A while back James Marriott made a journey to two communities – each of which tries to approach an ideal. This is his reflection on the experience. The first, La R.o.n.c.e in the Morbihan region of Brittany, is being established on an abandoned farm by six activists and artist-activists, two of whom, John Jordan and…
Mika Minio-Paluello, Anna Galkina and James Marriott are travelling in North America as part of a book-tour to promote The Oil Road – Journeys from the Caspian to the City of London. You can find more info about their confirmed speaking dates in Virginia, the Bay Area, Toronto, Baltimore and Washington DC, New Orleans and…
Whether it’s BP’s sponsorship of the Tate galleries, Shell’s funding for the Southbank Centre or Tullow Oil’s controversial deals with Sunderland football club oil company sponsorship of the arts is a familiar phenomenon. But what about oil dictators? Do they also need a social license to operate? What kinds of institutions would they throw money…
Here’s a selection of interviews with Platform on Shell’s security spending in Nigeria. Packing these – and these – into a single day was a logistical challenge to say the least. But doing so meant reaching an audience of millions across several continents. Hitting the radio waves was particularly important for us, since the source…
Platform and the Guardian Data Blog have mapped Shell’s global security spending for 2008. The graphic is based on leaked internal financial data. You can find Platform’s full briefing on this issue here.
This report by CRBM, Corner House and FoE Nigeria and others condemns oil majors Eni, Total and Shell for their record of environmental and social devastation in Nigeria. It also dissects EU ‘energy security’, arguing that a policy that locks the EU into dependence on fossil fuels leads to increased conflict and climate chaos. The report recommends…
Matthew Taylor and Paul Ingram, British American Security Information Council (BASIC) – This feature report was first published in Platform’s carbon web newsletter, issue 4. As the crisis between the international community and Iran escalates, the media continue to focus exclusively on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The nuclear issue is one part of the story. The international…