Crises, North Sea Oil and Covid-19
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Jun 17, 2020
Last month I spoke on behalf of Platform at an online event on the theme of ‘People Over Profit and Covid-19’ organised by our collaborators Kate and Ryan at Friends of the Earth Scotland. It was a really engaging event with two other speakers followed by breakout groups and a wider discussion afterwards. I looked...
Of Turmeric and Truth – ‘Fuel for Thought’ and the struggle in Ogoni
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Jun 12, 2019
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...
Of Plastics and Brexit – the struggle against the new lords of oil & gas
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Apr 4, 2019
On 16th January 2019 news was leaked through the German paper Handelsblatt of The Alliance to End Plastic Waste. A new industrial coalition that will invest $1billion over the next five years in a campaign to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the world. Here was a powerful body of major corporations determining to...
Iraq, BP and the British Museum – look upon these works and hang our heads in shame
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Mar 14, 2019
I had read in advance the briefing that Culture Unstained had put out to accompany the planned action. The protest at the British Museum was to be against BP’s sponsorship of the exhibition ‘I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria’, a display of treasures from the land of Iraq. I read lines...
Silence in the Storm – Business and No Deal Brexit
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Feb 28, 2019
The storm in Westminster rages so ferociously that at times it’s hard to hear ourselves think. There is second by second coverage of the House of Commons and Downing Street from every conceivable angle. Backbenchers so obscure that we’ve never heard of them before are dragged through the TV studios and closely cross-questioned. Others...
Victory at Leith Hill! Divest Fracking! Resisting sites of speculation
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Oct 12, 2018
This piece was written before the news of the draconian jail sentences passed on those opposing fracking in Preston, Lancashire … but that bitter ruling does not destroy the reality that shortly before that decision we celebrated a Victory! The News of an Amazing Victory! We wrote of it as follows … The permission to...
The Invisible Machine – a gas pipeline in the Caucasus and a handshake in No10
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May 1, 2018
On the evening of Thursday 26th April 2018, it was warm and sunny in London. President Ilham Aliyev strode down Downing Street and was met by Prime Minister Theresa May with smile and a handshake. They posed for the cameras on the red carpet outside No 10 and then retired inside. A short formal chat...
Aliyev re-elected as President for another 7 years – the chain of oil autocracy that binds Azerbaijan
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Apr 18, 2018
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...
Bribes, bulldozers and BP: what makes a gas mega pipeline?
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Sep 7, 2017
Earlier this week, the Guardian’s Azerbaijani Laundromat investigation uncovered thousands of covert payments totaling £2.2bn from Azerbaijan’s ruling elite to prominent Europeans through a network of opaque British companies. Today, Platform and other organisations had a letter published in the Guardian, filling in the blanks in the story. Azerbaijan is particularly keen to present a...
Subsidising spills – British public pays BP $300 million to drill and spill
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Oct 7, 2016
BP came under criticism this week when it caused a 95 tonne oil leak from its Clair Field into the North Sea. The company decided not to clear up the spill, and wait for the oil to wash further out to sea. The new spill comes as BP no longer pays net taxes to the...
Walking the Line. New Interactive Documentary
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Mar 8, 2016
In Italy, Azerbaijan and the UK people are fighting against the devastating impacts of import pipelines and wresting back control over their energy system. In this beautiful documentary we made with Global Motion, Re:common and Counter Balance we meet the people who live alongside the Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline and are organising against this gargantuan piece...
Darkness Falling – 100 days in Azerbaijan
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Oct 20, 2015
Today the appeal trial of Leyla and Arif Yunus continues in Azerbaijan. As it does James Marriott reflects on 100 days in Azerbaijan. For over 100 days I have been away from the hum of collective life in Platform, away from the buzz of e-mails and twitter, away from the news feed darting this way...
