Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Michael Noonan outlines Budget tax cuts to Cabinet

USC REDUCTIONS AND INHERITANCE TAX CHANGES PLANNED

   

MINISTER FOR FINANCE MICHAEL NOONAN: THE GOVERNMENT HAS ABOUT €1 BILLION TO SPEND IN THE BUDGET, SPLIT ON A 2:1 BASIS BETWEEN SPENDING INCREASES AND TAX CUTS.

A range of tax cuts – including reductions in the USC and changes to inheritance tax – have been outlined to Cabinet by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

With Budget 2017 two weeks away, Mr Noonan outlined a rough outline of the plans to his ministerial colleagues at Cabinet on Tuesday.

The Government has about €1 billion to spend in the Budget, split on a 2:1 basis between spending increases and tax cuts.

Mr Noonan told Ministers that he is likely to reduce the lowest two USC rates by half a point each – from 1 per cent and 3 per cent to 0.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively.

He will also raise the threshold at which people enter the lowest USC rate, effectively taking more people out of the USC net. The USC entry point is currently set at €13,000.

The Minister will also further increase the threshold at which inheritance tax for gifts between parents and children will be levied.

In his last budget, Mr Noonan began a process of gradually increasing the inheritance tax thresholds – by raising it from €225,000 to €280,000.

It is understood that Budget 2017, which will be presented on October 11th, will raise it again by as much as €40,000, as part of a multi-year process to eventually raise it to €500,000.

However, while the Government is planning to raise the threshold, it is not proposing to cut the 33 per cent tax rate applied to bequests over the threshold. This rate increased in 2009 from 20 per cent.

A tax credit for self-employed people announced in last year’s budget will also be extended.

The “earned income tax credit” worth up €550 was announced last year and it is likely to be doubled in a fortnight’s time.

Mr Noonan also told his colleagues he intended to help first time house buyers, but did not give any specifics, and said he will provide further support for start up companies.

Children’s Minister Zappone and Fine Gael at odds over childcare proposals

   

PARTY MEMBERS UNHAPPY MINISTER FOR CHILDREN’S SCHEME NEGLECTS ‘SQUEEZED MIDDLE’

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone had put forward a plan for a subsidised childcare scheme initially aimed at lower income families.

The Minister tasked with drafting the Government’s childcare plan was kept in the dark as alternatives to her proposed scheme, which was criticised for neglecting middle-income earners, were mooted in budget talks.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone had put forward a plan for a subsidised childcare scheme initially aimed at lower income families.

However, a number of Fine Gael members were unhappy as the proposal did not help the ‘squeezed middle’ – those earning between €32,800 and €70,000 – and wanted the subsidies to be given to parents across all income groups.

Alternative options to the Minister’s proposals were discussed elsewhere in Government – unbeknown to her – as recently as late last week, when concerns about the plan were being raised.

The Minister’s scheme, as outlined to a Cabinet sub-committee, suggested the initial steps would focus on families with a combined parental income of €47,000 or less, with the income thresholds rising over a number of years.

One of the alternative options discussed was rolling out subsidised childcare over a number of years based on the age of the child. For example, in the first year it would cover children aged up to one before being broadened over time to cover those aged up to three, when they can begin to avail of free pre-school care.

Sources said such a proposal would have income limits, meaning it would not apply to the State’s wealthiest people.

Such a proposal is likely to be more favourable to Fine Gael backbenchers but a spokesman for Ms Zappone last night stressed it had not been discussed with her or the Department of Children.

The spokesman also said Ms Zappone fully intended to stick to her plan.

A spokesman for Ms Zappone said: “These anonymous sources in no way reflect the content of the ongoing budget negotiations.”

While Taoiseach Enda Kenny last week said Ms Zappone had been asked to restructure elements of the scheme, he yesterday indicated it would focus on low incomes and “expand as the economy improves and more money becomes available”.

Meanwhile, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan outlined a range of likely tax cuts at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. The Government has around €1 billion to spend in the budget, which Ministers have said will be split on a 2:1 basis between spending increases and tax cuts.

Mr Noonan told his colleagues he was likely to reduce the lowest two USC rates by half a point each – from 1 per cent and 3 per cent to 0.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively.

Threshold

He will also raise the €13,000 threshold at which people enter the lowest USC rate, effectively taking more out of the USC net.

The threshold for inheritance tax on gifts between parents and children is also expected to be raised from €280,000 to €320,000.

A tax credit for self-employed people will also be extended. An “earned income tax credit” worth up to €550 was announced last year and it is likely to be doubled in a fortnight’s time. Mr Noonan also told his colleagues he intended to help first-time house buyers but did not give any specifics, and said he would give further support to start-up firms.

World’s first baby born with new 3 parent technique.  “It’s revolutionary.”

  

It’s a boy! A five-month-old boy (middle picture) is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people, New Scientist can reveal. “This is great news and a huge deal,” says Dusko Ilic at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the work. “It’s revolutionary.”

The controversial technique, which allows parents with rare genetic mutations to have healthy babies, has only been legally approved in the UK. But the birth of the child, whose Jordanian parents were treated by a US-based team in Mexico, should fast-forward progress around the world, say embryologists.

The boy’s mother carries genes for Leigh syndrome, a fatal disorder that affects the developing nervous system. Genes for the disease reside in DNA in the mitochondria, which provide energy for our cells and carry just 37 genes that are passed down to us from our mothers. This is separate from the majority of our DNA, which is housed in each cell’s nucleus.

Around a quarter of her mitochondria have the disease-causing mutation. While she is healthy, Leigh syndrome was responsible for the deaths of her first two children. The couple sought out the help of John Zhang and his team at theNew Hope Fertility Center in New York City.

Zhang has been working on a way to avoid mitochondrial disease using a so-called “three-parent” technique. In theory, there are a few ways of doing this. The method approved in the UK is called pronuclear transfer and involves fertilising both the mother’s egg and a donor egg with the father’s sperm. Before the fertilised eggs start dividing into early-stage embryos, each nucleus is removed. The nucleus from the donor’s fertilised egg is discarded and replaced by that from the mother’s fertilised egg.

But this technique wasn’t appropriate for the couple – as Muslims, they were opposed to the destruction of two embryos. So Zhang took a different approach, called spindle nuclear transfer. He removed the nucleus from one of the mother’s eggs and inserted it into a donor egg that had had its own nucleus removed. The resulting egg – with nuclear DNA from the mother and mitochondrial DNA from a donor – was then fertilised with the father’s sperm.

Zhang’s team used this approach to create five embryos, only one of which developed normally. This embryo was implanted in the mother and the child was born nine months later. “It’s exciting news,” says Bert Smeets at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The team will describe the findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City in October.

Neither method has been approved in the US, so Zhang went to Mexico instead, where he says “there are no rules”. He is adamant that he made the right choice. “To save lives is the ethical thing to do,” he says.

The team seems to have taken an ethical approach with their technique, says Sian Harding, who reviewed the ethics of the UK procedure. The team avoided destroying embryos, and used a male embryo, so that the resulting child wouldn’t pass on any inherited mitochondrial DNA. “It’s as good as or better than what we’ll do in the UK,” says Harding.

A remaining concern is safety. Last time embryologists tried to create a baby using DNA from three people was in the 1990s, when they injected mitochondrial DNA from a donor into another woman’s egg, along with sperm from her partner. Some of the babies went on to develop genetic disorders, and the technique was banned. The problem may have arisen from the babies having mitochondria from two sources.

When Zhang and his colleagues tested the boy’s mitochondria, they found that less than 1 per cent carry the mutation. Hopefully, this is too low to cause any problems; generally it is thought to take around 18 per cent of mitochondria to be affected before problems start. “It’s very good,” says Ilic.

Smeets agrees, but cautions that the team should monitor the child to make sure the levels stay low. There’s a chance that faulty mitochondria could be better at replicating, and gradually increase in number, he says. “We need to wait for more births, and to carefully judge them,” says Smeets.

TWO WOMEN, ONE MAN AND A BABY

A Jordanian couple has been trying to start a family for almost 20 years. Ten years after they married, she became pregnant, but it ended in the first of four miscarriages.

In 2005, the couple gave birth to a baby girl. It was then that they discovered the probable cause of their fertility problems: a genetic mutation in the mother’s mitochondria. Their daughter was born with Leigh syndrome, which affects the brain, muscles and nerves of developing infants. Sadly, she died aged six. The couple’s second child had the same disorder, and lived for 8 months.

Using a controversial “three-parent baby” technique (see main story), the boy was born on 6 April 2016. He is showing no signs of disease.

JUROR’S excused for a fortnight as judge considers legal issue in FitzPatrick trial

  

The former Anglo Irish Bank director Sean FitzPatrick.

JURORS IN THE TRIAL OF FORMER ANGLO IRISH BANK CHAIRMAN SEAN FITZPATRICK HAVE BEEN TOLD THEY WILL NOT BE REQUIRED AGAIN UNTIL MONDAY WEEK.

Judge John Aylmer told the jury there was a legal issue which he had to deal with before the trial can proceed.

“That is not unusual,” he said.

Mr FitzPatrick (68), of Whitshed Road, Greystones, Co Wicklow, is facing 27 separate charges of misleading Anglo’s auditors Ernst & Young.

Before they retired all of the charges were read to them.

Judge Aylmer said when they return counsel for the prosecution Dominic McGinn would open the case.

“That lengthy and daunting indictment will be made clear to you,” he said.

The judge said it was “an awful lot to digest” but it would be explained.

Judge Aylmer reminded the jury not to seek information about the case outside the courtroom.

“For God’s sake don’t be tempted to publish your own views on the matter on social media,” he added.

The trial is expected to last 12 weeks. Mr FitzPatrick has denied the charges.

These include 21 counts of making misleading, false or deceptive statements to the auditors of Anglo Irish Bank, contrary to section 197 of the Companies Act 1990.

The offences allegedly occurred on dates between 2002 and 2007 and carry a maximum five year jail term.

They include five counts alleging Mr FitzPatrick did not disclose to auditors Ernst & Young arrangements temporarily reducing the balance of loans to him or persons connected to him at the end of the financial year. The reductions cited ranged in size from €4.3m to €88.9m.

He also faces six charges of giving false information contrary to section 242 of the Companies Act 1990 on dates between 2002 and 2008.

The offences carry a maximum jail term of three years. All counts relate to Mr FitzPatrick allegedly producing financial statements giving a false figure for the aggregate value of loans to directors of Anglo.

Half of Pluto’s heart contains liquid water; NASA finds miracle on the dwarf planet

    

NASA MADE AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY ABOUT PLUTO AND ANNOUNCED IT HOURS BEFORE THE PRESS BRIEF ABOUT JUPITER’S EUROPA. EVEN SO FAR FROM THE SUN, THE DWARF PLANET HAS LIQUID WATER.

Early last year, Pluto’s “heart” was discovered and it made the world coo at the dwarf planet. Though removed under the classification of what counts as a “real” planet, the dwarf planet continues to astound as scientists find that even so far away from the heat of the sun, Pluto actually has liquid water.

Due to the distance of Pluto from the sun, it should only contain layers upon layers of ice. But last year, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) New Horizon spacecraft flew past it, scientists began to suspect that there might be a subsurface ocean.

Since the discovery of Pluto’s heart, a team led by Brandon Johnson, an assistant professor in Brown University, focused on getting to know the Sputnik Planum or the western lobe of the heart. The team believed that the love was caused by an asteroid impact. But the interesting and more pressing question arose when the Planum demonstrated positive mass instead of the opposite.

“An impact crater is basically a hole in the ground. You’re taking a bunch of material and blasting it out, so you expect it to have negative mass anomaly, but that’s not what we see with Sputnik Planum,” said Johnson, as reported by Express.

Pluto once again defies expectations and instead shows that the crate has positive mass as a result of the meteor which in turn caused the subsurface ocean to even out across the dwarf planet. Because it was so astounding, natural curiosity took over and the scientists wanted to “run computer models of the impact to see if this is something that would actually happen.”

The results of their tests yielded and stated that the production of a positive mass anomaly is sensitive to how thick, how salty, and how dense the water is. Thus, the ocean layer of at least 100 kilometers “has to be there.”

Though the thermal models of Pluto’s structure do suggest the existence of a liquid ocean, scientists are still on the lookout of important information that can explain how it is possible in the first place. Once again, Pluto astounds the scientific community, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.  

