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Decades of neglect, years of waiting: it’s time to clean up Ogoniland’s oil pollution
Two years ago, the Nigerian Government officially launched a clean-up programme of Shell’s oil pollution in Ogoniland. But today communities are still waiting for emergency measures on drinking water and health protection and the clean-up to begin. Here’s what Godwin Uyi Ojo, Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria had to say about it:…
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BP Chairman: “fracking is a great opportunity” but don’t ask us about the risks
Today I attended BP’s annual shareholder meeting alongside Fernando Cabrera from OPSur (Argentina). Fernando came to challenge BP’s board on the dangers from their fracking operations. BP’s Argentinian arm Pan American Energy is using fracking frighteningly close to Patagonia’s freshwater supplies and fruit orchards (see our report “BP’s Fracking Secrets” for more on this). Here’s…
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Update: The Bus, its seizure and our story
Here is the latest on the campaign to pressurise Nigeria Customs release the Living Memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 9 known as the Bus. Customs seized the Bus in 2015 and has refused to release it despite the huge efforts and directives described below. The guest blog is written by Celestine AkpoBari, National Coordinator for Ogoni Solidarity…
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Aliyev re-elected as President for another 7 years – the chain of oil autocracy that binds Azerbaijan
On 18th April Ilham Aliyev will be inaugurated for the fourth time as President of Azerbaijan. His re-election comes as no surprise. It is so predictable that it barely counted as ‘news’ and consequently got next to no coverage in the international media. Originally the election was scheduled for 17th October, but at nine weeks…
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La Zad puts down roots – sensing the future
We’re in the middle of the crowd. Standing some way back from the stage, watching transfixed and elated at the performance of Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp. Two trombones, two drummers, two marimbas, two electric guitars, two cellos and five other musicians blast out such a blissful riot of sound that our souls sail above…
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Communal Memory – the power of community to resist Shell in Nigeria
I’m holding in my hands a report published by Amnesty International in November last year – ‘A Criminal Enterprise? Shell’s involvement in human rights violations in Nigeria in the 1990s’. It analyses in forensic detail exactly how much Shell staff knew about, and were involved in supporting, the actions by the Nigerian military taken against…
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Victory at La ZAD ! – inspirational resistance through community
The people of Notres Dame des Landes have won! The people of La ZAD have won! The airport that the French state have tried to build for 50 years has been defeated! On 17th January President Macron decreed that the Nantes International airport, similar in size to Heathrow, would not go ahead after half a…
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Today, remembering the Ogoni Bill of Rights
10th November 2017 marks the 22nd anniversary since the executions of nine Ogoni men from the Niger Delta who had been protesting against the exploitation of oil in their homelands. These Nigerian activists – outspoken author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John…
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Conversations with Suzi Gablik – Living in wartime.
I’ve recently returned from a visit to my friend and mentor, Suzi Gablik, in Virginia, USA. She has been an inspiration to so many over the past 33 years since the publication of ‘Has Modernism Failed’, and later her book ‘Conversations Before The End of Time‘. Her work harnessed an ecological sensibility in the…
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Egyptian political prisoners remembered in unsanctioned performance at British Museum’s ‘Sunken Cities’
24 November 2016 Unsanctioned vigil held for jailed human rights campaigners at ‘Curator’s Introduction to the BP Sponsored Exhibition Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds’ Exhibition displays objects from ancient sunken cities in the Nile Delta, where BP is now drilling for fossil fuels. Community opposition successfully halted BP’s gas plant plans – the North…
