A river's last days

Le Monde 2 - the paper's weekend magazine - has got beautiful, sad and elegiac photos of the Rizzanese river in southern Corsica. Protesters have been trying to stop the damn being built that will all but kill the river. But they've lost. Pascal Tramoni, one of the friends who has been trying to save the river, is quoted in the article as saying that "it is the smallest dam in the world but it will produce maximum devastation." Ancient forests fed by the river will no longer have enough water.
What is being promised in return is possible autonomous production of electricity for the mediterranean island. It's a sad story, one that shouldn't be forgotten as the struggle to protect access to water goes on in so many place across the world. At least when there's nothing left for anyone to drink the lights will still be on. Strangely I don't find that much of a comfort.
It's easy for preachers like me to speak easily of holding on to hope. What does that mean when irreperable damage has been done to the environment? When 10 years of campaigning still lead to the needs of money rather than the environment winning out in the end.

Read the ecumenical water network blog

Tomorrow the Ecumenical Water Network summer school starts and the particpants have already begun blogging.

Preserving the world’s water resources and securing access to water for all is one of the greatest challenges of the 21^st century. In 2008, the EWN will therefore bring together about 20 young people from all over the world in the first EWN Summer School on Water.
The participants will have the opportunity to study - in a regionally and confessionally diverse group - the local, regional, and international manifestations and causes of the water crisis. They will examine the situation and challenges from a perspective of faith and ethics, and search together for possible ecumenical responses.

You can read the full programme of the summer school here - speakers include, Ted Karpf from the World Health Organization, Thomas Bauer from the Brazilian Pastoral Land and Anton Earle of the Stockholm International Water Institute.

Football, women and Justice

As Euro 2008 moves to the semi finals remember its not all about football ... sadly.

Here is the very powerful video from the campaign to stop the trafficking of women and children.

With thanks to SpinDoktor for the html code for the above.

Gay pride in Rome

So this weekend is gay pride in Rome and at the end of the day I walked from a session of my course on organisational mission and inspiration into the rather wonderful melée of the rainbow parade on the Piazza Venezia.
The banner I saw most frequently had a picture of St Peter's on it with a large cross through it and said No VAT! It took me a while to get over my cognitive dissonance and realise that VAT was not value added tax but the Vatican. As we had been saying at my management course all day context is everything!
Anyway it woulds eem that No VAT is a grouping working for a secular Italian state along the lines of France. Their flags were out in force because same sex couples in Italy do not yet have the same rights as same sex couples in France, Switzerland or the UK, and the Catholic Church is seen as blocking any moves in this direction.
Tomorrow morning my host here in Rome will be helping lead an ecumenical service for the gay pride weekend at one of the local base communities.
Each time I come to Rome there seems to be a demonstration. Today's was a lots more joyous fun than the last two I got caught up in which were political rallies by the fascists.