The End of the World

Many people have been preparing for months for the end of the world. There have been stories on the Internet for the past decade that the world will end on December 21. This is the day of the "Mayan Apocalypse," when a Mayan calendar predicts the end of us all. However, many other people do not believe the world will end in a day or two. The Chinese government has recently arrested 93 people for spreading doomsday rumours on the Internet. Meanwhile, in Russia, Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov sensibly advised people not to buy Armageddon candles. He wrote on his website: "Does no one realise that once the end of the world comes, candles won't help them?"

So what might happen on Friday? The Internet is full of stories about giant tsunamis and asteroids that will finish us. More common stories are that the black hole at the centre of the galaxy will swallow the Earth, or that a planet called "Nibiru" will hit us. NASA says Nibiru was meant to destroy us in May 2003, but when nothing happened, "the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012". NASA adds: "If Nibiru was real…astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye." English teachers worldwide have told their students they cannot use the apocalypse as an excuse not to do homework.