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Central Bank says money for tax cuts should go towards deficit

REGULATOR FORECASTS GROWTH FOR 2016 OF ALMOST 5% BUT NOTES GROWING UNCERTAINTY OVER CHINA AND MARKET TURBULENCE

   

Prof Philip Lane the new Irish Central Bank Governor.

THE CENTRAL BANK SAID IRELAND’S STRONGER GROWTH PERFORMANCE HAS BEEN UNDERPINNED BY BOTH THE STABILISING INFLUENCE OF THE POLICY AND MACROECONOMIC ADJUSTMENTS WHICH HAVE BEEN UNDERTAKEN.

The Central Bank has called on political parties and the Irish people to consider using money reserved for tax cuts and new spending to accelerate the reduction of the budget deficit and national debt.

Although the bank has forecast continued strong economic growth this year and next, its says growing uncertainty over the slowdown in China and financial market turbulence present downside risks to the outlook.

“I would hope that the next government take seriously that you have to reconcile not just public spending needs but also get back to safe levels of public debt,” the bank’s new governor, Prof Philip Lane, told an Oireachtas committee on Tuesday.

“In terms of governments and manifestos and so on, it’s a good question to ask ‘what if you’re wrong’… excessive forecasting on the best guesses is incomplete. You need to have a risk plan as well.”

At the same time, Prof Lane recognised it was very difficult for governments to says to people they could spend more or cut tax but had to reduce debt. He also accepted this raised questions around the level of public investment.

A general election?

The bank’s intervention comes only days out from the formal start of a general election campaign in which most parties are setting out major plans to cut tax and increase expenditure.

Government calculations suggest the next administration could deploy as much as €12 billion in “fiscal space” over five years and still comply with domestic and European fiscal rules. However, the bank says, the next administration should do more than the minimum required to comply with the rules.

Arguing that strong growth presented scope to strengthen fiscal resilience, Central Bank chief economist Gabriel Fagan said earlier on Tuesday that a more ambitious and faster pace of deficit and debt reduction was possible.

“This opportunity needs to be taken,” Mr Fagan said, adding that action was required to mitigate the risk of future boom/bust cycles and to ensure stable and sustainable medium term growth.”

“We’ree saying that serious consideration should be given to using this [fiscal] space, given the serious problems, the vulnerabilities that the economy faces. It’s a qualitative message.”

Mr Fagan said, however, that he was not referring to specific tax or spending proposals. “What we’re saying [is that] there are vulnerabilities remaining, there are risks, and one should be prudent in terms of using that fiscal space.”

Asked whether that was a message to all parties, he said it was a message not just to parties but to voters and wider society.

“The essential idea is that we’ve done a lot of progress. Tremendous achievements have been made on the fiscal side but be careful, there are risks out there, there are vulnerabilities there, so be cautious and be prudent.”

Insurance sector rules out Irish blanket flood cover

GROUP, WHICH MET MINISTERS RECENTLY, SAYS INDUSTRY HAS ‘A LIMITED RISK APPETITE’

  

Cars in the flooded car park at Seapoint, Salthill, Galway, following the gales and high tides on Tuesday morning.

The insurance sector has said it is impossible to provide blanket national flood insurance but stressed fixed defence schemes will greatly enhance the likelihood of property owners securing cover.

Outlining its position following recent talks with the Government regarding property owners who remain unable to get insurance policies, the industry said Ireland has a relatively high level of cover but that crucial obstacles remain.

On the central issue of demountable defences – those which require a degree of manual intervention to work as opposed to fixed systems that work automatically – it said cover would remain a problem.

“Should a failure occur [in demountable systems] and flooding result as a consequence, the financial impact for insurers would most likely be very significant,” the statement from Insurance Ireland, the representative body, said.

“Because of this potential exposure and concerns about the effectiveness of demountable flood defences, insurers have a limited risk appetite for providing flood insurance in these areas.”

Defences

These concerns are clearly reflected in latest statistics: 89%t of policies in areas with fixed flood defences include flood cover compared to 78% of policies in areas with demountable defences.

