The Camelot crater in the Moon’s Taurus-Littrow Valley is where the sample containing trivalent titanium was found.NASA/Apollo 17: AS17-145-22159
The Earth and the Moon may look very different today, but they formed under similar conditions in space. In fact, a dominant hypothesis says that the early Earth was hit by a Mars-sized object, and it was this giant impact that spun off material to form the Moon. But unlike Earth, the Moon lacks plate tectonics and an atmosphere capable of reshaping its surface and recycling elements such as oxygen over billions of years.
As a result, the Moon preserves a record of the geological conditions that helped shape it and can give scientists insight into the world we live in today. Rocks that were formed during early volcanic activity on the Moon offer a window into events that occurred nearly 4 billion years ago. By uncovering the conditions under which the Moon’s rocks formed, scientists move closer to understanding the origins of our own planet.
In a study published March 2026 in the journal Nature Communications, our team of physicists and geoscientists investigated ilmenite, a mineral composed of iron, titanium and oxygen, in a Moon rock crystallized from an ancient lunar magma. We used cutting-edge electron microscopy to probe the chemical signature of titanium in this ilmenite, finding that about 15% of the titanium carries less of an electrical charge than expected.
This illustration shows the rock on the Moon, as well as an atomic image of the sample’s crystal structure and a representation of the chemical signature of trivalent titanium. August Davis
Implications of trivalent titanium
In ilmenite, an atom of titanium typically loses four electrons when bonding with oxygen, resulting in a positive charge of 4+, known as the atom’s oxidation number. From the sample we studied, a rock collected during the Apollo 17 mission, we found that some of the titanium in ilmenite actually has a charge of only 3+, referred to as trivalent titanium. Our measurement of trivalent titanium confirms what geologists had long suspected: that some titanium in lunar ilmenite exists in a lower charge state.
Trivalent titanium occurs only when the amount of oxygen available for chemical reactions is low. Thus, the abundance of trivalent titanium in ilmenite could tell us about the relative availability of oxygen in the Moon’s interior when the rock formed, around 3.8 billion years ago.
A link to the Moon’s early chemistry
Since it is the ilmenite, not the study, that contained trivalent titanium, I would recast the previous sentence as follows: “Our team has closely studied only one Moon rock so far, but from published studies we have identified more than 500 analyses of lunar ilmenite that could contain trivalent titanium. Studying these samples could reveal new details about how the Moon’s chemistry varies across different locations and time periods.
While our work highlights a link based on prior studies, the relationship between trivalent titanium in ilmenite and oxygen availability has not yet been quantified with targeted experimental data.
By conducting experiments that explore that link, ilmenite could reveal more details about the Moon’s interior. We also expect this relationship to apply to other planets and asteroids that don’t contain much chemically available oxygen, relative to Earth.
What’s next?
These methods can be used to study many Moon rocks collected during the Apollo missions over 50 years ago, as well as future samples from upcoming Artemis missions, or rocks collected from the far side of the Moon, returned in 2024 by China’s Chang’e-6 mission.
One of our team members plans to use their new experimental lab to explore how oxygen availability in magma affects the abundance of trivalent titanium in ilmenite. With experiments like this that build off our findings, we could potentially use ilmenite to reconstruct the history of ancient magmas from the Moon.
We believe future studies of lunar rocks using advanced scientific methods are essential for revealing the chemical conditions present on the ancient Moon. They could offer clues not only to its own history but also to the earliest chapters of Earth’s past – records that have since been erased from Earth.
Advik D. Vira receives funding from the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) under cooperative agreement number NNH22ZDA020C (CLEVER, Grant number: 80NSSC23M022).
Emily First receives funding from the Heising-Simons Foundation (grant # 2023-4485) and from a Macalester College faculty start-up fund.
Leaders of South Korea and the European Commission have used the current energy crisis to call for accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels and toward homegrown renewable sources. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly in a March 10, 2026, social media post: “There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on the wind.”
I grew up in a coal-mining town in Turkey. I now study energy transitions across the Middle East and North Africa in a research project I co-lead at Harvard University. I have seen that a country’s desire to increase renewable energy is not the same as a plan to do so.
The very region embroiled in this war reveals that there is not a linear shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Rather, there are distinct trajectories, driven by energy dependence, fiscal pressures, governance and stability. Disruption at the Strait of Hormuz does not mean the same thing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as it does in Ankara, Turkey, or Baghdad, Iraq.
The petrostates hedging both sides
For Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, this crisis is a warning dressed as a windfall.
Oil prices have surged, which in theory means higher revenues. But the very infrastructure that produces and delivers that wealth is under direct attack. Iran has targeted oil refineries and shipment centers across the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz closure is simultaneously choking off their ability to get product to market, exposing how vulnerable the infrastructure of fossil fuel wealth can be.
All three countries have also committed to boostingrenewable energyproduction. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the government aims for renewable energy sources to account for 50% of electricity generation by 2030, up from just 3% at the end of 2023.
Saudi Arabia’s biggest group of clean energy companies has pledged to spend $17 billion on solar and wind – across all their projects, spread out over several years.
But those efforts sit alongside vastly larger investments in fossil fuel production. In 2025 alone, the country’s nationally owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, spent $52.2 billion building new oil and gas infrastructure.
This is not a contradiction. It is a strategy built on the assumption that the world will keep buying fossil fuels for decades to come. The current crisis reinforces that assumption, but it also exposes its vulnerability: As war drives up oil prices, every oil-importing country is feeling the cost of continuing oil dependence. And every stranded export proves the energy transition can’t wait.
Energy-importing countries such as Jordan, Morocco and Turkey are investing in renewable energy for a different reason: Fossil fuel dependence is bankrupting them.
The current war has vindicated their investments in renewable energy – though the vindication has limits. The same crisis that proves the value of renewable energy investment also raises inflation, tightens credit and strains the very public finances these countries need to keep building.
Every kilowatt-hour generated by a Turkish wind turbine or a Moroccan solar panel is one that does not depend on a tanker passing through the Strait of Hormuz. But the financial pressure means building the next renewable generating project just got harder.
Crisis upon crisis
Then there are countries where this war lands on top of existing emergencies.
In Yemen, Libya and Syria, energy infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by years of conflict. These countries import fuel at global prices to run generators and keep hospitals lit. Every dollar added to the price of oil makes that harder. For them, this war is not pointing out reasons to shift to renewable sources: It is threatening energy access itself.
In November 2026, the U.N.’s annual climate summit comes to the region at the center of this crisis, with Turkey as host.
The war in the Middle East has made a powerful case for the economic, political and humanitarian benefits of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. But it has also exposed something the global conversation consistently misses: Different countries are heading in different directions, based on their own circumstances, many of which predate this war.
