China alert to doomsday rumours

THE end of the world may be nigh - unless you're in the Chinese Communist Party. Over the past few weeks, the authorities have detained more than 90 people across seven provinces for spreading rumours that the world is about to end, laying bare the party's obsession with social stability and maintaining its tight grip on power.
Many people in China believe in the so-called ''Mayan apocalypse'' - slated for December 21, the last day on the Mayan long count calendar - because it was the central premise of disaster film 2012, a box office sensation in China when it was released three years ago.
A man who slashed 22 schoolchildren last week in Henan province was ''psychologically affected'' by doomsday rumours. Shoppers in Sichuan province have been panic buying candles, convinced that Friday will kick off three consecutive days of darkness.
Authorities in Qinghai province arrested 37 members of a group called the Church of the Almighty God for spreading doomsday rumours last week. The group has called for death to the ''Big Red Dragon'', its term for the Communist Party. Hundreds of its followers have clashed with police in three provinces over the past week.
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The rise of subversive, quasi-religious groups in China has precedence. The bloody 19th century Taiping Rebellion against the Manchu Qing emperor was led by a peasant claiming to be Jesus Christ's younger brother; his army at one point controlled an area that was home to 30 million people.
Some people have found less subversive ways of dealing with the prophesy. Companies have made waves on social media websites by offering doomsday holidays and bonuses.
One farmer in Hebei province has built seven buoyant steel-and-fibreglass ''survival pods'' in his garage. Each costs about $46,000, holds 14 people, and includes oxygen, food, water and safety belts. Fears of the apocalypse have gripped Russia, too, forcing Chechnya's ruthless leader Ramzan Kadyrov to emerge as a voice of reason.
''People are buying candles saying the end of the world is coming,'' Mr Kadyrov said on his official website last week. ''Does no one realise that once the end of the world comes, candles won't help them?''
Alexander Kolomeyets, the deputy head of Russia's Association of Independent Psychiatrists, lamented the apocalypse-mania.
''What's happening in our country can be a lot scarier than the end of the world - so any negative information sticks. The more primitive the society, the stronger it lends itself to psychological epidemics. I think in this case our country isn't very civilised.'' Mr Kolomeyets said in an interview in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk.