Tectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond - The Economic War, part 4

Tectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond – The Economic War, part 4

Shell declares it may go back into Cambo and the oilfield’s exploration license is extended by two years. The British government pushes for renewed drilling in the UK North Sea. There is public outcry at the Chancellor’s failure to defend households from the attack on living standards driven by price inflation. The Russian government announces...
The Open Wound – keeping eyes on the constant injustice of oil production in Nigeria

The Open Wound – keeping eyes on the constant injustice of oil production in Nigeria

26th Anniversary of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 Ogoni comrades     Authored by James Marriott of Platform drawing from the collective experience of so many others in Platform and the multiple organisations we’ve collaborated with.   On the morning of 10th November 1995 in a Port Harcourt goal, Nigeria were murdered: Ken...
How to Capture the Future and Store Capital - the plans for CCS in Liverpool Bay

How to Capture the Future and Store Capital – the plans for CCS in Liverpool Bay

You can see the future from Formby Beach. You don’t even need to climb up on one of steep sand dunes to catch a glimpse of it. It is out there yellow and white lights blinking in the grey dusk away to the North West. It has supplanted the red dots of the turbines on...
Of Turmeric and Truth – 'Fuel for Thought' and the struggle in Ogoni

Of Turmeric and Truth – ‘Fuel for Thought’ and the struggle in Ogoni

This blog is co-authored by Andy Rowell (Oil Change International) and James Marriott (Platform) Lazarus Tamana, Europe Coordinator of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), holds up a small round plastic container, an inch deep, two inches across. It is filled with a rich yellow-ochre coloured powder.   “This was grown...
Communal Memory - the power of community to resist Shell in Nigeria

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...
Breaking: The Struggle to Free the Bus: The Twists, the Turns and the Conspiracies 

Breaking: The Struggle to Free the Bus: The Twists, the Turns and the Conspiracies 

BREAKING Guest Blog by Ken Henshaw, Social Action, Nigeria The extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of the Bus memorial seizure and the struggle to release it, on the day of the 3rd Hearing to release the memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 8. Show your support – follow and tweet @GreatOgoni, @Kenn_Henshaw, @S_DouglasCamp. Support the Movement...
'The Bus' memorial for Ken Saro-Wiwa is on the move...

‘The Bus’ memorial for Ken Saro-Wiwa is on the move…

Today, the Bus moved from Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham where it has been for three years, round the corner to Hale Village where it will be throughout 2014. The Living Memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa, aka The Bus, is a spectacular steel sculpture by artist Sokari Douglas Camp. Platform commissioned it in 2005, the...
Rewriting the future: Achebe, literature, and activism

Rewriting the future: Achebe, literature, and activism

  Nigerian write Chinua Achebe died last Thursday at the age of 83. He is a key figure in world literature and a writer who along with others utterly changed the way cultures pre- and post-imperialism – and pre-missionary – imagined representing themselves. In so doing, he bolstered the challenge to western and white supremacist...
Shell on trial - landmark ruling on oil spills due this Wednesday

Shell on trial – landmark ruling on oil spills due this Wednesday

This Wednesday a Dutch court will rule on whether Shell should clean up oil damage that destroyed a group of Nigerian farmers’ land in a landmark case that could lead the way for a spate of similar actions in the future. The farmers, whose land has been destroyed by oil from Shell pipelines, have travelled...

Activists intervene in Shell lawsuit

Amnesty International and CORE have challenged the UK government’s attempt to block a court case that seeks to hold Shell accountable for its role in human rights violations in Nigeria. Platform supports the coalition of groups challenging the UK government and calling on it to reverse its position. The FT reports:

Live With It! a new iPhone app from Shell-apps.com

With Arctic drilling imminent, significant expansion into the tar sands and over 50 years of damage in Nigeria, the case for targeting the oil giant Shell has rarely been greater. A new campaign launched this month by Friends of the Earth Netherlands is challenging Shell to clean up its oil spills in Nigeria’s oil rich...
Shell admits funding Niger Delta "warlords"

Shell admits funding Niger Delta “warlords”

I wrote a guest blog for Greenpeace UK today about Shell’s recent statement regarding its financial relationships with militant groups. I’d really like to hear your thoughts on the issue. A recent video published online shows a Shell executive admitting that the oil giant could easily be funding what he describes as “warlords” and militants...