Understanding those paths matters because it reveals what countries’ promises cannot: where the real barriers are, where the incentives already exist, and where support would make a difference – before the next disruption hits. In my view, this war has helped win the argument about whether to shift to renewable energy, but it has also highlighted a harder question: What does it actually take to build those sources, country by country?
Ezgi Canpolat received funding from The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University for the research referenced in this article. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are entirely those of the author and should not be attributed to any institution with which the author is or has been affiliated.
Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mireya Mayor, Director of Exploration and Science Communication, Florida International University
Birute Galdikas carries an orangutan named Isabel in Borneo, Indonesia. The 2011 film ‘Born To Be Wild 3D’ followed her work.AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah
Primatologist Birutė Galdikas died on March 24, 2026, and an era of science that began in the forests of Tanzania, Rwanda and Borneo studying humanity’s closest living relatives more than half a century ago is coming quietly to a close. Her passing marks more than the loss of a scientist – it’s the end of one of the most extraordinary chapters in modern science.
For more than half a century, primatology had three central figures: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Galdikas — often called Leakey’s Angels, after their mentor — who transformed how we understand primates and, in many ways, how we understand ourselves.
They were sent into the field by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who believed that if we understood other primates, we might better understand human evolution and human nature. It was a radical idea at the time, not only scientifically but culturally. Leakey did not send large research teams or established professors. Instead, three young women went into forests, often alone, for years at a time.
What they discovered changed science and the public imagination.
Seeing chimpanzees and apes as individuals
Before the scientists’ work, primates were often described as creatures of instinct, their behavior explained largely through simple drives for food and reproduction. After their work, people began to talk about individuals with personalities, alliances, rivalries, friendships and grief.
Goodall, Fossey and Galdikas showed that chimpanzees make tools and wage political struggles, that gorillas live in complex family groups, and that orangutans raise their young with a patience and investment that rivals that of humans. The line between humans and other primates did not disappear, but it became harder to draw cleanly.
They also changed who could be a scientist.
Three women living for years in remote forests in the 1960s and ‘70s was not normal. By succeeding, they quietly expanded the boundaries of who could lead expeditions, run field sites, publish major research and become the public face of science. Many primatologists of my generation entered a field that these women forced open.
Birutė Galdikas talks about her career.
Each of these extraordinary women shaped my life in different ways. I never met Fossey, who died in Rwanda in 1985. But watching “Gorillas in the Mist,” a movie about her work, changed the course of my life and sent me toward primatology instead of law school. Years later, as a young primatologist studying lemurs, I met Goodall at a conference; she later wrote the foreword to my book and became a mentor and friend as I navigated my own path in conservation science. I met Galdikas, a scientist at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, professionally and immediately recognized a kindred spirit – another woman who had devoted her life to the study and protection of humans’ closest animal relatives.
With their deaths – Goodall died in 2025 – it falls to those of us who were inspired by them to continue and evolve their work at a time when it has never been more difficult or more important.
But the field today’s primatologists inherited is not the same one they began.
The next generation and primates’ struggle for survival
The first generation of field primatologists went into forests full of animals to discover how primates lived. They were explorers as much as scientists, and their work had the feel of discovery in the classic sense – new behaviors, new social structures, new understandings of intelligence and culture in animals.
Their research helped reshape anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology. They helped answer one of the oldest questions humans ask about themselves: What makes us different from other species?
Birutė Galdikas talks about the documentary ‘Born to be Wild 3D’ and her work rescuing and returning orangutans to the wild.
By the time my generation began working in the field, many of those questions had already been answered. We knew primates used tools, formed political alliances, reconciled after fights and mourned their dead. We knew they had personalities and social strategies.
The question was no longer whether primates were like us, but whether they would survive us.
This is the quiet shift that defines modern primatology. My generation now goes into forests that are smaller, more fragmented and quieter, and the work is increasingly focused on making sure those animals are still there at all.
I have spent much of my career studying lemurs in Madagascar, where this shift is impossible to ignore. Lemurs are among the most endangered group of mammals on Earth, with more than 90% of species threatened with extinction. In many parts of Madagascar, forests now exist only as isolated fragments surrounded by agriculture and human settlement. Some lemur populations survive in forest patches so small that a single fire or logging operation could eliminate them entirely.
Conservation begins with caring
These primates that captured the world’s attention are also the species most like us. They have long childhoods, complex societies, intelligence, and emotional lives that feel familiar to us. Their similarity is what made people care. And that caring, in many cases, is what has kept them from disappearing entirely.
The great achievement of Leakey’s Angels was not only what they discovered, but that they made the world care about primates.
Before the three scientists’ work, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans were largely abstract animals to most people – zoo exhibits, textbook illustrations, evolutionary symbols. After their work, these creatures became individuals with names, families, histories and personalities. Each of the women’s work was celebrated in films and books, including the Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary “Born to Be Wild 3D” that followed Galdikas’ orangutan rescues.
Conservation begins with caring, and caring begins with stories. They gave the world those stories.
But caring is no longer enough. We are now in an era where the most important breakthroughs in primatology may not be new discoveries about behavior, but new ways to protect habitats, connect fragmented forests, preserve genetic diversity and help humans and primates survive on the same increasingly crowded landscapes.
The work has shifted from observation to intervention, from discovery to responsibility.
Every generation of scientists inherits a different world. The generation of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birutė Galdikas inherited a world full of primates we did not yet understand. My generation has inherited a world where we understand primates very well, but are in danger of losing them anyway.
The forests are quieter now than when these three young women went into them more than half a century ago. The responsibility, however, has only grown louder.
The central question of primatology is no longer what makes us human. It is whether a species intelligent enough to understand extinction will choose to prevent it in our closest living relatives.
Mireya Mayor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
If you’ve ever expressed even a passing desire to visit Walt Disney World, you may have had friends who raised their eyebrows, groaned or even sneered.
The heart of their criticism isn’t just that they think Disney is for kids, or that it’s so expensive. It’s what I call the “authenticity objection” – the belief that there’s something fundamentally inferior about visits to theme parks like the Magic Kingdom because they occur in a wholly manufactured environment. The artificial mountains and rivers, the rides that provide nothing more than mindless distraction, the people dressed up as fictional characters …
It’s all so fake.
While people sometimes express this view in jest, others believe the fake environment borders on a cultural abomination. One online forum explicitly cites the manufactured nature of Disney World as a reason not to go, noting that the “smiling staff, the piped-in music, the perfect landscaping” can feel “creepy and overly controlled.”
