no missiles have flown. What reason will the Bulletin cite next year, when they increase the clock to 1 minute, 30 seconds?
  Perhaps the scientists should rethink their message when they find themselves making the same statements as a major Leftist donor. Should science be so partisan?
(Adapted from: http://www.pjmedia.com, January 25, 2018)

George Soros and Doomsday Clock Warn of Trump-Inspired Nuclear War
On Thursday, both the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and George Soros suggested Trump would destroy the world, despite positive news from North Korea.

(By Tyler O’Neil)

  Leftist fearmongering about President Donald Trump literally destroying the world flared up again, as liberal billionaire donor George Soros joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in predicting a Trump nuclear Armageddon. They did so despite recent — and historic — rapprochement between North and South Korea, for which Trump has been (at least partially) credited.

  “It is with considerable concern that we set the Doomsday Clock, as of today,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, announced during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “It is two minutes to midnight.”
  “To call the world’s nuclear state dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,” Bronson said.
Soros echoed the theme, halfway across the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
  “Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power,” Soros declared, CNBC reported. “The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real.”

  The leftist billionaire warned that the United States’ unwillingness to accept North Korea’s power is “a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy.”
  Soros centered his criticism around Trump, suggesting the president wants to create a “mafia state” in the United States, similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Not only the survival of open society but the survival of our entire civilization is at stake,” he declared. “The rise of leadership such as Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the United States have much to do with this.”
  These statements seem ill-timed after representatives of North Korea and South Korea reached a landmark decision to send a joint delegation of athletes to the Olympics in South Korea. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in thanked Trump for contributing to this development. Trump “made a huge contribution to make inter-Korean talks happen [and] I’d like to express my gratitude,” Moon said.
  Trump took credit for the talks in a tweet. “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North,” the president tweeted. “Fools, but talks are a good thing!”
  Trump’s contribution may be debatable, but the rapprochement suggests that the threat of nuclear war with North Korea has not necessarily increased since last year.
  The Doomsday Clock, first used in 1947, is a metaphor meant to show how close humans are to destroying the world. The clock came this close to midnight only once before, in 1953, after both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear bombs within six months of one another.

  In recent years, hysteria about climate change has pushed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to accelerate the threat measure. Last year, the organization rated the clock at 2 minutes, 30 seconds, an unusual move — perhaps to enable a slow progression under the Trump presidency.
  Indeed, a Bulletin representative explained that the 2017 move focused largely on one person — Donald Trump.
  “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president [sic] of the United States, his words matter,” wrote Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Arizona State University and chairman of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin, and David Titley, a member of its science panel, in a New York Times op-ed.
  The Bulletin’s measure suggests that the world is closer to global catastrophe than most of the time during the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis — when the clock stood at 7 minutes.
  Trump has a blustery manner, and his tweets toward North Korea have indeed been aggressive, but do most people really think the world is inches away from nuclear war? Trump has been president for a while, and no missiles have flown. What reason will the Bulletin cite next year, when they increase the clock to 1 minute, 30 seconds?
  Perhaps the scientists should rethink their message when they find themselves making the same statements as a major Leftist donor. Should science be so partisan?
(Adapted from: http://www.pjmedia.com, January 25, 2018)

Doomsday Clock: Nearing the
stroke of madness

(By Derek Johnson)

  As the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sets its Doomsday Clock ahead 30 seconds -- to two minutes before midnight -- the lesson seems clear: our time is nearly up.

  It is tempting to argue the increasingly long odds of humanity’s survival correspond to the rise of an erratic celebrity apprentice to the White House. The enormous destructive capability at his fingertips -- coupled with his ignorance of international affairs and disdain for diplomacy, his fetish for violence and dehumanizing worldviews, and his consistently ballistic tendencies -- has us balanced on the razor’s edge. Rightly so.

  But in truth, this problem is bigger than any one president. Even Donald Trump.

  While many factors contribute to the setting of the Clock, it is the terrible prospect of nuclear conflict that lies at the heart of today’s announcement. There are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Beyond all reason, the United States and Russia keep thousands of them on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch at any moment. Bear in mind that a single modern warhead has more destructive force than all of the bombs detonated in World War II combined, including the atomic weapons dropped on Japan.

  Confronted for the first time with multiple geopolitical hotspots that could go nuclear with little or no warning, the world is in dangerous and uncharted waters.

  This parade of nuclear-tinged crises has steadily worsened over the last year: North Korea and the United States appear to be on a collision course, fueled by schoolyard taunts, missile tests and threats of “fire and fury.” NATO-Russia tensions are intensifying and are spilling over into the arms control arena, threatening to unravel vital agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and New START. Nuclear arms-racing India and Pakistan are once again clashing in Kashmir, with casualties mounting on both sides. And another nuclear crisis may be brewing in the Middle East as the White House actively works to undermine the Iran deal.

