This week, many different groups and schools around the country are taking part in Climate Week, an initiative that we’d be very supportive of were it not for the fact that it is being sponsored by RBS. On Monday, we released a report Dirty Money – Corporate greenwash and RBS coal finance that showed that RBS has provided finance worth almost €8 billion to the world’s biggest coal mining, and coal power generating companies. You can download the report here, but there’s also a 1 minute video, and an online presentation , and a nice article in the Independent that you can check out too. We are keen to get the word out about this during Climate Week, so please feel free to share on facebook, blog, tweet etc. In fact, here’s a sample tweet you can use:

Start of #climateweek @platformlondon releases new report – RBS invlved in providing €8 bn to coal industy over 3 yrs http://bit.ly/dMZQvL

For more info on RBS, and many other banks dubious financing activities, check out the snazzy Bank Secrets website

Oil interests in the Middle East/North Africa

Behind the social unrest and political upheaval in various parts of the Middle East and North Africa lie a complicated web of oil interests and their relationships with repressive regimes. Mika from PLATFORM has been writing a series of blog posts that sheds like on some of these relationships, and they are listed below.

Royal Dutch Shell profiting from Sultan’s absolute rule in Oman

How BP made friends with Muʿammar Gaddafi

BP support for Mubarak dictatorship revealed

Performance-poetry on video from No Condition is Permanent

Check out PLATFORM’s new Youtube channel, launched this week with three arresting poems written and performed by Dorothea Smartt and Simon Murray (aka Sai Murai) of African Writers Abroad . Dorothea and Simon were commissioned to create new work on the theme of climate justice and social change for our project C Words:Carbon, Climate, Capital. Culture (2009). Their poems Stop (Simon), Pissed Off, and Shake My Future (Dorothea), filmed by You and I Films , are launched today, and three more will be premiered with next month’s newsletter. You can read their and 17 other poets’ work in the anthology No Condition is Permanent available from PLATFORM now: price £4. Paypal account – [email protected]

Commissioning a sound artist

We are working with Liberate Tate to commission a sound artist to develop an Alternative Tate Audio Tour in response to BP sponsorship. The deadline for proposals is April 11, and you can find all the information here. Liberate Tate also has a nice new website – there is an online gallery of all the images of the postcard book that we published with them. Liberate Tate: Collected Works 2010 recently was named as one of the ‘best works’ in the 2011 Memefest International Festival of Radical Communications. You can read the very nice things that the curators had to say about it here.

Fuel on the Fire – pre-release discount

Greg Muttitt, who was part of PLATFORM for many years campaigning against the privatisation of the Iraqi oil industry, will next month publish his highly anticipated book, Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. We are able to offer a 30% discount off the cover price of £14.99 to friends of PLATFORM, if you order an advance copy before the 21st of April. Enter the promotional code “PLATFORM” in to the shopping basket when you purchase it from this website . And follow @FuelOnTheFire on twitter to get info about upcoming events, reviews and other media in the run up to the book being published.

Don’t foget you can ‘like’ our facebook page here, and follow us on twitter @platformlondon