The world is in a "race against time" to prevent nuclear weapons getting into the hands of terrorists, the chief of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said Monday. Mohamed ElBaradei said the world was not ready to deal with a nuclear or radiological attack by terrorists and must hurry to strengthen international nonproliferation measures to prevent such as possibility. "We are in a race against time because it is something we were not prepared for," said ElBaradei, the director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. "We have to cross our fingers that nothing will happen." Speaking on the sidelines of an international conference on nuclear security, ElBaradei welcomed a tentative deal struck at the weekend between three European powers and Iran aimed at suspending the Middle East country's nuclear enrichment and reprocessing programs. He called the preliminary agreement brokered in Paris between Iran and France, Germany and Britain "a step in the right direction."
