Jenni Rivera Plane Crash.

Edited at around 11:10 on 10/12/12 for a more coherent version.

Throughout his career Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has irritated people in probably every area of his life. Probably the most relevant cause for irritation at the moment is his refusal to adhere to United Nations (UN) language rules. The UN has six official languages and to give you an idea of the calibre of people involved many speak all six fluently. However to assist those that don't each UN body/process sets one or two languages that all submissions should be made in. The official language for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) while includes the COP/CMP is English. However under Chavez Venezuela flatly refuses to use English and instead insists on making all it's submissions in Spanish to protest against US Imperialism. This really annoys everyone because if for example your native language is Arabic and the designated language is English you bring an English translator not a Spanish one. Over the last year or so this has led to Venezuela receiving some gentle nudging that it might like to admit that although they speak Spanish there are some of them who can speak English too. The highlight of this nudging was probably the very sarcastic suggestion by outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon that Mexico should drop the United States part of their official name to avoid being associated with the imperialist United States of America.

Apart from annoying people Chavez also has cancer. As he has previously blamed the CIA for giving him cancer and terminal illness is rarely a vote winner the exact nature of Chavez's cancer and his prognosis are not publicly known. However yesterday (9/12/12) Chavez took to the airwaves to announce that his cancer has returned and to name his successor making it extremely unlikely that he will complete his current 6 year term of office that is due to end in 2018. The timing of this announcement so soon after the COP18/CMP8 seems to be an attempt by Chavez to assess his popularity with his regional neighbours especially Mexico who have been quite critical of his language policy. The US was ready to react to Chavez's announcement with a mass shooting on a Native American reservation in California seemingly carried out by a Hispanic man - Hector Ceyla and a private plane crash over Mexico that killed US/Mexican singer Jenni Rivera. Combined these create the impression that the US knew about Chavez's medical condition in advance and knew that he was going to make the announcement. In the secrecy business where who knows what who knows is all important this is quite a provocative statement to make. The Rivera crash also allows the US to open up a bilateral with the new Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The involvement of a plane crash also has the spin off effect of raising discussion about the big current argument whether greenhouse gas emissions from aviation should be included in a nations emissions totals and the private plane expands that argument into whether non-commercial aircraft should be considered. To further complicate matters with Rihanna doing what looked a lot like a diplomatic mission by appearing live at the UK XFactor final there was a hope that the crash would be interpreted as a warning to her that if she continues on her current path there may well come a day when the story the summit needs is of her tragic and untimely death. In reality though it was simply an effort to put extra pressure on her and her core group including her PA Jenni Rosales because having people threaten to kill you is rarely relaxing. By putting all this pressure on a group of people in the UK the hope that little secrets would get get forced out and Britain would be seen to catching these secrets drawing attention on to them.

11:40 on 10/12/12.