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...
Azerbaijan journalist imprisoned for seven and a half years
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Sep 4, 2015
Azerbaijan investigative journalist and Platform ally, Khadija Ismayil, has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. The BP funded ALiyev regime have given Khadija this sentence in retribution for the stories she wrote. Khadija has been an outspoken critic of BP and the UK government for supporting the Azerbaijan regime. Khadijah’s sentencing follows the murder...
Protest against BP and dictatorship on 12 June
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May 29, 2015
The frontlines of fossil fuel extraction take many forms. In the Niger Delta Shell’s oil spills have destroyed people’s homeland, in Canada Tar Sands extraction threatens indigenous communities and in Azerbaijan people are imprisoned, beaten and sometimes killed for speaking out against the BP funded oil regime. On the 12 June the European Games begin...
‘Walking among the ruins of the future’ – thinking of a city beyond neoliberalism
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Mar 25, 2015
I’m waiting for Mika at the entrance to the Canary Wharf underground. We are about to go for a walk around the Isle of Dogs in the Borough of Tower Hamlets. Unfortunately we are waiting at different station exits. The upside is that I spend twenty-five minutes absorbing the scene, observing a place I’d...
Offshore: Iran, BP, Algeria & Boris Island
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Oct 9, 2014
“No you can’t get through down there. They’ve got a full set of anti-terrorist police. Machine guns and all. They’ll jump out at you if you go beyond that fence. Mind you, it helps keep the crime down in the village”. The tall man with white hair straggling out from under his black hat and...
BP and #IndyRef – the need to constrain corporate influence in our democracy
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Sep 26, 2014
Around about 3.00 am on the morning of Friday 19th September, whilst anxiously watching the results come in on the Scottish Independence Referendum, we heard one of the commentators on STV ‘Scotland Decides’ explain his view that after months of the politicians being unable to help the voters make their decision, ‘business leaders’ had stepped...
After nearly three years of legal struggle, is Tate going to shed light on BP sponsorship details?
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Sep 15, 2014
On Thursday Tate is going to be appearing before the Information Tribunal over their lack of disclosure about conversations around BP sponsorship and about the amount of money that they’re getting from BP.It’s in Tate’s interest for people to think that it couldn’t possibly survive without BP’s dirty money, but we don’t think that’s true....