Journalist EJ Dickson, herself a Disney fan, admits that visitors to Disney parks “willingly spend thousands of dollars on an authentic emotional experience that they know, at least on some level, isn’t really authentic at all.” And a representative Trip Advisor review dismisses Disney World as “a hot, commercialized, fake experience.”
If you’re anti-consumption and dislike warm weather, those criticisms of Disney World are fair enough: The weather in Florida is warm, and Disney is certainly trying to make money.
Marketing professors George Newman and Rosanna Smith note that philosophers have tended to think about authenticity through the lens of whether “entities are what they are purported to be.”
Apply that standard to Disney World: Does it represent itself as something other than a Disney-themed amusement park?
Walt Disney, far left, discusses plans for Disneyland with a few of his company’s engineers – known as ‘imagineers.’ Earl Theisen/Getty Images
There are legitimate reasons to complain about the authenticity of some experiences. If you buy a ticket to a Van Gogh exhibition, you could rightfully complain if you discovered that only reproductions had been on display. The fact that you hadn’t been able to tell the difference while viewing the paintings wouldn’t matter – you hadn’t received the authentic experience of seeing Van Gogh’s original works.
By contrast, Disney attractions don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are.
When people at Disney’s Hollywood Studios ride Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, they know they are not actually on a runaway train being incompetently driven by a talking dog named Goofy. If Disney had marketed the attraction as something else – say, an Amtrak trip for kids – perhaps there would be grounds for complaining about its fakeness.
That clearly isn’t the expectation of anyone who waits in line for the experience. Riding the Runaway Railway might not be how you prefer to spend time, but there’s nothing fake about what it purports to be.
Who are you to judge?
If the initial form of the authenticity objection is relatively easy to handle, another concern lurks in the vicinity: the idea that Disney fans are somehow fake, due to their willingness to turn themselves over to the trappings of an artificial world.
The precise nature of this concern is a bit difficult to characterize. But it involves the belief that people who spend a lot of time in manufactured environments tend to delude themselves in ways that evade understanding and engaging with their true selves. Terms like “existential authenticity” or “self-authenticity” seem to capture what’s at stake.
Media scholar Idil Galip has pointed to the fact that the parks are highly “engineered and focus-grouped; there’s a whole lot of work that goes into selling this sort of experience.” This can, at a certain point, signal “a break from regular society or real life.”
This supposed connection between the fake world of Disney and the corruption of one’s authentic self is on full display in descriptions of so-called Disney Adults.
Dickson characterizes this view in her Rolling Stone article about Disney Adults: “Being a Disney fan in adulthood is to profess to being nothing less than an uncritical bubblehead ensconced in one’s own privilege, suspended in a state of permanent adolescence … refusing to acknowledge the grim reality that dreams really don’t come true.”
But I would strongly push back on the idea that a love of Disney World renders people fake or inauthentic in any meaningful way.
As journalist and blogger A.J. Wolfe argues in her 2025 book, “Disney Adults,” even the most passionate Disney devotees resist simple categorization. None of them, she explains, seem to be running from their true selves or even trying, in the slightest, to live in an imaginary world.
For example, Wolfe profiles Lady Chappelle, a British tattoo artist who relocated to San Diego, where she exclusively inks Disney-themed tattoos. Then there’s Brandon, a Hollywood drag queen who designed a Carousel of Progress-themed kitchen in honor of the attraction that now resides at Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida.
These people are representative of pretty much all Disney Adults: They’re passionate about Disney, but they’re also passionate about tattooing and drag and myriad other pursuits.
For Disney Adults, Wolfe writes, an affection for Disney mostly adds “extra color and brightness – maybe definition, motivation, or inspiration if you’re lucky – to the complex and evolving masterpiece that is [their] life.”
And if that complexity applies to the most committed Disney fans, it’s that much harder to cast casual visitors in such a negative light.
The virtues of the Magic Kingdom
If theme parks aren’t your thing, that’s perfectly fine. You can have a wonderful life without setting foot in Epcot or the Animal Kingdom.
I think it’s as good a place as any for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to come together and create valuable memories. When I ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure with my wife and our intellectually disabled daughter, there is a little something for everyone: just enough thrill and storytelling for the adults, while not being overwhelming for my daughter. It’s a combination that can be difficult to find in many other places.
Moreover, because we are transported out of our daily routines, the parks can also present surprising opportunities for reflection. For example, I’ve thought a lot about cultural expectations around happiness while at Disney. Should I try to maximize my pleasure during this short trip? Or simply take each day as it comes? I’ve learned to embrace the latter.
I’ve also come to appreciate the value of anticipatory pleasure, which is the positive feeling you get from looking forward to something before it happens. This happened while reflecting on all the time people spend standing in line at theme parks.
Yes, there are many people who simply want to use the worlds of Disney – theme park, films or otherwise – to escape the grind of everyday life. But is seeking such an escape a greater threat to authenticity than checking out by playing video games, watching sports, reading smutty novels or using drugs and alcohol?
Is it possible for people to lose themselves in fantasy? Of course – just as it’s possible for anyone to lose themselves in their careers, relationships or hobbies. But in an age of curated social media accounts, influencer marketing and political doublespeak, the manufactured worlds of Disney might offer more authenticity than you would think.
Adam Kadlac does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Few could have predicted that they would one day also double as nodes for surveillance.
In thousands of towns and cities across the U.S., automatic license plate readers have been installed at major intersections, bridges and highway off-ramps.
The system and its successors were seen as useful crime fighting tools. Over the next two decades, they expanded to other cities in the U.K. and around the world. In 1998, U.S. Customs and Border Protection implemented this technology. By the 21st century, it had started appearing in cities across the U.S.
There are different ways for a jurisdiction to implement these systems, but local governments usually sign contracts with private companies that provide the hardware and service.
These companies often entice authorities with free trials of surveillance equipment and promises of free access to their data in ways that bypass local oversight laws.
The vehicle information that’s captured is typically stored in the cloud, creating a massive web of data repositories. If a camera collects information from a suspect’s car or truck – say, one also listed in the National Crime Information Center – AI can flag it and send an instant alert to local law enforcement.
In fact, that’s a selling point of Flock Safety, one of the biggest providers of automatic license plate readers. The company uses infrared cameras to capture images of vehicles. AI then analyzes the data to identify subjects and quickly alert local authorities.
On the surface, automatic license plate readers seem like a logical way to fight crime. More information about the whereabouts of suspects can potentially help law enforcement. And why worry about cameras if you’re following the law?
Furthermore, installation and maintenance are costly.
For example, Johnson City, Tennessee, signed a 10-year, US$8 million contract with Flock in 2025. Richmond, Virginia, paid over $1 million to the company between October 2024 and November 2025 and recently extended its contract, despite opposition from some residents.
