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Oil spill exposes Shell’s ticking timebomb
For Shell, the timing of a spill at its Gannet A facility in the UK North Sea couldn’t have been worse. For months, it has been selling its reputation as a responsible and cutting-edge oil company in its bid to drill in the Beaufort Sea in the US Arctic – and it recently won approval. Read our…
17 Aug 2011 admin -
Spoonfed on corporate sponsorship of the arts
Great piece by Tom Jeffreys with several quotes from Kevin Smith of Platform exploring the various facets and complexities of corporate sponsorship of the arts, looking at ethics and censorship issues. A useful reference is made to the dropping of Trafigura from the Young Masters art prize – “Sponsorship relationships with brands of this sort…
16 Aug 2011 admin -
Aljazeera: UN slams Shell over Nigeria pollution
Aljazeera produced this excellent video about Shell’s oil spills in Ogoni. In it, Ledum Mittee of MOSOP (the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People) calls on the Nigerian government to revoke Shell’s licence.
15 Aug 2011 admin -
Channel 4 News: Shell North Sea Oil Spill
Last night’s Channel 4 News was mostly taken up with a relatively heated debate on the London riots. During the air time left over, science correspondent Tom Clarke gave an overview of Shell’s 100 tonne oil spill in the North Sea. PLATFORM provided some analysis, putting Shell’s oil spill in the context of the daily…
14 Aug 2011 admin -
Breaking: Shell Gannet Alpha oil Spill hits North Sea
From BBC News last night: Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has said it is working to stop a leak at one of its North Sea oil platforms. The leak was found near the Gannet Alpha platform, 180 km (113 miles) from Aberdeen, Scotland. The company would not say how much oil may have been spilt…
13 Aug 2011 admin -
UNEP report on oil spills in Ogoni: a summary from SDN
If you don’t have the time to read UNEP’s 262 page report on the impact of oil spill’s in Ogoni, don’t panic. Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), a group that works on the ground in the Niger Delta supporting community rights, has produced this helpful summary. As we noted previously, UNEP’s findings are particularly damning for Shell. As the main…
12 Aug 2011 admin -
UNEP report omits Shell’s massive oil spills, says expert
A pattern of omissions has emerged since the UNEP report was published last week. An oil spill expert, journalists and a coalition of environmental groups have taken issue with what the report left out. (Shell commissioned UNEP’s 2 year study and was the sole funder of the $9 million investigation into the ecological impact of oil spills…
11 Aug 2011 admin -
Shell sponsors oil clean up competition
I challenge anyone to find a more cynical example of corporate sponsorship than this one. (Thanks to @Adammaanit in Brighton and @MsVanessaMurray in Australia for bringing it to our attention). In the same week that Shell was condemned by the UN for its devastating oil spills in Ogoni, and admitted liability for 2 massive spills in Bodo village in the…
10 Aug 2011 admin -
The long struggle for justice in Ogoni
US-based EarthRights International (ERI) use the law to defend human rights and the environment. They recently posted up their perspective on Shell’s admission of liability for oil spills in Bodo, Ogoni. ERI’s super-hot legal team worked with other leading human rights advocates to hold Shell accountable for its active involvement in crimes against humanity in Ogoniland in the 1990s.…
10 Aug 2011 admin