Doomsday scenarios

Ravaging the four corners of the globe, the coronavirus has destroyed global markets beyond repair in a way that is incomparable to any global crisis in recent history.
Recovery is only possible through a collective global effort under the leadership of the United States, China and the European Union in cooperation with other major powers on the world stage.

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged governments to use their economic responses to the coronavirus pandemic to tackle the "even deeper emergency" of climate change, in a message for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

In a prerecorded message, Greece's new president Katerina Sakellaropoulou said on Tuesday evening that the lockdown is a necessary measure due to the unprecedented crisis and public health risk posed by Covid-19.

As an international conference speaker, I am often asked, "What keeps you awake at night?" My consistent reply over the years has been: Pandemics. History is littered with catastrophic examples.

The majority of millennials see catastrophic war as a real possibility, a survey by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) showed.

Most millennials surveyed by the ICRC believe it is more likely that a nuclear attack will occur in the next decade.

The longest "blood moon" eclipse this century will coincide with Mars' closest approach in 15 years to offer skygazers a thrilling astronomical double bill on July 27, astronomers say.

Pope Francis has warned that the world is just "one accident" away from a nuclear holocaust the likes of which we have never seen, drawing on imagery from the Second World War to illustrate his point.

The Yellowstone supervolcano under America could erupt with terrifying power – expelling up to 250 cubic miles of volcanic rock and ash at once.

The eruption could blanket large areas of America in ash – and possibly plunge Earth into a ‘volcanic winter’.

It sounds like a science-fiction nightmare. But "killer robots" have the likes of British scientist Stephen Hawking and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak fretting, and warning they could fuel ethnic cleansing and an arms race.

The experts run the whole gamut from A to B, and they're practically unanimous: artificial intelligence is going to destroy human civilization.