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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
[gview file=”https://platformlondon.org/app/uploads/2012/02/PSAs_privatisation-1.pdf”] Paper presented to the General Union of Oil Employees’ conference on privatisation Basrah, Iraq, 26 May 2005
In May 2004, 39 civil society groups, from 15 countries, warned commercial banks of extensive violations of the Equator Principles by the Shell-led Sakhalin II project. This update from 2005 finds that events over the past ten months show a deteriorating situation, constituting further violations.
Chapter for New Practices/New Pedagogies, emerging contexts, practices and pedagogies in art in Europe and North America, Ed. Malcolm Miles, Swets and Zeitlinger (ND) “It’s serious – it’s art, it’s politics, it’s economics, it’s everything, and art in that instance becomes so meaningful.” Ken Saro Wiwa 1 Since 1983, artist-led London-based group PLATFORM has been working…
“the writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.” Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995) The Next Gulf – London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria. Written By: Andy Rowell, James…