Bangladesh Building Collapse.

As the Dohktar Tsarnaev siege was coming to it's dramatic conclusion in Boston, US on Friday (19/4/13) an earthquake struck Sichuan province in China. Although this was relatively small earthquake (around 6.8.) it struck in a relatively poor rural area with loose to non-existant building regulations. As a result a large number of people were killed and injured although as apparently I'm not allowed to use Google I can't recall the exact figures.

I actually thought there was a certain poetic justice to this earthquake. You see the US had put on things like the Boston marathon bombings and the Texas fertiliser plant explosion in order to confuse the Chinese and open up lots of complex bilateral discussions with it's allies. Through the Sichuan earthquake god, nature, luck or what ever you want to call it gave the Chinese their own competing disaster. Obviously I've not been able to look at the Sichuan earthquake in great detail because I've been really busy. However if I was looking at the Sichuan earthquake one thing I would be looking for is evidence of bilateral discussions between China and India - the other regional economic power house which shares a long and disputed land border with China.

Nestled between India and the sea you have Bangladesh. Today a building collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka (remember it for pub-quizzes) creating scenes and issues reminiscent of the Sichuan earthquake. With at least 70 dead and 200 currently injured the fact that this building contained a garment factory meant this collapse sent shock waves across the fashion industry because Bangladesh is still the world capital for cheap textile production. This panic would have especially spread to a number of US popstar/celebrities with their own clothing lines. Chris Brown and Rihanna are the two that first spring to my mind because I follow them on Twitter although I seem to remember Sean 'P-Diddy' also does a lot of business in the country and recently had a couple of hundred of his employees killed in a similar factory.

That should explain why the people of Bangladesh really don't like these US celebrities. After all it's the Bangladeshi people who are doing the hard work for pennies a day while it's the celebrities who take all the profits and get to live the champagne lifestyle. Bangladesh had better be careful about angering these celebrities too much because they could always take their business to a host of much poorer countries in south-east Asia who are opening up their economies. Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam and Cambodia spring to mind immediately.

I suppose the better solution would be to gently encourage the celebrities to operate their businesses more ethically. That though leads to a very complicated conversation about the entire concept of economic globalisation. If you've been following Rihanna charity work at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Barbados or the economic implications of the South African leg of her Diamonds World Tour you would know we're a very long way away from having that sort of conversation with Rihanna.

Like I said though if Rihanna continues her relationship with Chris Brown I predict a lot of charity work in her future.

(Originally Posted) 11:25 on 24/4/13.