News from Virginia – The most difficult retreat of all
Sep 24, 2013
Mika Minio-Paluello, Anna Galkina and James Marriott are travelling in North America as part of a book-tour to promote The Oil Road – Journeys from the Caspian to the City of London. You can find more info about their confirmed speaking dates in Virginia, the Bay Area, Toronto, Baltimore and Washington DC, New Orleans and...
The heart of a mountain lain on its side – Blacksburg, Virginia
Sep 13, 2013
Mika Minio-Paluello, Anna Galkina and James Marriott are travelling in North America as part of a tour over September and October to promote The Oil Road – Journeys from the Caspian to the City of London. You can find more info about their confirmed speaking dates in Virginia, the Bay Area, Toronto, Baltimore and Washington...
Is Lord Risby’s trip to Algeria a warm up for DSEI arms sales?
Sep 6, 2013
Special trade envoy Lord Risby is off on a trip to Algeria this week following on from a trip by Cameron earlier on in the year. The trip is happening just before the controversial DSEI arms fair takes place in London. A number of groups, including us, Campaign Against Arms Trade and Algeria Solidarity Campaign...
Slow travel across the Atlantic: The Independent Voyager
Sep 4, 2013
Mika Minio-Paluello, Anna Galkina and James Marriott are heading to North America as part of a tour over September and October to promote The Oil Road – Journeys from the Caspian to the City of London. You can find more info about their confirmed speaking dates in Virginia, the Bay Area, New Orleans, Baltimore and...
Margaret Atwood talk at the Southbank Centre – sponsorship, Shell & dystopias
Aug 28, 2013
Chris Garrard is an activist and composer who was lucky enough to have a ticket to the sold out Margaret Atwood talk last night at the Southbank Centre. You can read Chris’ blog here and an interview with him about his chamber-opera version of The Handmaid’s Tale here. Last night, I went along to see...
Margaret Atwood says “we must talk” about Southbank Centre and Shell
Aug 27, 2013
The wonderful author Margaret Atwood is speaking tonight at the Southbank Centre about her new book MaddAdam, the highly anticipated trilogy, coming after Oryx and Crake, and After The Flood. The trilogy is an important work in the emerging field of climate change literature, with a dark, specualtive look at a dystopian future where the...
Fracking, Balcombe and international solidarity
Aug 22, 2013
Hamza Hamouchene is researching the oil and gas sector in Algeria with Platform. Over the weekend he went to the Reclaim The Power camp in Balcombe to give a workshop, take part in a plenary and the protests on Monday. You can read his previous blog on Algeria, gas and human rights here. The Reclaim...
Gazprom polar bear ‘gift’ seeks to gloss over the reality of Arctic drilling
Aug 21, 2013
NB This blog post was part of an internet hoax instigated by Greenpeace and The Yes Men. You can read more about it here. Check out this ‘video news release’ from the giant Russian energy company Gazprom, celebrating its new partnership with Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic. The bear in the film...
Arms, oil and Algeria – Are EU gas supplies more important than human rights?
Aug 7, 2013
A guest blog by Hamza Hamouchene, who is currently at Platform researching UK’s energy interests in Algeria. With the production of North Sea gas dwindling dramatically, developing Algeria as a major natural gas exporter has become an economic and strategic imperative for the EU. The country features heavily in both EU and UK energy policies and has...
Shell told to clean up Delta on 2nd anniversary of UNEP report
Aug 5, 2013
It’s 8.30am and we are outside the Shell Centre doorstepping staff on their way into work. Another day, another Shell protest. The difference today is we are handing out sponges with a message on the back: “clean up the Niger Delta.” Some of the staff smile nervously as they approach us and some of them...
Memory Before Oil: A Niger Delta Village In the 1960s
Jul 29, 2013
The picture above captioned as A Niger Delta Village In the 1960s (Before Oil) has sparked much discussion on online forums in Nigeria. While there have been debates about its veracity, what is interesting is the way that it provides a catalyst for people’s memories about the region before oil. Here is one comment that...
An obituary of performance artist Monica Ross
Jul 23, 2013
Artist Conrad Atkinson writes about the life of performance artist Monica Ross. My friend the performance artist Monica Ross died on the 14 June 2013; the very day on which her performance Anniversary—an act of memory reached its 60th and concluding Act at the 23rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva,...
