As the hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was reaching it's dramatic conclusion in Boston, US on Friday (19/4/13) a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan province in China. Although this was only considered a medium 'quake as it struck in a region with loose to non-existent building regulations it did a lot of damage killing some 192 people, injuring 11,000 and making tens of thousand homeless. However as with the death of the Chinese national in the Boston marathon bombings this was more of a disaster for the US then it was for China.
By carrying out the Boston marathon bombings, the Ricin letters conspiracy and the explosion at the Texas fertiliser factory the US was trying to make itself the centre of attention and open a series of so-called diplomatic bridges of communication with its allies. China would obviously be excluded from these bilaterals and therefore be forced to try and break the code to find out the contents of these discussions. Through the Sichuan earthquake the environment, god or just plain dumb luck handed China its own rival disaster through which to have coded discussions with its allies. So we had things like a female TV reporter doing live on-scene reports whilst wearing a wedding dress and a 'miracle baby' that was delivered amid the rubble and could have been a reference to the West element of the Texas explosion. My favourite bit though was that the epicentre of the 'quake was within Lechuan county which is very rural area. This led to lots of talk of Country Roads being blocked, Country Roads being made unstable and Country Roads having to be destroyed. There is a famous American Country & Western song called "Country Roads" which is about someone driving back to their home town in the US state of West Virginia. As West Virginia is Chris Brown's home state 'Country Roads' is one of my favourite codewords for him with the emphasis on the first syllable.
If I was a western intelligence analyst being paid to decipher all this I would be very worried that the Chinese were using the earthquake as a way to discuss the US' "Pivot towards the Pacific" policy with India - the other economic powerhouse in the region that shares a lengthy land border with China. Essentially the Pivot towards the Pacific involves using the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a bogeyman to wrestle unpleasant regimes such as Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos out of China's sphere of influence and into the protection of the US. In return for this protection those nations are expected to open up their labour forces to US manufacturers under-cutting wages in India and China preventing those nations from getting too economically developed.
So on Wednesday (24/4/13) an 8-story factory building collapsed close to the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka killing 238 people and injuring some 600 people so far. This perfectly recreated scenes from the Sichuan earthquake and highlighted the issues surrounding low cost manufacturing across the Asian sub-continent. It also highlighted the main reason that many people think Burma has not been rehabilitated enough to be welcomed back into the international community. Over the last year or so Burmese nationalists have been trying to violently ethnically purge a group known as the Rohingya. The nationalist mobs consider these Muslims to be Bangladeshi rather than Burmese. As it used to be known as East-Pakistan it should be obvious that along with Pakistan Bangladesh used to be part of India under British colonial rule.This colonial history means that modern day Pakistan, India and Bangladesh all have a complex relationship with the UK.
The big news story in the UK on the day of the Bangladesh factory collapse was the collapse of a deal between Lloyds Bank and the Co-Op Bank. This was obviously intended to look as though it was a coded reference to the UK having prior knowledge that the factory was going to collapse. If you'd looked closely at the Tuesday (23/4/13) night Tweets of people such as Kim Kardashian and Susan Rice you'd know a lot of people had prior knowledge that the factory was going to collapse. However the idea of getting the colonial-era India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh) to focus on the UK's news output for clues was to draw them into a series of nasty and confusing news stories that the UK had prepared in advance. This began on Tuesday with the Godolphin horse racing scandal that I've already explained and the James McCormick bomb detector fraud case that could be interpreted in any number of ways (he could look a bit like George Galloway MP) but struck me as a general (and false) apology by the UK for it's poor relationship with reality on a whole number of issues. These stories continued into Wednesday and were added to with the latest round of Abu Qatada nonsense and plans to regulate the cosmetic surgery industry in the wake of the PIP breast implant scandal. That story could have been a coded reference to the shift from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to Personal Independence Payments (PIP) that is scheduled to affect me in 2015. It could also have just been a reference to cosmetic surgery and breast implants in particular. After all in the original script I should have spent Tuesday night watching Internet pornography.
If you had blamed the Dhaka attack on the UK - I very nearly did - you would have been wrong. It was a US-led US/UK co-production. The particular building was only targeted because it was the easiest one to convince people had fallen down by accident. Beyond trying to crush colonial-era India the US was also trying to give it's allies a sneak preview of what it has got planned for the Chris Brown/Rihanna operation once this current tour ends. As with a lot of US celebrities both Chris Brown and Rihanna have their own clothing lines. I've not been bothered to research Chris Brown's "Black Pyramid" brand. However from what I can tell Rihanna's arrangement with River Island is a simple licensing agreement. That is to say River Island have simply paid Rihanna to use her brand to sell their products. As a result Rihanna has no say in how or where the actual products are manufactured. However River Island did not manufacture any of it's products at this particular factory.
Once Rihanna and Chris Brown's days of sell-out world tours are over (on current schedule 2014 for Rihanna, for Chris Brown mission accomplished) and they're left slogging their way around unprofitable parts of the developing world the income from this type of clothing deal will become increasingly important to them. Having dubbed herself "Fashion Killa" in response to the Bangladesh factory collapse Rihanna is clearly at least slightly concerned about the conditions in the factories in which her River Island line is manufactured. Therefore the CIA handlers intend to push her into future clothing deals that won't make her much money but will raise the ethical and political issues involved in the globalised manufacturing trade. Addidas' decision to move production the Philippines in response to Nike pressure is a good case study if you're interested in that sort of thing. Here I have to point out that Chris Brown's ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran also has her own clothing line. Being half-American and half-Vietnamese Tran seems a much more fitting choice for this type of mission. However feel I don't know her well enough to suggest Chris Brown is inflicted on her for a second time.
On top of all this Rihanna's handlers also made more specific attempts to knock her off balance in order to ruin her Baltimore (24/4/13) concert. Firstly someone started a rumour that Rihanna had spent USD8000 at a Miami strip-club on Saturday (20/4/13). The intention here was to make Rihanna appear spoilt, selfish and feckless with money. It is also simply not true. If you look at the Twitter/Instagram pictures of the evening that Rihanna herself posted you can see she was tipping the strippers with $1 bills. A stack of 8000 $1 bills stands about 1'6" (50cm) high and is far too heavy to carry around on a night out. So in reality Rihanna spent - at most - USD2000. Considering how much Rihanna earns compared with how much as stripper earns for pretty much the same job this seems more like a charitable donation to the less fortunate. However I get the feeling me saying that is only going to make Rihanna's next trip to a strip-club that little bit more expensive.
Also the website TMZ.com reported that Rihanna was joined at the strip-club by Katy Perry. As Katy Perry was in California on the other side of the US on Saturday this was clearly untrue and quickly denied by both parties. You may remember that towards the end of 2012 Katy Perry and Rihanna reportedly fell out as friends over Rihanna's decision to reunite with Chris Brown. Therefore this rumour was started to force both Katy Perry and Rihanna to comment publicly on the status of their friendship. I honestly don't know the status of their friendship and could you honestly define the status of one of you friendships? However if Katy Perry and Rihanna are having a conversation about spanking each other I'm most certainly getting involved.
As for how all this affected Rihanna's performance in Baltimore I genuinely haven't had time to look. However as I've not even heard rumours of any disasters I'm assuming it went fine. I honestly hope to add to that tomorrow (or Saturday) when I've had a chance to catch-up. I will though have to spend at least part of tomorrow giving Rihanna a lot of stick for being too posh to stay in New Jersey.
21:35 on 25/4/13.
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