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Shell vs. Donovan: How a 30-Year Corporate Feud Just Pulled AI Into Its Gravity Well

Nov 20th, 2025
by John Donovan.
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How Did Shell End Up in This PR Nightmare — And Why AI Changes Everything

A 2025 WindowsForum thread —

“Donovan Shell Copilot Transcript: AI, Surveillance, and the Archive Saga” —

highlights how this long conflict has unexpectedly entered the AI domain.

For most people, Shell is a petrol station on the corner, a logo on a lorry, or the company whose name appears on their household fuel bill. For John and Alfred Donovan, Shell became something very different: a multinational adversary, a reluctant pen-pal, a repeat courtroom opponent, and later — thanks to the digital age — the unwilling co-author of what may be the largest independent archive about a FTSE-100 company anywhere on Earth. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell and Apartheid: A Documentary History

Oct 24th, 2025
by John Donovan.
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Shell and Apartheid: A Documentary History of Support, Complicity, and Counter-Campaigns (1950s–1994)

By John Donovan: Published: 24 October 2025

Preface

This is not a story that begins with a single memo or ends with a press release. It is an institutional record spanning decades, continents, and boardrooms. It features a company that says it “opposed apartheid,” yet repeatedly chose the path that kept South Africa’s apartheid economy running: investing, supplying, lobbying, and—when public pressure spiked—deploying an elaborate influence operation to neutralise critics. That company is Shell. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell’s Dark Fuel: The Nazi Past the Oil Giant Couldn’t Bury

Oct 14th, 2025
by John Donovan.
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By John Donovan

Part 1: The Oil That Powered the Reich

Shell likes to describe itself as “an energy company of the future.” But history, inconveniently, refuses to stay buried. Long before Shell courted wind farms and “net-zero” slogans, it courted Adolf Hitler.

In the 1930s, as Europe spiralled toward war, Royal Dutch Shell — the genteel Anglo-Dutch oil giant whose modern logo is now synonymous with sustainability brochures — was actively supplying the economic bloodstream of Nazi Germany. Its founder and spiritual patriarch, Sir Henri Deterding, wasn’t merely an admirer of Hitler’s regime; he was a willing participant in its rise. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Hakluyt’s Tentacles: how Shell’s favourite ‘strategic’ friends reach No.10, the Oval Office, and the altar

Sep 15th, 2025
by admin.
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“I am deeply concerned to discover that the tentacles of an evil and shadowy private spy firm, Hakluyt & Company Limited, reach right into the very heart of the British establishment, the Church of England… Hakluyt’s stock in trade is deception, trickery, betrayal, fabrication, fraud and infiltration by its undercover agents.” 

From Mayfair backrooms to No.10, the Oval Office and even the pews.

If you’ve ever wondered who whispers sweet nothings about “risk” and “stakeholders” into the ears of governments while oil money hums in the background, meet Hakluyt—the discreet fixer founded by ex-MI6 officers, beloved by Shell and , and forever allergic to sunlight. The firm’s recent cameo in the Thames Water crisis wasn’t subtle: “A corporate intelligence company part-owned and formerly run by the prime minister’s business adviser has been paid more than £1m by Thames Water,” the Guardian reported, adding that Hakluyt “claims to have advised almost half of the FTSE 100 and more than three-quarters of the top 20 private equity groups.” And its spokespeople? “We are not a lobbying organisation and do not lobby governments on behalf of clients.”  read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.