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Bowing to a dead dictator: pipelines, personality cults and the US Ambassador
Azeri democracy activists were enraged when in September, the new US Ambassador to Baku bowed down in front of the memorial to the late dictator Heydar Aliyev, father of the current dictator Ilham Aliyev. The State Department initially tried to claim that Richard Morningstar had only laid a wreath of flowers at the memorial to…
5 Oct 2012 admin -
Divide and fall? Total criticise Arctic oil drilling
As Andy Rowell wrote this morning, “this is big news”. Total are the first major oil company to publicly state that companies should not be drilling for oil in the Arctic. A divide amongst the oil majors will only increase pressure on companies, like Shell, who despite having to abandon this years drilling plans, still…
26 Sep 2012 admin -
“An unexpectedly engaging tale” – The Oil Road reviewed in the FT
This weekend the Financial Times featured a great essay by Ed Crooks on some accounts of the oil industry. We were thrilled that Crooks led with Fuel on the Fire and Platform’s new book The Oil Road, as well as Jeff Rubin’s The Big Flatline. Fuel on the Fire, published in 2011, reveals the oil…
24 Sep 2012 admin -
MPs find government support for Arctic drilling ‘reckless’
The UK government’s support for Arctic Oil drilling was labelled ‘reckless’ today by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has been quietly supporting oil companies’ Arctic ambitions but this is the first time there has been public scrutiny of the department’s actions in relation to Arctic drilling. The Committee published…
20 Sep 2012 admin -
Thatcher in Baku: How BP broke into Azerbaijan
The blog is based on an excerpt from The Oil Road – published with Verso on Sept 20. ‘Lady Thatcher clearly remains a formidable foreign policy weapon for UK Ltd!’ (Foreign Office internal memo 24 September 1992) Internal Foreign Office documents obtained by Platform while researching The Oil Road reveal just how BP utilised…
13 Sep 2012 admin -
Talking memes
How can we use images to tell the stories we want to tell – and avoid repeating the ones we don’t? Photo memes are fast becoming a viral hit. Quicker than 30 second videos, the combination of an image and a short piece of text is being used across social media to convey jokes or…
7 Sep 2012 admin -
Putting the Oil Road on the map – 5 star review kicks off campaign
‘The Oil Road’ opens the lid on the often-shady energy economy, weaving absorbing travel reportage into powerful investigative journalism…If you want to know why oil matters read this book. (Time Out – 5th September 2012) Platform’s campaign to put the Oil Road on the map has been given a fine start with our new travel…
6 Sep 2012 james -
Show us the money – will Dodd Frank force oil companies to reveal payments
Last Wednesday oil and gas lobbyists had a very bad day in the office when new US laws were introduced requiring the extractives sector to publish the payments they make to host governments. Industry groups had been aggressively lobbying to water down the regulations and succeeded in delaying their introduction by 16 months. But last…
28 Aug 2012 admin -
Oil companies gave cash and contracts to militants and warlords in Nigeria
Shell and Chevron have funded armed militant groups in the volatile Niger Delta region of Nigeria since at least 2003, according to oil-industry sources and US embassy cables. Both oil companies have also paid ‘protection’ money to other hostile groups for decades. Platform’s new briefing, as reported in the Daily Mail, is called Fuelling the Violence: Oil…
26 Aug 2012 admin