The Conversation reached out to Flock for comment and did not hear back.
A Houston resident photographs a Flock license plate reader in his neighborhood in October 2025. AP Photo/David Goldman
Erosion of civil liberties in plain sight
The technology seems to highlight the pitfalls of what scholars call “technosolutionism,” the belief that complex issues like crime, poverty and climate change can be solved by technology.
Even more disquieting, to me, is the fact that these camera systems have created a mass location tracking infrastructure knitted together by artificial intelligence.
As a result, data gathered through surveillance infrastructure in the U.S. can circulate with limited transparency or accountability.
License plate readers can easily be accessed or repurposed beyond their original goals of managing traffic, meting out fines or catching fugitives. All it takes is a shift in enforcement priorities – or a new definition of what counts as a crime – for the original purpose of these cameras to recede from view.
Civil liberties groups and digital rights organizations have been sounding the alarm about these cameras for over a decade.
The promise of these cameras was simple: more data, less crime.
But what followed has been murkier: more data, and a significant expansion of power over the public.
Without robust legal safeguards, this data can possibly be used to target political opposition, facilitate discriminatory policing or chill constitutionally protected activities.
Then there’s reproductive health care. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, there were fears that people traveling across state lines to get an abortion could potentially be identified through automatic license plate reader databases. In Texas, authorities accessed Flock’s surveillance data as part of an abortion investigation in 2025.
Flock told NPR in February 2026 that cities control how this information is shared: “Each Flock customer has sole authority over if, when, and with whom information is shared.” The company noted that it has made efforts to “strengthen sharing controls, oversight and audit capabilities within the system.” But NPR also reported that many city officials around the U.S. didn’t realize how widely the data was being shared.
In response, some states have sought to regulate the technology.
Washington state lawmakers are deliberating the Driver Privacy Act. The legislation would prohibit agencies from using the surveillance technology for immigration investigations and enforcement, and from collecting data around certain health care facilities. Protests would also be shielded from surveillance.
Meanwhile, grassroots initiatives such as DeFlock have also emerged.
DeFlock’s online platform documents the spread of automatic license plate reader networks in order to help communities resist their deployment. The movement frames these systems not merely as traffic technologies, but also as linchpins of an expanding government data dragnet – one that demands stronger democratic oversight and community consent.
Jess Reia receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. They are affiliated with the UVA Digital Technology for Democracy Lab.
Coptic Easter liturgy, East Brunswick, N.J., April 2017.Candace Lukasik, CC BY-SA
Two months ago, Terez Metry arrived at a Department of Homeland Security office in Nashville with her husband, a U.S. citizen, expecting a routine step in beginning her green card application. The couple had prepared documents for a Form I-130 petition and anticipated an interview about their marriage.
But the appointment took a different turn. Instead of leaving together, immigration officers detained Metry and transferred her to an immigration detention facility in Alabama.
Metry’s family had fled Egypt during the Arab Spring – the 2011 wave of uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa – and came to the United States when she was a teenager. Their asylum claim was denied, and Metry was unaware that a removal order had been issued when she was 13. She is now 28.
Metry is a Coptic Christian. Copts belong to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world and make up about 10% of Egypt’s population.
A majority of Coptic Christians live in Egypt. They face discrimination and periodic violence; they are often described in political, religious, and advocacy discourse as a persecuted minority. This framing has generated concern among many American Christians and spurred political mobilization on their behalf.
Yet, as Metry’s case reveals, such concern does not translate into preferential treatment: When these Christians arrive in the U.S., they are subject to the same immigration system that detains and deports other migrants.
I am an anthropologist of religion who has spent more than a decade studying Coptic Orthodox Christian migration between Egypt and the U.S. Between 2016 and 2022, I conducted fieldwork and interviews with Coptic migrants for my book, “Martyrs and Migrants.” I spoke with diversity visa applicants in rural Upper Egypt, asylum-seekers in New York courtrooms, and working-class communities in Nashville, Tennessee.
Across these sites, my research shows how two realities – the narrative of Christian persecution abroad and the suspicion surrounding migrants in the U.S. – collide in the lives of Copts themselves.
The global politics of persecution
Over the past two decades, attacks on churches and episodes of sectarian violence in Egypt have drawn international attention. These concerns intensified after the Arab Spring uprisings and escalated with the rise of militant organizations such as the Islamic State group.
In 2015, Islamic State group militants executed 21 Christian migrant workers – 20 Egyptian Copts and one Ghanaian man – on a beach in Libya. Images of their deaths quickly became potent symbols of Christian suffering across global media and church networks.
While Coptic Christians have long faced discrimination and intermittent violence in Egypt, attacks during this period intensified in both scale and public visibility.
A funeral service in Cairo, Egypt, on Dec. 12, 2016, for victims of a bombing. AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty
In the U.S., evangelical leaders, advocacy organizations and some politicians often talk about the “persecuted church” – a framework that became especially influential in American religious freedom activism from the 1990s onward. Churches, nonprofits and policy advocates highlighted violence against Christians abroad through media campaigns, prayer initiatives and political lobbying, presenting it as a global crisis requiring American attention.
At a 2017 summit in Washington, D.C., for example, evangelical leader Franklin Graham described violence against Christians in the Middle East and Africa as a “Christian genocide,” urging believers to recognize the scale of the threat and respond collectively.
In my research attending international religious freedom conferences in Washington D.C., I found that stories like these helped many American Christians feel a strong sense of connection to Christians in the Middle East, whose suffering was often understood as part of a broader global struggle facing Christianity.
Yet this powerful narrative sits uneasily alongside how Middle Eastern Christians are treated in the U.S., where they may encounter not protection but the everyday suspicions faced by migrants from the region.
When Coptic Christian migrate
In Egypt, Copts live as a religious minority in a Muslim-majority society, where they have long faced restrictions on building and repairing churches – often requiring state permits that are difficult to obtain. Additionally, they are underrepresented in state institutions such as the military, judiciary and senior government positions; they also face periodic episodes of sectarian violence.
Moving to the U.S., a country where Christianity is the majority religion, might seem like a natural refuge.
But migration often reveals a different reality.
In 2019, for example, Romany Erian Melek Hetta, a Coptic Christian asylum-seeker, visited the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. According to media reports, while waiting for a friend outside the museum, security officers questioned him about his identity and later reported him to the FBI as a possible security threat. This triggered a counterterrorism investigation.
Cases like this echo patterns I encountered in my ethnographic research among Coptic migrants in the New York–New Jersey area, who frequently described being perceived as suspicious or potentially threatening in everyday encounters. Some altered their dress, names or public presentation to avoid being mistaken for Muslim or Arab. As one priest in my fieldwork recalled of the period after 9/11, “We had the wrong complexion … You felt like you were a target and it wasn’t your fault.”
