Shell Out Sounds is comprised of a group of artists who want sponsorship of the arts from the oil industry in Britain to end. It may or may not come as a surprise to you that BP and Shell are among the biggest arts sponsors in the UK.

What happens when the mood of a whole nation can be characterised by hopelessness and despair? In Greece, where people have been on the receiving end of severe austerity measures and lived through six years of recession, it's a question that politics, as we know it, seems incapable of addressing.

These protests have not been like the events of two years ago. What has been occurring in Tunisia can be split into two separate groups: honest protesters calling for the removal of a government that they believe encouraged the murder of Chokri Belaid, and rioters attempting to benefit from the state of crisis.

Like hundreds of teenagers who didn't make the real thing, students at my school hastily arranged their own small protest, marching through our small rural town chanting and playing anti-war music. We must have looked pathetic, but we didn't care. We were adding a cry to a national roar that made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up.

The authorities in Burma should drop charges against activists who participated in peaceful protests against government policies.

Yes, we've got some oddities. Yes, we're a pretty broad church. But please do not demonise the kids as the exuberence of youth should never be crushed.

2012 has certainly been an eventful year. For many in Britain, sporting glory will be the enduring memory of all that has passed. For others, it will be the spectacle of the Royal family, through times of both celebration and of controversy. For me, however, it is the continued apathy of the British population towards politics that has defined 2012.

Political statements such as 'Muslim women let's get naked' are problematic to say the least, as they represent quite a black and white, essentialist view of what feminism is and how to achieve the goals it aspires to realise.

Letting go and giving stakeholders a louder say in how things are run is now - paradoxically - a core component of staying in control for many large organisations, whether capitalist or communist, or a fashionably modern mixture of both.

With elections next year, Bangladesh is entering an unsettling period in its short history, as it drifts towards becoming a one-party state. If an opposition remains, which I remain hopeful it will, Bangladeshis must be given a fair and balanced view on the political choice that awaits them. While our politicians remain shamefully silent, we must defend those who are brave enough to speak out in Bangladesh. And whilst I go round taking the piss out of the not-so-great and the not-so-good in the coming months, I shall be thinking more than once how lucky I am to be able to do so.

In December 2011 Russia began to witness its greatest wave of protests since the fall of the Soviet Union. Protesters took to the streets in response to widespread allegations of fraud in the parliamentary elections. The anti-government protests have not stopped.

A recent report published by the charity Oxfam revealed that hill farmers work on average 80 hours a week, over double that of the average full time worker and that many farming families find themselves living below the poverty line here in the UK. The report claims that upland farmers earn between £12,600 and £8,000 a year.

The form of the protest was always unsustainable, and a movement that seeks to represent 99% of people will always have its work cut out if it has already alienated 80%. The reality is that even when compared to other left wing movements the numbers were miniscule.