Où est la Croix-Rouge?

Pour des raisons familiales, je passe pas mal de temps ces jours-ci à Paris dans le Quartier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés où j'ai eu le privilège de passer mon enfance.

Je me suis ainsi rendu compte que le Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, à la jonction de la Rue de Sèvres avec les rues du Cherche-Midi, de Grenelle, du Dragon et du Vieux Colombier a été récemment rebaptisé Place Michel Debré.

Cinquante ans après l'adoption de la Constitution de la Vème République et douze ans après la signature par la France du Traité d'interdiction des essais nucléaires qu'il avait tellement défendus [notez bien le s à la fin du verbe, évidemment], je ne vais pas m'offusquer qu'une place recoive le nom de Michel Debré qui vivait non loin de là.

On peut toutefois se demander s'il était-il bien nécessaire d'éliminer le Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, alors que tous les jours on constate -- de la Chine à la Birmanie, des Îles Canaries au Darfour, et de Guantanamo à Abu-Graib -- que la capacité et la reconnaissance de la Croix-Rouge ont besoin d'être renforcées.

Pour honorer la mémoire de Michel Debré, on aurait bien pu choisir parmi plusieurs lieux anonymes des alentours [sans aller plus loin, l'angle Sèvres-Sts Pères à cinquante mètres du Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, par exemple].

Samedi dernier, j'ai raconté cette histoire à deux jeunes volontaires de la Croix-Rouge [photo] qui participaient, justement sur l'ex-carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, à la quête nationale de la Croix-Rouge française, et qui ne s'étaient pas rendus compte de l'ironie de leur présence sous la plaque "Place Michel Debré - Ancien Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge".

A l'origine le Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge devait son nom à un évènement de la Commune de Paris, je crois, et non à l'organisation humanitaire. Mais pour tout le monde c'était bien celle-ci qu'il évoquait avant tout. D'ailleurs, en mettant un trait d'union entre les mots "croix" et "rouge" sur la plaque où figure la mention "ancien Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge", la Mairie de Paris n'a laissé aucun doute là-dessus.

African whales

Interesting time in Dakar, where I spent five days last week helping the Lenfest Ocean Program and WWF WAMER organize a regional scientific workshop to assess with African scientists and policy-makers what was true behind the allegation spread all over West Africa by Japanese officials that hungry whales are responsible for the collapse of local and foreign fisheries in the region.

The preliminary findings can be summarized in a nutshell:

* To protect fish resources one must look at overfishing, including illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing operations;

* What is more, most baleen whales in the region come there to reproduce, and it is well known that whales do not feed during the breeding season;

* Bryde's whales are resident whales in the region, but they do not feed on commercially viable species, at least for the most part.

The Lenfest preliminary findings will be discussed next month in Santiago, Chile at the meeting of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) before they're finalized and published in a scientific journal.

Eternity

I took this photo outside a funeral agency strategically located near a hospital in Paris.

It shows a biodegradable cone designed to receive the ashes of a loved one.

The cone contains one or more oak seeds which are expected to grow with the help of the ashes.

Very cool.

PS: I see that the title of this blogpiece, Eternity, may trigger a Church of Scientology Google Ad on the right-hand column. Needless to say, I disapprove completely these Scientology ought-to-be-banned weirdos and all other destructive sects!

Hopeless

I took this photo today in Tokyo. Hope, what a strange name for a cigarette brand!

Hope what? That you won't become addicted? That it will taste so good that you'll be addicted?

[Or is it the manufacturer who's hoping your children will become addicted?]

Hope you won't get lung cancer? Or a heart attack?

Or maybe the CEO of the tobacco company is an old fan of The Who: "Hope I die before I get old"?

Last year already I wrote about Peace, another strange Japanese cigarette brand...

I'll keep looking.

Pez gordo

La opinión generalizada sobre la decisión del Presidente del Gobierno español José Luis Zapatero de absorber la administración de medio ambiente en un superministerio de Medio Ambiente, Medio Rural y Medio Marino dirigido por la anterior Ministra de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación Elena Espinosa, es que el pez gordo (Agricultura y Pesca) se ha tragado al pez chico (Medio Ambiente).

Aunque los hay -- como la Fundación Oceana por ejemplo -- que esperen que de este modo el pez chico le pase sus genes al gordo.[También los hay que temen lo mismo, como la Confederación Española de Pesca]

En los últimos años, algunas voces han sugerido que la gestión de los recursos marinos vivos (de la pesca) deberia tratarse como un tema de biodiversidad bajo la responsabilidad de Medio Ambiente. En efecto, ¿porqué a la caza y la conservación del suelo, sí; y a la caza de peces y al arrastre de los fondos marinos, no? No olvidemos que en cuanto a pesca se refiere, la huella ecológica europea [es decir, española principalmente] es de una magnitud comparable a la huella climática de Estados Unidos.

Ojalá ideas como ésta estén detrás de la decisión del Presidente Zapatero de cambiar "pesca" por "medio marino" y "agricultura" por "medio rural". [A veces hay que soñar para vivir]

Si así fuera, tal vez es posible que la promoción de la anterior Ministra de Agricultura y Pesca Elena Espinosa sea sólo un paso temporal obligado, para permitir que las industrias agrícolas y pesqueras traguen una revolución verde que se avecina. [A menos que ella pille el gen verde en el camino - ¿quién sabe?]

Pronto veremos si ha sido todo un sueño. O si sigue la pesadilla.

Nukeprom

A Russian friend with whom I had a lot of fun during the Perestroika when we uncovered together the illegal dumping of radioactive wastes by the former USSR in the Kara Sea and the Sea of Japan, Dima Litvinov, has sent me an interesting story he picked up on the Bellona website from Norway, which adds evidence that Arctic minerals exploitation is the hidden agenda behind the mysterious floating nuclear reactors under construction in Russia.

ODA

Reuters reports today that there is concern at the highest level in Japan about the fact that the country's Overseas Development Assistance ranking has gone down from # Three to # Five. It is at odds with the image Prime Minister Fukuda is hoping to give of his country while he chairs the G8 this year.

I've got an idea for Mr. Fukuda.

I would like to respectfully submit that Mr. Fukuda could tell his Foreign Ministry and the Japanese Fisheries Agency to stop wasting the millions of dollars they're using to subsidize dozens of small countries for them to join their plight in favour of the resumption of commercial whaling at the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Instead of telling these poor countries (including landlocked countries such as Mali or Mongolia!) that their food security is in danger because hungry whales are going to swallow their fish stocks unless they're culled, the Japanese Government could use this money for something truly meaningful to these small countries.

With Pew we've helped create a better political climate to find a lasting solution to the international controversy over commercial whaling, and discussions are now on-going. It would help though, if Japan agreed to observe a moratorium on whale policy-related subsidies to poor countries, while these discussions are taking place. It would be healthy if supporting whaling stopped being in all circumstances a conditionality for Japanese ODA.