In everyday life in the U.S., Coptic migrants like Hetta are often seen simply as people from the Middle East. As scholars of post-9/11 racialization have shown, people taken to be Arab or Middle Eastern were widely cast as potential security threats, regardless of their religious identity.
For example, Magdy Beshara was the Coptic owner of the St. George’s Shell gas station in Bayville, New Jersey. Shortly after 9/11, the FBI came to the family’s home in the middle of the night, asking Beshara whether Marwan al-Shehhi, one of the 9/11 hijackers, had worked at the gas station.
For my book I interviewed Beshara’s stepson, who described the aftermath of the initial FBI raid: “People would drive by and say ‘We’re going to kill you terrorists’ and throw a big liquor bottle at me and my sister.”
Under the USA Patriot Act – a law passed after 9/11 that expanded the federal government’s surveillance and search powers – agents confiscated items from the family’s gas station and home. According to Beshara’s stepson, their mail was opened, their phones were tapped and they were followed to school by federal agents. The family also reported receiving death threats and said that when they asked local police to intervene, their requests were not acted upon.
Beshara’s stepson told me the experience forced him to draw a distinction. “It made me feel weird to say out loud, but I always thought to myself, ‘I’m not a Muslim, I’m a Christian.’ I felt like I was putting them down to say, ‘Hey, look, I’m the good guy.’ I felt like we had to do anything to defend ourselves.”
At school, he was bullied and physically assaulted on dozens of occasions. At one point in the months following the raid, an unknown assailant set the family’s house on fire while he and his little sister were sleeping. All of this took place even after the FBI notified Beshara that he was no longer a subject of investigation, since al-Shehhi, in fact, did not work at the gas station.
Even though Beshara was a Christian, that did not shield him from suspicion or discrimination. Government surveillance tied to counterterrorism and prejudice from neighbors continued to shape how he was seen.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with Pope Shenuda III, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, on March 21, 1987, in Cairo, Egypt. AP Photo/Paola Crociani
Between persecution and suspicion
These dynamics become especially visible in moments of enforcement, where the gap between political rhetoric and immigration policy comes into sharp relief.
In 2017, federal immigration raids detained Iraqi nationals across the U.S., many of them Chaldean Christians – an Eastern Catholic community from Iraq with ancient roots in Mesopotamia.
These arrests prompted a class action lawsuit on behalf of those detained in the Detroit area, which was later expanded to include roughly 1,400 Iraqi nationals nationwide with final deportation orders.
Such cases unfold even as American Christians continue to say Middle Eastern Christians are uniquely deserving of protection – a disconnect between advocacy for “persecuted Christians” abroad and the realities of immigration enforcement at home.
In my own work as an expert witness for Coptic asylum-seekers, I have observed similar patterns across a detention system stretching from New Jersey to Louisiana. Some migrants are released while their cases proceed; others remain in prolonged legal limbo.
What I have found is that in practice, the line between “persecuted Christian” and “suspect migrant” is not just blurred – it is continually being redrawn by the state and reproduced in everyday encounters.
Candace Lukasik received funding from the Social Science Research Council, the American Academy of Religion, the Louisville Institute, and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University.
De plus en plus connectés, les navires sont également de plus en plus vulnérables aux cyberattaques.
Des navires qui semblent tourner en rond, dériver à l’intérieur des terres ou apparaître soudain à des centaines de kilomètres de leur route : ces anomalies sont devenues plus fréquentes dans les zones de conflit. Elles révèlent l’essor du spoofing GPS, une menace croissante pour les systèmes de navigation maritime et pour les équipages qui en dépendent.
La guerre en Iran fait la une de l’actualité, entre frappes aériennes et montée des tensions militaires. Mais au-delà des destructions immédiates, le conflit révèle aussi une menace plus discrète, et en rapide progression : la vulnérabilité des navires – et de leurs équipages – aux perturbations de leurs systèmes de navigation.
Le transport maritime moderne repose largement sur la navigation satellitaire GPS. Lorsque ces signaux sont brouillés ou manipulés, les navires peuvent soudain apparaître, pour leur propre équipage comme pour les autres bâtiments, à un endroit où ils ne sont pas. Dans certains cas, des bateaux ont été observés en train de « sauter » d’un point à l’autre sur les cartes, dériver à des kilomètres à l’intérieur des terres ou semblant tourner en rond selon des trajectoires impossibles. Dans les zones de guerre, ce risque est encore plus élevé : un navire peut alors être dévié de sa route et se retrouver, sans le savoir, en plein danger.
En tant que chercheur en cybersécurité spécialisé dans les infrastructures critiques et les systèmes maritimes, j’étudie la manière dont les menaces numériques affectent les navires et les personnes qui les exploitent.
Pour comprendre les risques liés aux perturbations du GPS, il faut d’abord comprendre comment fonctionne ce système. Le GPS détermine une position à partir de signaux envoyés par des satellites en orbite autour de la Terre. Un récepteur calcule sa localisation en mesurant le temps que ces signaux mettent à lui parvenir. Or, lorsqu’ils atteignent la surface de la Terre, ces signaux sont extrêmement faibles, ce qui les rend relativement faciles à brouiller ou à manipuler.
Brouillage et usurpation du GPS
Dans le cas du brouillage GPS (dit « jamming »), un attaquant neutralise les véritables signaux satellites en les noyant sous un bruit électromagnétique. Les récepteurs ne parviennent alors plus à les capter et les systèmes de navigation perdent leur position. Sur un téléphone, cela peut se traduire par une carte qui se fige ou par une localisation qui saute de manière erratique.
L’usurpation GPS (ou « spoofing ») est plus sophistiquée. Au lieu de bloquer les signaux, l’attaquant émet de faux signaux satellites imitant les vrais. Le récepteur les accepte et calcule alors une position erronée. C’est comme si vous rouliez vers le nord alors que votre GPS affirme soudain que vous partez vers le sud. Le récepteur ne dysfonctionne pas : il a simplement été trompé.
Des boucles visibles en mer Noire montrent des positions de navires falsifiées par spoofing GPS, enregistrées en janvier 2025. Les points rouges correspondent à de fausses positions GPS diffusées lors de ces attaques, faisant apparaître les navires comme se déplaçant en cercles parfaits sur les cartes de suivi, alors qu’ils se trouvaient en réalité à des centaines de kilomètres de là. Ces perturbations sont largement considérées comme liées aux interférences électroniques dans la région dans le contexte de la guerre en Ukraine. Image réalisée à partir de données de Spire Global. Anna Raymaker
Pour les marins, le spoofing peut avoir de graves conséquences. En pleine mer, il existe peu de repères permettant de vérifier la position d’un navire lorsque le GPS se comporte de manière étrange. Près des côtes, on ne dispose plus de la moindre marge d’erreur : les profondeurs varient rapidement et les dangers sont nombreux, en particulier dans des passages étroits comme le détroit d’Ormuz, près de l’Iran, où des opérations de spoofing GPS sont signalés depuis le début de la guerre. Or les navires sont massifs et manœuvrent lentement : même de petites erreurs de navigation peuvent provoquer des échouements ou des collisions.
Un échouement en mer Rouge
Un exemple marquant s’est produit en mai 2025. Alors qu’il transitait par la mer Rouge, le porte-conteneurs MSC Antonia a commencé à afficher des positions très éloignées de sa localisation réelle. Pour les navigateurs à bord, le navire semblait avoir soudain « sauté » de plusieurs centaines de kilomètres vers le sud sur la carte et se mettre à suivre une nouvelle trajectoire. Désorienté, l’équipage a fini par perdre le contrôle de la situation, et le navire s’est échoué. L’incident a causé plusieurs millions de dollars de dégâts et nécessité une opération de renflouement qui a duré plus de cinq semaines.
Comparaison de la route du MSC Antonia montrant, à gauche, la trajectoire réelle du navire et son point d’échouement, et à droite la route falsifiée par spoofing. Les lignes rouges et noires à droite indiquent les positions GPS trompeuses où le navire semblait soudain apparaître. Ces trajectoires erronées ont semé la confusion parmi les navigateurs et ont conduit à l’échouement. Images réalisées à partir de données de VT Explorer. Anna Raymaker
L’incident du MSC Antonia est loin d’être un cas isolé. Les données de suivi maritime ont mis en évidence des groupes de navires apparaissant soudain dans des positions impossibles, parfois loin à l’intérieur des terres ou décrivant des cercles parfaits sur les cartes. Des anomalies de plus en plus souvent attribuées à des opérations de spoofing GPS dans des zones de fortes tensions géopolitiques.
Mais les interférences GPS ne sont qu’une facette des menaces numériques qui pèsent désormais sur le transport maritime. Des rapports du secteur font état d’attaques par rançongiciel visant des compagnies maritimes, de compromissions de chaînes d’approvisionnement et d’inquiétudes croissantes autour de la sécurité des systèmes de contrôle embarqués, qu’il s’agisse des moteurs, de la propulsion ou des équipements de navigation. Plus les navires sont connectés – via l’internet satellitaire et des outils de surveillance à distance –, plus les points d’entrée potentiels pour les cyberattaques sont nombreux.
Les navires militaires tentent souvent de réduire ces risques en mettant en place une séparation plus stricte des réseaux informatiques et en organisant régulièrement des exercices d’entraînement, comme les simulations dites de « mission control », qui consistent à opérer malgré des systèmes de communication ou de navigation dégradés. Certains experts en cybersécurité estiment que des pratiques similaires pourraient renforcer la résilience du transport maritime commercial, même si la taille réduite des équipages et les ressources limitées rendent l’adoption de procédures inspirées du monde militaire plus difficile.
L’expérience des marins
Dans le débat public sur la cybersécurité maritime, l’attention se porte souvent sur les failles techniques des systèmes embarqués. Mais une autre dimension est tout aussi essentielle : les femmes et les hommes qui doivent interpréter ces technologies et réagir lorsque quelque chose tourne mal.
Dans une étude récente, mes collègues et moi avons interrogé des marins professionnels sur leur expérience des incidents cyber et sur leur capacité à y faire face. Les entretiens ont été menés avec des officiers de navigation, des ingénieurs et d’autres membres d’équipage responsables des systèmes du navire. Un constat s’en dégage clairement : les menaces numériques se multiplient en mer, mais les équipages sont mal préparés pour y répondre.
Beaucoup de marins nous ont expliqué que leur formation à la cybersécurité se concentrait presque exclusivement sur le phishing par e-mail et l’usage de clés USB. Une approche qui peut avoir du sens dans un environnement de bureau, mais qui prépare très peu aux incidents cyber à bord d’un navire, où les systèmes de navigation et de contrôle peuvent devenir les principales cibles. Résultat : de nombreux marins manquent de repères clairs pour comprendre comment une cyberattaque pourrait affecter les équipements dont ils dépendent au quotidien.
Le problème apparaît lorsque les systèmes du navire commencent à se comporter de manière anormale. Plusieurs marins ont ainsi raconté avoir vu le GPS afficher des positions erronées ou perdre momentanément le signal. Dans ces situations, il est souvent difficile de savoir s’il s’agit d’une simple panne technique ou du signe d’une interférence malveillante.
Et même lorsque l’équipage soupçonne un problème, de nombreux navires ne disposent pas de procédures claires pour faire face à un incident cyber. Les marins décrivent fréquemment des situations où ils devraient improviser si les systèmes de navigation ou d’autres outils numériques se comportaient de façon inattendue. Contrairement aux pannes matérielles, qui s’accompagnent généralement de listes de vérification et de protocoles bien établis, les incidents cyber se situent souvent dans une zone grise où les responsabilités et les réponses à apporter restent floues.
Un autre défi tient à la disparition progressive des pratiques traditionnelles de navigation. Pendant des siècles, les marins s’appuyaient sur les cartes papier et la navigation astronomique pour déterminer leur position. Aujourd’hui, la plupart des navires commerciaux dépendent presque entièrement de systèmes électroniques.
Plusieurs marins ont ainsi souligné que les cartes papier ne sont plus toujours disponibles à bord et que la navigation céleste est très rarement pratiquée. Si le GPS ou les systèmes de navigation électroniques cessent de fonctionner, les équipages disposent donc de peu de moyens pour vérifier indépendamment leur position. L’un des marins interrogés résume brutalement le risque : « Sans cartes, si vous êtes victime de spoofing, vous êtes un peu fichus. »
Une connectivité croissante, des risques accrus
Dans le même temps, les navires sont de plus en plus connectés. Les bâtiments modernes s’appuient désormais largement sur l’internet satellitaire – notamment des systèmes comme Starlink – ainsi que sur des outils de surveillance à distance pour gérer leurs opérations et communiquer avec la terre.
Si ces technologies améliorent l’efficacité, elles élargissent aussi les vulnérabilités des systèmes embarqués. La connectivité qui permet aux équipages d’envoyer des e-mails ou d’accéder à internet peut également ouvrir des voies d’accès aux cybermenaces vers les systèmes du navire.
