Destruction ahead in 2024

THE US, China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and all the countries of the battle-devastated Middle East are a hairsbreadth away from full-out war and obliteration.

Globally man rushes headlong into an epic confrontation that will reduce our planet to radioactive rubble.

Powerful nations are deploying instruments of destruction that will result in the omnicide of the human race.

The Asian sub-continent is on alert as nuclear missiles on the launch pads await orders. The Korean peninsula is bristling with weaponry that could be fired in minutes. The South China Sea is awash with warships.

The Persian Gulf is seething with anger. One slight miscalculation could result in an inferno. Peace is balanced on a knife-edge. Today’s nuclear bombs are 4 600 times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The stockpiles in the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US are reportedly a destructive force equal to five tons of dynamite for every person on earth. The UN has failed to ensure global peace.

The brutal and draconian ferocity of the current conflicts continue as the potential for massive wider conflicts unfold.

We must ensure the resolution of problems by reason and dialogue rather than belligerency and aggression.

The Doomsday Clock created in 1947, which every year ascertains how close we are to midnight, a metaphor of global annihilation, asserts we are close to Armageddon.

From all the conflicts in progress, unless sanity prevails, 2024 could become the year man’s folly destroyed humanity’s dream of peace and prosperity. FAROUK ARAIE | Benoni