The world is approaching its 80th anniversary of the first use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of World War II, so the planet is closer to seeing it being used again than it had been in decades. Experts and survivors warn.

At Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday morning, the decline in high-ranking officials and survivors was set to commemorate the moment on August 6, 1945, when a US B-29 bomber known as the “Little Boy” dropped an atomic weapon known as the “Little Boy.”

Over 110,000 people were killed immediately in the attack, but hundreds of thousands of people have died over the years from injuries and radiation-related illnesses.

To this day, they remain the only era in which nuclear weapons have been used in war. Still, these weapons continue to present a very current threat.

“We don’t have much time while facing a bigger nuclear threat than ever,” said Nihon Haidankyo, a grassroots organization in Japan that won the Nobel Peace Prize for pursuit of nuclear abolition last year, before the ceremony. “Our biggest challenge right now is to change the state of nuclear weapons that give us a little cold shoulder.”

Modern tensions have just been reflected in the past week as nuclear sabers are pissed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine between Russia and the United States. And in recent months, the US has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities with powerful traditional bombs to stop Tehran’s nuclear program.

Earlier this year, nuclear forces urged India and Pakistan to fight a brief conflict over the long, contested rule of Kashmir, scrambling and avoiding dangerous escalations between the two.

“We see a clear trend in the growth of nuclear weapons, shortening nuclear rhetoric and abandoning the arms control agreement,” said Han Christensen, senior fellow associate fellow for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program at the Stockholm International Peace Studies (SIPRI) Institute.

The surprising nuclear trend played a major role in driving the Doomsday Clock, which was founded earlier this year in 1947, and the Doomsday Clock, which approached the planetary disaster from 89 seconds to midnight.

The clock only moved from 90 seconds to 2024, but a 2025 report states that small differences are not a reason to celebrate.

“As the world is already at risk on a cliff, even a second should be seen as a sign of extreme danger, and an undeniable warning that delays in reversal of courses increase the probability of a global disaster,” the move’s press release states.

The group also considers “destructive technologies,” such as climate change, biological threats like the pandemic and biological age, and the malicious use of artificial intelligence when setting up watches.

However, the nuclear threat was at the forefront and center of their report, released at the end of January.

“Nationals that own nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization,” a report from Doomsday Clock said.

The Hiroshima atomic bomb, which has an explosive yield of 15 kilotons, is considered by today’s standards as a low-yield nuclear weapon. The largest nuclear weapon in the US arsenal is 1.2 megatons, 80 times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb.

Experts warn that a single modern nuclear weapon could instantly kill millions if it explodes in a metropolitan city.

According to Cipri, there are over 12,000 nuclear powers in the hands of nine nuclear powers: the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Almost all of these countries “continued their intensive nuclear modernization program in 2024, upgraded existing weapons and added new versions,” Sipri’s latest annual report states.

The report says that the US and Russia hold about 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, but they own about 90% of nuclear weapons, but the number of nuclear powers is growing or they plan to raise arsenals.

China is at the forefront of growth, adding around 100 nuclear warheads a year. This is a trend Sipri expects to continue.

India is believed to be added to its stockpile, and the UK is expected to be expected soon, the report says.

Meanwhile, North Korea shows no signs of retreating its nuclear state. Kim Yeon Jong, a powerful sister to state leader Kim Jong, said last month that Pyongyang will not abandon its warhead in exchange for discussions with Washington and Seoul.

“An attempt to deny DPRK’s status as a nuclear weapons nation will be thoroughly rejected,” she said.

AP
–

Nigerian customs said they seized more than 1,600 parrots and canaries that had been transported to Kuwait from Lagos International Airport without permission, along with the seizure of the largest wildlife trafficking in years.

The attack is a sign of positive change in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking as Nigeria is a major hub for global trade with protected species, Mark Oua, a spokesman for West Africa for international non-governmental organization Wild Africa, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Customs agents seized two protected species, a ring neck paraquite and a green and yellow frontal canary, at the airport on July 31st.