The figures relate to 16 flood defence schemes on which the Office of Public Works (OPW) has provided data. The figure on fixed defences represents an increase from 86% last November, while demountable related polices have climbed from 67% in the same timeframe.

“Taking all 16 flood defence schemes (fixed and demountable together) we found that 83% of policies in the areas benefiting from flood defences include flood cover (5,749 of 6,914 policies). This is up from 67% in November,” it said.

The insurance sector clearly favours fixed systems but even then total cover is unlikely in an industry underpinned by commercial interests.

“It is not possible to achieve a 100% rate of flood insurance cover nationally for the reasons outlined,” the statement concluded.

While frustration remains in many parts of Ireland dogged by flooding and unable to secure insurance, the sector has said its rates of cover compare favourably to other countries.

Responses from insurers representing 94% of the market found that flood cover is extended to 98% of property insurance policies.

That compares, according to Insurance Ireland, with penetration rates of less than 50% in numerous countries including Austria, the Czech Republic,Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and Slovakia.

Essential

“Insurance Ireland has always insisted that the fixed defence approach is essential when building flood defences and our findings continue to show that flood coverage rates are at their highest where fixed defences are built.”

The problems with alternative demountable systems, it said, were manifold. They depend on early warning weather systems; they can fall foul of mechanical failure; manual operators can be absent when flooding occurs and the simple possibility of human error.

Insurance Ireland said it would engage with the Government to explore further options, citing in particular the possibility of a State-run compensation scheme for those unable to secure flood policies. It did not elaborate on its potential role in that regard, but such funds are operated in other in other countries in the event of flooding or natural disasters.

Insurance Ireland chief executive Kevin Thompson said last night many of the questions regarding policies were down to individual circumstances.

Some 12,000 arthritis patients take their campaign to Leinster House

    

Some of the 12,000 children and adults on waiting lists for arthritis treatment will gather outside Leinster House today to ask election candidates to back their call for more staffing resources.

Arthritis Ireland’s campaign, called Why Are We Waiting?, comes against a backdrop of 1,400 adults and 81 children waiting over a year to access a rheumatology consultant, often amid crippling pain.

The charity said there are 152 children waiting more than nine months to see a consultant paediatric rheumatologist in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.

Best practice guidelines recommend that children be seen within six weeks of the onset of symptoms. Failure to diagnose juvenile arthritis at its onset can lead to permanent joint damage for a child.

The charity will call on general election candidates to support its plan to reduce waiting lists.

The plan calls for the next government to commit, within its first 100 days, to the appointment of 100 people, including six consultant rheumatologists. Ireland currently has 33.5 specialist consultants, well below the World Health Organisation standard of 45 for the size of our population. Arthritis Ireland is also calling for 29 clinical nurse specialists, 12 advanced nurse practitioners, 21 physiotherapists, and 32 occupational therapists.

Amie Forde, a 17-year-old Leaving Certificate student from Cork who has arthritis and is on several waiting lists for treatment, said there were times when her pain got so bad that she had to be carried around her house “and spoon-fed by someone else because my body couldn’t carry me and my hands couldn’t take holding a spoon or a fork”.

Amie said: “I’ve had arthritis since I was two years old. Life has been a bit of a battle for me. I have been in a lot of pain and haven’t had a childhood like normal people. It’s been a long road of appointments and waiting lists for nothing to be done.”

Her chronic condition means she has missed a lot of school and, with her Leaving Certificate on the cards, she has started home tuition.

“I only have to go as far as the kitchen. It’s helped my health a lot but on the social side you lose a lot of friends just from not being at school.”

Every week, Amie attends physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and hydrotherapy at Cork University Hospital. She said the hydro pool “helps a lot, but I was a long time on a waiting list to get the treatment. It took nearly two years.”

Amie is on three waiting lists for specialists to treat various symptoms of her arthritis and believes it could be “anything up to two years” before she is seen.

While seven rheumatology consultant posts have been created nationally in recent times, leading to a 40% increase in activity levels in rheumatology outpatients clinics, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said “a lot more” will need to be appointed to address a backlog.

Arthritis Ireland estimates the 100 additional posts would cost about €7m yearly. “At the moment, arthritis and other musculo-skeletal conditions cost the State more than €700m in lost days at work alone,” a spokesperson said.

