Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 1, Day 6.

Last night Rihanna performed in Denver, Colorado. As usual Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the manangement) insisted on their information blackout. However it seems that Rihanna performed the standard Diamonds World Tour set-list with the standard costume changes and standard stage set. By most accounts Rihanna's performance was strong and there were no complaints about poor time keeping. It is worth pointing out though that Colorado was one of the US states that legalised recreational marijuana use at the November 2012 election so the audience may well have been too impaired to notice any problems.

During the concert there were no major incidents within the US although the US media did try make a lot of a shooting at a house party in Texas and a shooting at an ice rink in New York City. These though seem to have been routine events for a Saturday night in the US because in a country of around 350million people someone is bound to try and kill someone else at some point. The reason why the international US media made such a lot of noise about what are essentially local news stories was to promote discussion about what sort of dramatic stunts the world can expect as Rihanna completes her final US concerts. Personally I think this was something of a false test designed to lull everyone into a false sense of security. After all the entire world is asleep on Saturday night so there really wasn't anyone to stun, scare or confuse.

Things are expected to become much louder as Rihanna embarks on an intense final week of the Diamonds World Tour which will see her perform four concerts in five days in Dallas (11/11/13), Oklahoma City (12/11/13), Houston (14/11/13) and New Orleans (15/11/13). This schedule means that Rihanna will have a very high profile during the opening week of the two week COP19/CMP9 Climate Change Summit if for no other reason than I'm likely to be writing about it and I tend to get listened too in those circles.

Therefore the management's plan seems to have been that through the duration of the tour the world's climate scientists would have been captivated by the notion that Rihanna somehow controls the weather through her emotions. So for example did her moody return to Sydney, Australia in October somehow magically cause their bush fires?  If the world's scientists were to entertain the idea that Rihanna's moods somehow effect the weather it would make the US the centre of attention as the world clamours at their door to find out what Rihanna's mood was at any particular point and how it correlates with specific weather events. Somehow I doubt the US intends to be truthful in the information it gives out. Fortunately though there seems to be little belief that Rihanna controls the weather so the best the US can really hope for is to use the issue as a coded way of finding out how it is viewed internationally in the wake of the Rihanna operation.

A further US attempt to disrupt the workings of the COP19/CMP9 Summit has been the rush over the last couple of days to force Iran into a bad deal over it's nuclear program. Within climate change circles nuclear power is hugely controversial for a number of reasons. Firstly there is much debate as to whether it is actually a low carbon power source that can be considered as an adaptation measure. Secondly nuclear power in incredibly complicated and expensive to do safely meaning that understanding of the technology is strictly limited to only the worlds richest and most technologically advanced nations. Finally the weapons potential of nuclear power means that it is one of the most closely guarded areas of discussion between nations with not even the closest allies fully knowing each others capabilities.

So by getting a much hyped deal on Iran's nuclear program which has been central to middle-eastern politics for the best part of thirty years the US was trying to make itself the centre of attention by forcing everyone to use climate change negotiations as a coded way to find out the details of the Iran deal. The fact that with the exception of China the foreign ministers of the P5+1 (the UNSC's nuclear powers plus Germany) all rushed to the Iran talks was a sign they wanted to get in on this dialogue on the ground floor. Fortunately though Iran stood up to the pressure and no deal was reached. Unfortunately though they're apparently all going to do it all over again on November 20th (20/11/13) in the critical final days of the COP19/CMP9 Summit.

As such I can't help but feel that Typhoon Haiyan which has torn through the Philippines which has to be the most controversial date on South-East Asian leg of the Diamonds World Tour and is now making its way to Vietnam (Kerruche Tran is half-Vietnamese) is the climate kicking back hard against the US' plan in an effort to remind COP19/CMP9 delegates what they're actually meant to be discussing.


16:50 on 10/11/13 (UK date).