Members of a mysterious cult are engaged in a stand-off with police on a mountain road in central Japan. The group, which calls itself the Pana Wave Laboratory, is reportedly refusing to move until the end of this week, saying that is caring for a seriously ill woman believed to be its leader. The cult, whose members are clad entirely in white, is reported to believe that the world will be devastated on 15 May by natural disasters, caused by a reversal of the magnetic pole. Police said on Thursday that about 300 officers had been sent to the area, and that they had begun searching the group’s 15 vehicles on the road in Yamato town, Gifu prefecture, on suspicion that they had broken traffic laws. National police chief Hidehiko Sato told a news conference that Pana Wave Laboratory resembled the feared Aum Shinrikyo, or Supreme Truth cult, which carried out a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. “We don’t know what they’re really thinking or what they might do,” a police officer in the nearby town of Hachiman told Reuters news agency. Full Story
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