Reza Najafi, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA speaking to journalists shortly after an extraordinary IAEA's Board of Governors meeting at the agency's headquarters in Vienna. — AFP
WHEN the first nuclear bomb test took place 80 years ago, the scientists who gathered to observe the explosion in the New Mexico desert recognised they were playing with fire.
Physicist Enrico Fermi tried to break the tension by taking bets on whether the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world. J. Robert Oppenheimer wagered US$10 the bomb wouldn’t work at all, and Edward Teller conspicuously applied sunscreen in the predawn darkness, offering to pass it around.