Survey finds 95% of Irish homes for rent too high for rent allowance

MORE THAN 13,000 SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS DELIVERED, WITH TOTAL OF 35,000 DUE BY 2020

  

THE SURVEY LOOKED AT ALL PROPERTIES LISTED FOR RENT ON DAFT.IE IN 11 LOCATIONS. 

More than 13,000 social houses were delivered last year, according to a new Government report to be published on Tuesday.

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly will bring a memo to Cabinet outlining the progress made in the first year of the Social Housing Strategy. As part of the Government plan, 35,000 houses are to be built between 2015 and 2020, at a cost of €3.8 billion to the State.

He will also announce €180 million for the construction of 1,000 new units of social housing.

Meanwhile, a survey published on Tuesday finds almost all homes for rent across Ireland are too expensive for people on rent allowance. The Simon Communities report found 95 per cent of all properties surveyed were “beyond the reach” of those in receipt of housing supports.

The survey, of all properties listed for rent on Daft.ie in 11 locations, was conducted at the end of November. Of the 726 properties surveyed, just 34, or 4.5 per cent, were within rent supplement caps.

Sea level rise from ocean warming underestimated, scientists say

Thermal expansion of the oceans as they warm is likely to be twice as large as previously thought, according to German researchers.

  

SEA LEVELS CAN RISE DUE TO MELTING ICE AND THE EXPANSION OF WATER AS IT WARMS.

The amount of sea level rise that comes from the oceans warming and expanding has been underestimated, and could be about twice as much as previously calculated, German researchers have said.

The findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal, suggest that increasingly severe storm surges could be anticipated as a result.

World’s oceans warming at increasingly faster rate, new study finds

Sea level can mount due to two factors – melting ice and the thermal expansion of water as it warms.

Until now, researchers have believed the oceans rose between 0.7 to 1mm per year due to thermal expansion.

But a fresh look at the latest satellite data from 2002 to 2014 shows the seas are expanding about 1.4mm a year, said the study.

“To date, we have underestimated how much the heat-related expansion of the water mass in the oceans contributes to a global rise in sea level,” said co-author Jurgen Kusche, a professor at the University of Bonn.

The overall sea level rise rate is about 2.74mm per year, combining both thermal expansion and melting ice.

Sea level rise was also found to vary substantially from place to place, with the rate around the Philippines “five times the global rate.”

Meanwhile, sea level on the US west coast is largely stable because there is hardly any ocean warming in that area, said the findings.

The doomsday clock remains at three minutes to midnight

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION PROMPTS SCIENTISTS TO KEEP IT UNCHANGED

   

LAWRENCE KRAUSS, FROM ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, HELPS UNVEIL THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT IT WOULD REMAIN AT THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT, IN WASHINGTON, DC,

The Iran nuclear deal and movement on climate change have prompted the scientists who maintain the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic countdown to global catastrophe, to keep it unchanged at three minutes to midnight.

The Doomsday Clock, devised by the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is widely recognised as an indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe.

Positive developments in 2015 include the international accord that limited Iran’s nuclear programme, and the agreement between almost 200 countries in Paris on a process to tackle climate change, the Bulletin said in a statement.

The accords “are major diplomatic achievements, but they constitute only small bright spots in a darker world situation full of potential for catastrophe”, the Bulletin said.

The Doomsday Clock’s hands “are the closest they’ve been to catastrophe since the early days of above-ground hydrogen bomb testing” in the 1950s.

Areas of concern include heightened tensions between the US and Russia, continued conflict in Ukraine and Syria, and tensions over the South ChinaSea, the Bulletin said.

Russian and American nuclear weapons modernisation programmes and growing Chinese, Pakistani, Indian and North Korean atomic programmes are also said to be cause for concern.

Although the Paris agreement was a positive step, 2015 was the warmest year on record.

The voluntary pledges to limit greenhouse gas emissions are not enough to halt drastic climate change, the Bulletin said.

History

The Bulletin is a periodical founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project.

The Doomsday Clock was moved to three minutes to midnight last year from five minutes because of fears over a nuclear arms race and climate change.

The Bulletin’s science and security board makes the decision on the clock’s hands yearly in consultation with its board of sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates.