london

Tullow's controversial drilling in Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda continues to threaten wildlife and local communities' income, leading to increased opposition.
 Read more

Shell sponsor high-profile exhibition on climate change at Science Museum. Good thing?

Except that the exhibition backs down from the need for urgent action to deal with climate change. Chris Rapley, the museum's director, went as far as stating that “The Science Museum will not state a position on whether or not climate change is real, driven by humans or threatening.” A Reuters article covering the story was titled "London Science Museum goes climate science neutral".

 Read more

Dorothea Smartt (African Writers Abroad) joined the C Words closing Party and Benefit for the Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaigners live via Skype. She performed her specially commisioned poem, A Sense of Denial, together with several other poems written specifically to the C Words season and inspired by the issues raised.

A Sense of Denial

Denial looks black, panelled, silver-edged
and gleaming. Car-washed in water
enough to quench a dying village’s thirst,  Read more

On 1st December PLATFORM's Agitpod mobile cinema will set off on it's return journey from Bristol to London, why not join us?  Read more

This news also came in on Tuesday via the climate camp twitter:
“climatecamp: 12 climate campers have just blockaded RBS. Go campers go! Big group about to leave for Bank of England too”
“climate camp: Up to 20 campers inside rbs. On second floor too. Dressed as construction workers. More info as it arrives!”
 Read more

Most of my news from this year’s Camp for Climate Action arrived by twitter:
“climatecamp: Balcony of Shell building occupied, big ‘Shell’ sign now reads ‘hell’…”
“climatecamp: Tarsands activists are now giving speeches at bp headqrtrs having stopped by at national portrait gallery in Trafalgar square”
“climatecamp: Bp is one of the biggest players in the extracion of oil from Alberta tarsands. It is utter madness to destroy this vast part of Canada”
 Read more

BP brand hypocrisy continues, with Marketing Magazine reporting on the company's plans for the London Olympics in 2012.  Read more

Travelling by train across Europe & Turkey was a beautiful and exciting way to get to Syria. Without the teleport effect of airplanes, mountain ranges are more than bumps on a flat surface and the Danube remains a mighty river rather than just yet another waterway.

How did I get to Syria:  Read more

I’m waiting at Kings Cross - St Pancras with my rucksack for the 12:57 Eurostar to Damascus. The train isn’t quite direct yet — need to change at Brussels, Munich, Belgrade, Istanbul and Adana.  Read more