-
BP’s stranglehold on Azerbaijan
This interview was first published in Platform’s carbon web newsletter, issue 2. There are few independent and publicly critical voices emanating from Azerbaijan. With the current regime of President Ilham Aliyev – like that of his father Heydar before him – enforcing its hegemonic control through both brute force and a strong hold over…
-
Nigeria Ten Years On
10 years on from Saro-Wiwa the Niger Delta remains one of the world‘s most unstable oil provinces, despite US-UK ambitions. – This report was first published in Platform’s Carbon web newsletter, issue 2. Ten years ago on 10th November, 9 men were hanged in a squalid courtyard at Port Harcourt Prison, Delta State, Nigeria.…
-
The End of the Empire of Gog & Magog
Presentation at `Desire Lines` conference on Arts & Ecology, Dartington College, Totnes, Devon. Saturday 10th September 2005. James Marriott. THE END OF THE EMPIRE OF GOG & MAGOG (Slide showing on screen at start : Robin Territories at Dartington 1935 – 1945) First of may I say thank you to Alan (Bolden), Lara (Riley) and…
-
New company, same old Shell
This report was first published in Platform’s carbon web newsletter, issue 1. Forty-two years since the official opening of the Shell Centre, Tuesday 28th June was perhaps the most significant day yet in the life of that prominent building on the South Bank. Those who photograph it from the London Eye will not notice…
-
Remember Saro-Wiwa
This report was first published in Platform's carbon web newsletter, issue 1. On 10th November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues were executed by the Nigerian dictatorship following their campaign against the devastating environmental impacts of oil companies – including Shell and Chevron – in the Niger Delta. Ten years on and…
-
Development aid or oil industry subsidy?
This report was first published in Platform’s Carbon web newletter, issue 1. As the G8 meeting has brought Africa and climate change to the fore, a report by Platform Research reveals that British development aid is being spent on oil projects that exacerbate both climate change and poverty. ‘Pumping Poverty’ details how the government’s…
-
BP’s Caspian pipeline – an end or a beginning?
This report was first published in Platform’s carbon web newsletter, Issue 1. BP’s official inauguration of its BakuTbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in May contained in a nutshell the controversy of the last ten years – and a glimpse of what can be expected over the next forty. As BP’s PR machine was telling positive stories…
-
Iraqs untold story
“Iraq is a rich country, but its people are poor,” Hassan Juma’a tells me as we sit in the sparse living room of his crumbling rented house in Basra. Hassan is lucky: he earns just over 300,000 Iraqi dinars (IQD) per month (about £120). With that he is just able to pay rent of 50,000…
-
Iraq’s other resistance
Originally published in The Guardian. Faced with daily reports of car bombs and kidnappings, it’s difficult to feel optimistic about Iraq. But last week in the south of the country I heard a very different story. A story of the movement that has formed to rebuild the country’s economy and national pride, to create an…