À mesure que le spoofing GPS se multiplie dans les régions marquées par des tensions géopolitiques, les difficultés décrites par les marins dans notre étude deviennent de plus en plus difficiles à ignorer. Les océans peuvent sembler vastes et vides, mais les signaux numériques qui guident les navires modernes circulent dans un espace saturé et disputé.
Lorsque ces signaux sont manipulés, les conséquences ne se limitent pas aux systèmes militaires. Elles touchent aussi les navires commerciaux qui transportent l’essentiel des marchandises mondiales, ainsi que les équipages chargés de les conduire en toute sécurité.
Anna Raymaker a reçu des financements de la National Science Foundation et du Department of Energy pour ses travaux de recherche.
Este domingo 29 de marzo vuelve una escena conocida: el calendario oficial publicado en el BOE marca el inicio del horario de verano en España. En términos prácticos, el reloj se adelanta una hora de manera simultánea en todo el territorio, aunque con distinta hora oficial en la península y en Canarias, tal como recoge el Real Decreto que regula el cambio horario. Sobre el papel parece un ajuste menor. Pero para el cerebro no siempre lo es.
No se trata solo de una mala noche
Desde la psicología, lo relevante no es tanto la hora “perdida” como el desajuste que se produce entre el tiempo social y el tiempo biológico. Nuestro organismo funciona con ritmos circadianos, es decir, oscilaciones internas que regulan el sueño, la activación, la temperatura corporal, el apetito y buena parte de la regulación emocional. Cuando el horario oficial se adelanta de golpe, el cuerpo no siempre acompasa ese cambio al mismo ritmo. Por eso, muchas personas experimentan durante unos días una sensación parecida a un pequeño “jet lag social”: cuesta más dormirse, levantarse y rendir como si nada hubiera pasado.
Uno de los errores más frecuentes es pensar que el cambio se reduce a dormir una hora menos la madrugada del domingo. La evidencia apunta a algo más complejo. Una revisión reciente de 27 estudios concluye que la transición se asocia con efectos adversos sobre la duración y la calidad del sueño, además de más somnolencia diurna.
El impacto, además, parece ser más claro en las personas de cronotipo vespertino, es decir, aquellas que tienden a acostarse y activarse más tarde. No es solo una noche peor: en algunos casos hay varios días de adaptación incompleta.
Ese pequeño déficit de sueño tiene consecuencias psicológicas reconocibles. A menudo no aparece como un gran problema clínico, sino como una suma de “microdeterioros” cotidianos: más despistes, peor concentración, más lentitud mental, menor tolerancia a la frustración e irritabilidad.
La literatura científica sobre sueño, ritmos circadianos y salud mental muestra que las alteraciones del descanso y de la sincronía circadiana no solo afectan a cómo dormimos, sino también a la atención, la cognición y el estado de ánimo. En otras palabras: cuando el reloj biológico va desacompasado, también lo hacen parte de nuestros recursos psicológicos.
Atención, errores y fatiga: los efectos más inmediatos
El cambio de primavera también se ha relacionado con un aumento de la fatiga y con peor rendimiento en tareas que exigen vigilancia sostenida. No es casualidad que algunas investigaciones hayan observado efectos en contextos donde un pequeño descenso de alerta importa mucho.
Un estudio publicado en Current Biology encontró que el adelanto horario se asociaba con un incremento del 6 % en el riesgo de accidentes de tráfico mortales en Estados Unidos. El dato no significa que todas las personas vayan a conducir peor de forma llamativa, pero sí refuerza una idea básica: incluso una alteración aparentemente modesta del sueño puede tener efectos reales sobre la atención y el tiempo de reacción.
No afecta a todos por igual
Y como ocurre con casi todos los fenómenos psicológicos, no impacta del mismo modo en toda la población. Quienes suelen acostarse tarde, quienes ya arrastran deuda de sueño o quienes tienen horarios matutinos rígidos suelen notar más el desfase.
También los adolescentes constituyen un grupo especialmente sensible. Un estudio sobre sueño en esas edades tras el cambio de primavera observó que el ajuste puede dificultar el descanso y asociarse con un descenso del funcionamiento cognitivo. No resulta extraño: la adolescencia ya viene acompañada de una tendencia biológica a retrasar la hora de dormir, y el adelanto del reloj va justo en sentido contrario.
¿Puede afectar también al estado de ánimo?
Sí, pero aquí conviene ser prudentes. Sería exagerado afirmar que el adelanto de una hora “provoca” por sí solo trastornos psicológicos. La evidencia es más matizada. Por ejemplo, una conocida investigación realizada en Dinamarca encontró un aumento del 11 % en los episodios depresivos unipolares tras el cambio de otoño, no después del de primavera. Más recientemente, una investigación poblacional en Inglaterra encontró poca evidencia de un efecto agudo del cambio al horario de verano sobre los eventos de salud mental registrados en atención sanitaria.
La lectura razonable, por tanto, no es alarmista: para la mayoría de las personas el cambio de hora no generará un problema clínico, pero sí puede empeorar temporalmente el humor, la energía y la regulación emocional, sobre todo si ya existía vulnerabilidad previa.
Esta cautela encaja bien con lo que se sabe sobre la relación entre ritmos biológicos y salud mental. Estudios recientes indican que, en personas con trastornos del estado de ánimo, las alteraciones de la fase circadiana pueden preceder a los síntomas del estado de ánimo. Eso no implica que el adelanto horario sea una causa única, pero sí ayuda a entender por qué un reajuste aparentemente trivial puede notarse más en algunas personas que en otras.
Cómo amortiguar el impacto
La mejor forma de afrontar el cambio no es dramatizarlo, pero tampoco ignorarlo. La investigación sobre adaptación circadiana recuerda que la luz matutina es una de las señales más potentes para adelantar el reloj biológico y que la luz vespertina tiende a retrasarlo.
Por eso ayuda exponerse a la luz natural por la mañana, evitar una sobreestimulación lumínica intensa por la noche y proteger especialmente el descanso los días previos y posteriores. También puede ser útil adelantar progresivamente 15 o 20 minutos la hora de acostarse en las jornadas anteriores, en lugar de esperar a que el cuerpo resuelva solo el desfase de un día para otro.
En definitiva, el cambio de hora funciona como un recordatorio incómodo pero útil: la mente no opera al margen del sueño, de la luz ni de los ritmos biológicos. Una sola hora puede parecer poco, pero cuando esos 60 minutos se traducen en peor descanso, más fatiga, menos atención y más irritabilidad, deja de ser solo un ajuste del reloj y se convierte también en una cuestión de bienestar psicológico.
Oliver Serrano León no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.
