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Iraq steps toward long-term oil contracts
In late January, the International Monetary Fund finally released its Standby Agreement, signed with the Iraqi government a month previously. The Agreement provided a future financing facility, but more significantly allowed the cancellation of 30% of Iraq’s debt owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations – in exchange for Iraq’s compliance with the IMF’s…
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Signing away Iraq’s democracy
This report was first published in Platform’s carbon web newsletter, issue 3. As Carbon Web goes to press, Iraqi politicians are still haggling over the key roles in forming a new government. The outcome will be closely watched not only by Iraqis, but as a recent PLATFORM report reveals, by multinational oil companies, hoping to…
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Signing away Iraqs democracy
PLATFORM’s new report exposes the true cost to Iraq of the oil majors’ agenda As Carbon Web goes to press, Iraqi politicians are still haggling over the key roles in forming a new government. The outcome will be closely watched not only by Iraqis, but as a recent PLATFORM report reveals, by multinational oil companies, hoping to…
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Iraq Constitution lays ground for oilfield selloff
As Iraq goes to the polls in this month’s referendum on the draft Constitution, the fate of the country’s oil reserves has once again escaped public scrutiny – despite their central importance to Iraq’s future economy. According to Oil Ministry officials, contracts will be signed with foreign oil companies during the first nine months of…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