Nigeria is the signatories of the International Trade Treaty for Endangered Species Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

A statement from the customs agency said the cargo did not come with other documents necessary to prove that the lawsuit was legally obtained.
Nigeria’s customs said there is an investigation to discover that the illegal cargo manager is ongoing and that birds will be handed over to the National Park Service for rehabilitation and release into the wild.

Ofua said Nigeria’s porous boundaries, widespread corruption and weak enforcement will make it a key transport for ivory, pangolin scales and other wildlife products for Asia.

He added that trafficking of illegal wildlife around the world is valued at between $8 million and $10 billion a year.

A federal prosecutor in Mexico was killed in a drive-by shooting that shocked the country after video footage of the attack was circulated online.

The footage shows a prosecutor sitting on the road in the border city of Reinosa, Tamaulipas province, shortly after his car set fire to it. The white vehicle then drives the past, with multiple gunshots coming through. The prosecutor fell to the ground and then remained unmoved. It is not clear what caused the fire.

The Mexican Attorney General’s Office has identified the murdered man as Ernesto Quitlack Vasquez Reina, who worked in Tamaulipas.

Although Monday’s attacks were still under investigation, preliminary information suggested it could be linked to an organized crime gang targeted by authorities recently.

It pointed to a seizure by security forces last month of more than 1.8 million litres of stolen fuel.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that her security cabinet would contact state and federal prosecutors and “do justice in this case.”

In a post on X, Governor Tamaulipas, Americo Villarreal, condemned the attack, expressed solidarity with the prosecutor’s family, offering to help “the Attorney General’s office and the Mexican government seek to build justice and peace.”

Reinosa is the most populous city in Tamaulipas, with around 700,000 residents. It is located across from Rio Grande from Hidalgo, Texas.

Search and rescue volunteers are fighting the bad weather and heavy rains in search of American journalists who went missing while hiking in Norwegian National Park.

Alec Rune, a climate journalist from Wisconsin, is an experienced hiker and has completed many solo trips under challenging circumstances. He was reported missing by his wife Veronica Silkenko on Monday after he was unable to return home.

Silkenko told CNN that she last spoke to Rune on Thursday as she was set out for a hike in Forgefonna National Park in southwestern Norway.

“We exchanged some texts. He told me he was going to do a hike and sent me a photo. He looked fine, the weather was fine,” she said. It was the last thing she had heard from him.

Silchenko said she was always “a little worried” when Rune was hiking, but also knew that the phone signal was patchy in the wilderness and that she didn’t worry too much until a few days later.

“I started to worry a bit on Sunday, but I thought it was Norway and it was totally normal for no connections in the mountains, so I decided (wait) to do something if he wasn’t back online on Monday,” she told CNN in a phone interview. “On Monday, he should have left the park by then and we decided we needed to call the service because we could have possibly found the internet.

The Norwegian Red Cross said in X that the search operation launched on Monday was expanded on Tuesday. He said volunteers and search and rescue dogs were involved.

Norwegian Red Cross spokesman Ingeborg Thorsland told CNN the operation was spreading across a wide area and heavy rains made navigation difficult.

“Around 30 volunteers from the Red Cross and other organizations are involved in the business. The search team is locally familiar with the terrain and has proven to be particularly challenging due to the difficult situations and harsh weather,” she said.

When the weather was allowed, drones were also in use, she said, and the alpine rescue group also assisted in the search.

CNN has asked Norwegian police for comment.

Rune, 38, works at outlets such as National Geographic, The Guardian, The New York Times and Atlantic. He currently lives in Moscow and Istanbul before being based in London.

“He’s a very kind and loving person. He loves nature. He devoted his career to writing about climate change, especially ice and the Arctic,” Silkenko told CNN.

“He’s very strong and adventurous, he’s not a fool. Alec is my favorite person in the world and I miss him so much. I hope he’ll come back as soon as possible,” she said.