Doomsday Clock sounds new alarm of nuclear risk

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- The hands on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock were moved forward Wednesday to reflect what the group believes is a greater risk of nuclear conflict in the world.

The group reset the symbolic clock from nine minutes to midnight to seven minutes to midnight. Midnight represents a nuclear apocalypse, according to the publication's Web site.

The bulletin said terrorist efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, lax security at nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union, the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the continuing tensions between nuclear powers India and Pakistan were the main reasons for the change.

The clock has been reset 17 times since it was created in 1947, when it was also set at seven minutes to midnight.

The closest it has been to midnight is two minutes, from 1953 to 1960, after the Soviet Union and the United States stepped up testing of thermonuclear devices.

The farthest has been 17 minutes, from 1991 to 1995, after the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.