Nuclear threat 'has increased since Cold War'

3 Jul 2009, 3:46 pm   -   Source: SBS - Shalailah Medhora
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As North Korea continues testing short-range missiles, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament says the nuclear threat posed now is worse than at the height of the Cold War.

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As North Korea continues testing short-range missiles, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament says the nuclear threat posed now is worse than at the height of the Cold War.

"All of the expert opinion would suggest that the nuclear threat has increased," Associate Professor Tilman Ruff of the University of Melbourne, says.

Associate Professor Ruff is an advisor to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, a body set up by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shortly after he came into office.

Associate Professor Ruff says other international issues have pushed non-proliferation off the global agenda.

"It's also been overshadowed by other threats that have become apparent such as climate change and the other major global challenges of poverty and diseases," he says.

"At the moment I really think we're in a crisis, in nuclear terms, of both danger and opportunity."

 

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