  Meanwhile, as you read this, all of the nuclear-armed states are marching to upgrade, expand or operationalize their arsenals. Rather than continuing decades of slow but steady progress to eradicate them, nations are sinking trillions of dollars globally into building a whole new generation of civilization-ending weaponry. “Nuclear buttons” sit on the desks of more authoritarian men than at any moment in history.

  As this march continues, the role of nuclear weapons will be further cemented in national security policies and inoculated against stigmatization. And the risks that they will be used -- by accident, by unauthorized action, by mistaken launch on false warning, by deliberate decisions stemming from crisis escalation, or in a fit of pique -- will rise.

  These are not the hysterical musings of armchair analysts and activists. The draft of Trump›s radical new Nuclear Posture Review leaked this month confirms just how far and how fast the United States is backsliding toward nuclear warfighting. Without urgent intervention, it only gets worse from here.

  We have spent decades in comfortable and dangerous denial of the inherent risks of nuclear weapons and the fault lines buried in “red button” systems geared for first strike and quick launch. Now, thanks to Trump, it is impossible to ignore -- and not a moment too soon.
  Confronting these dangers will require the relentless work of many years -- more time than we likely have if nothing changes soon. We can buy ourselves some breathing room with any number of emergency measures currently circulating in Congress, like the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act; by starving Trump’s nuclear ambitions of the eye-popping funds they require; and by demanding diplomatic engagement with nucleararmed adversaries, first and foremost the North Koreans.
  But there are only two ways this story ends: We either find the wisdom and courage to reduce and ultimately eliminate these weapons, or the Clock strikes midnight.
  We are running out of time to decide which future we will live to see.
(Adapted from https://www.cnn.com, January 25, 2018)

Doomsday Clock: Nearing the
stroke of madness

(By Derek Johnson)

  As the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sets its Doomsday Clock ahead 30 seconds -- to two minutes before midnight -- the lesson seems clear: our time is nearly up.

  It is tempting to argue the increasingly long odds of humanity’s survival correspond to the rise of an erratic celebrity apprentice to the White House. The enormous destructive capability at his fingertips -- coupled with his ignorance of international affairs and disdain for diplomacy, his fetish for violence and dehumanizing worldviews, and his consistently ballistic tendencies -- has us balanced on the razor’s edge. Rightly so.

  But in truth, this problem is bigger than any one president. Even Donald Trump.

  While many factors contribute to the setting of the Clock, it is the terrible prospect of nuclear conflict that lies at the heart of today’s announcement. There are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Beyond all reason, the United States and Russia keep thousands of them on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch at any moment. Bear in mind that a single modern warhead has more destructive force than all of the bombs detonated in World War II combined, including the atomic weapons dropped on Japan.

  Confronted for the first time with multiple geopolitical hotspots that could go nuclear with little or no warning, the world is in dangerous and uncharted waters.

  This parade of nuclear-tinged crises has steadily worsened over the last year: North Korea and the United States appear to be on a collision course, fueled by schoolyard taunts, missile tests and threats of “fire and fury.” NATO-Russia tensions are intensifying and are spilling over into the arms control arena, threatening to unravel vital agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and New START. Nuclear arms-racing India and Pakistan are once again clashing in Kashmir, with casualties mounting on both sides. And another nuclear crisis may be brewing in the Middle East as the White House actively works to undermine the Iran deal.

  Meanwhile, as you read this, all of the nuclear-armed states are marching to upgrade, expand or operationalize their arsenals. Rather than continuing decades of slow but steady progress to eradicate them, nations are sinking trillions of dollars globally into building a whole new generation of civilization-ending weaponry. “Nuclear buttons” sit on the desks of more authoritarian men than at any moment in history.

  As this march continues, the role of nuclear weapons will be further cemented in national security policies and inoculated against stigmatization. And the risks that they will be used -- by accident, by unauthorized action, by mistaken launch on false warning, by deliberate decisions stemming from crisis escalation, or in a fit of pique -- will rise.

  These are not the hysterical musings of armchair analysts and activists. The draft of Trump›s radical new Nuclear Posture Review leaked this month confirms just how far and how fast the United States is backsliding toward nuclear warfighting. Without urgent intervention, it only gets worse from here.

  We have spent decades in comfortable and dangerous denial of the inherent risks of nuclear weapons and the fault lines buried in “red button” systems geared for first strike and quick launch. Now, thanks to Trump, it is impossible to ignore -- and not a moment too soon.
  Confronting these dangers will require the relentless work of many years -- more time than we likely have if nothing changes soon. We can buy ourselves some breathing room with any number of emergency measures currently circulating in Congress, like the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act; by starving Trump’s nuclear ambitions of the eye-popping funds they require; and by demanding diplomatic engagement with nucleararmed adversaries, first and foremost the North Koreans.
  But there are only two ways this story ends: We either find the wisdom and courage to reduce and ultimately eliminate these weapons, or the Clock strikes midnight.
  We are running out of time to decide which future we will live to see.
(Adapted from https://www.cnn.com, January 25, 2018)