Bust-up between Aliyev and BP reveals corporate profiteering as Azeri oil peaks
Blog post -
Oct 15, 2012
Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, gave a speech last week accusing oil company BP of “false promises” and “gross mistakes”. In a country where regime and corporation are closely intertwined – and almost symbiotic – what is going on behind the political theatre? Why the public outburst? Aliyev revealed that Azerbaijan had lost $8 billion in...
Bowing to a dead dictator: pipelines, personality cults and the US Ambassador
Blog post -
Oct 5, 2012
Azeri democracy activists were enraged when in September, the new US Ambassador to Baku bowed down in front of the memorial to the late dictator Heydar Aliyev, father of the current dictator Ilham Aliyev. The State Department initially tried to claim that Richard Morningstar had only laid a wreath of flowers at the memorial to...
As BP’s “Contract of the Century” comes of age, new book reveals untold story of corruption & power
Blog post -
Sep 20, 2012
Today, BP’s Baku mega-oil project – one of its largest in the world – comes of age, 18 years since the Contract of the Century was signed in September 1994. To mark the anniversary, Verso Books and Platform are releasing a new book detailing its hidden story of geo-political manipulation, imprisonment of critics and environmental...
