The Doomsday Clock Moves Nearer Midnight

Making News

Deadly Storm Sweeps Europe ()

Much of Europe has been hit by hurricane-force winds that have killed at least 47 people and disrupted travel for tens of thousands more.  There's major damage from the British Isles to Eastern Europe.  Naomi Buck is a freelance journalist based in Berlin, Germany.

Guests:

• Naomi Buck: freelance reporter

Main Topic

Doomsday Scenarios: What to Believe? ()

When the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, the magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the "Doomsday Clock."  As the prospect of nuclear war gets more likely, the minute hand gets closer to midnight.  This week, the hand was moved from seven minutes to night to five--the closest it's been since the Cold War. But in a new twist, global warming has been added as an imminent threat to human kind. Are recent predictions about the end of our species any more credible than those we've already survived? Can we count on unforeseen circumstances and human ingenuity? Does popular culture convey the right message or promote unnecessary anxiety?

Guests:

• Kennette Benedict: executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• Gregory Stock: director of the UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society
• Marc Siegel: internist and professor
• Moises Naim: editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, @moisesnaim

Links:

• London Times article on Israel's plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Naim's article, "The Most Dangerous Deficit"

Reporter's Notebook

Race, Class and Prejudice Live on British Reality Television ()

A British television show has generated 30,000 complaints from viewers, enough that Prime Minister Tony Blair has been called to account in Parliament. Gordon Brown, his likely successor, was embarrassed in public during a trip to India, where effigies of Celebrity Big Brother's contestants have been burned in the streets. The show is about people locked up together long enough to get on each other's nerves. The viewing audience then decides who stays and who goes, and there's big money for the one who lasts the longest. Terry Kirby of The Independent reports on the backlash from the show that became an international incident.

Guests:

• Terry Kirby: chief reporter for The Independent

Links:

• Germaine Greer on bullying of TV-show housemates