Le scrutin présidentiel du 15 mars 2026 en République du Congo s’est conclu par la réélection de Denis Sassou Nguesso dès le premier tour, avec un score provisoire de 94,82 % des suffrages et un taux de participation officiel autour de 84,65 %.
Ngodi Etanislas, dont les travaux portent sur les enjeux électoraux et les recompositions politiques en République du Congo, explique à The Conversation Africa les enseigneemts à tirer de ce scrutin.
Quels sont les principaux facteurs politiques qui ont façonné le résultat de l’élection ?
La victoire de Denis Sassou-Nguesso avec un « score à la soviétique » de 94,82 % des voix exprimées n’est pas le résultat d’une compétition électorale ouverte. Elle est plutôt l’aboutissement d’un système politique bâti sur plusieurs décennies de consolidation du pouvoir depuis la fin de la guerre civile de 1997.
Plusieurs facteurs politiques clés peuvent être mis en avant pour justifier cette légitimation électorale.
Il y a, d’abord, la longévité politique de Denis Sassou Nguesso au pouvoir depuis 1979 (avec une interruption de 1992 à 1997). Cette omniprésence de plus de quatre décennies lui permet d’assurer un contrôle absolu de l’appareil politique, institutionnel et sécuritaire du pays, rendant l’alternance politique non seulement difficile, mais systémiquement peu probable.
Par ailleurs, le verrouillage du processus électoral, opéré notamment à travers le contrôle de l’appareil d’État et des organes de gestion des élections, a contribué à cette victoire.
L’élection s’est déroulée dans un contexte marqué par un rapport de force structurellement déséquilibré en faveur du président sortant. La campagne, très asymétrique, a pris la forme d’une véritable « tournée nationale », s’appuyant sur une stratégie de démonstration de force destinée à donner l’image d’un leader proche des populations.
Les divisions de l’opposition ont-elles eu un impact sur le résultat final ?
La fragmentation de l’opposition politique est sans doute le facteur le plus déterminant dans l’ampleur du score final de cette élection. L’opposition a abordé le scrutin en rangs dispersés, incapable de trouver un consensus pour une candidature unique, réduisant fortement les chances d’une alternance démocratique.
Le scrutin a été marqué par l’absence des figures historiques de la vie politique congolaise dont certaines sont toujours emprisonnées (Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko ou André Okombi Salissa ) et d’autres leaders ayant décidé de boycotter. Ils estiment que les conditions d’une élection libre et transparente n’étaient pas réunies. Ce boycott a vidé la compétition de tout enjeu réel. Il a contribué à la victoire dès le premier tour de Denis Sassou Nguesso qui avait obtenu en 2016 le score de 60,4 % des suffrages face à une opposition forte.
Pour de nombreux observateurs, les six candidats en lice, peu connus ou sans réelle assise politique, cherchant à assurer une certaine visibilité, ou mieux une légitimité politique aux yeux de l’opinion publique pour de prochaines batailles électorales, ne pouvaient pas faire face à Sassou Nguesso. Ils ont disposé de peu de moyens financiers pour se déployer sur l’ensemble du territoire et structurer les dynamiques locales sur le terrain pour défendre leurs projets de société.
Enfin, le black-out numérique marqué par la coupure totale des réseaux téléphoniques et d’Internet sur l’ensemble du territoire le jour du vote a contribué à l’opacité du processus. Il a créé un isolement informationnel sans précédent.
Cette mesure a permis de réduire la capacité d’organisation collective et de déploiement des délégués de l’opposition. Elle visait également à limiter la diffusion, sur les réseaux sociaux, de rumeurs sur les bourrages d’urnes, l’achat de consciences et d’autres contenus politiquement sensibles ou embarrassants pour le candidat sortant, qui craignait un fort taux d’abstention.
Comment évaluez-vous la participation citoyenne et le rôle des électeurs dans ce scrutin ?
La participation citoyenne a été marquée par une désaffection électorale profonde. Celle-ci a été alimentée par le boycott de l’opposition et par le sentiment d’inutilité du vote chez de nombreux jeunes. Elle s’est également inscrite dans un climat de peur entretenu par l’environnement répressif, notamment les opérations menées au début du mois de janvier 2026 par la Direction générale de la sécurité présidentielle dans le département du Pool, ainsi que par les intimidations et répressions à l’égard des activistes et opposants.
Le premier scénario est celui d’une mobilisation encadrée par le pouvoir, à travers les réseaux politiques, clientélistes et les structures locales du parti présidentiel et de ses alliés. L’objectif est de stimuler la participation afin de légitimer le processus électoral et renforcer la crédibilité des résultats.
Le deuxième scénario est celui du boycott du scrutin encouragé par l’opposition, pour parvenir à une faible participation, pouvant susciter des contestations politiques et des débats sur la légitimité du scrutin.
L’évaluation du scrutin du 15 mars 2026 met en évidence un contraste marqué entre les chiffres officiels et les observations de terrain, suggérant une participation citoyenne plus complexe qu’il n’y paraît. Le taux de participation officiel aurait ainsi bondi de près de 17 points. Il est passé d’environ 67,57 % en 2016 – lors d’un scrutin marqué par la présence de figures importantes de l’opposition – à 84,65 % en 2026, malgré un contexte de boycott généralisé.
Quatre constats peuvent être faits au sujet de la participation citoyenne à cette élection :
Un corps électoral autour de 2,64 millions d’électeurs inscrits sur les listes électorales, mais absent dans les bureaux de vote au regard de la faible affluence dans 6 620 bureaux de vote répartis dans 4 011 centres sur l’ensemble du territoire ;
Une abstention massive anticipée, confirmée par les observateurs nationaux et internationaux, malgré la forte mobilisation citoyenne constatée lors de la campagne électorale ;
Une démotivation totale des électeurs du fait de l’absence de candidats de taille, du manque de transparence et du verrouillage du processus électoral, ainsi que d’une participation asymétrique à travers la mobilisation forte des réseaux proches du pouvoir et la démobilisation des électeurs critiques.
Une mobilisation limitée, notamment par la faible affluence dans les centres urbains, le désintérêt marqué des jeunes et le sentiment répandu que “le résultat est connu d’avance”.
Le rôle des électeurs a oscillé entre adhésion et contrainte. Si certains ont soutenu Denis Sassou Nguesso par conviction ou fidélité politique, d’autres ont voté de manière stratégique sous l’effet de pressions sociales, administratives ou de logiques clientélistes.
Quels défis démocratiques le Congo Brazzaville doit-il relever après une cinquième victoire consécutive de Denis Sassou Nguesso ?
Cette réélection place la République du Congo face à des défis structurels majeurs. Pour que le pays sorte de la stagnation politique et sociale, plusieurs chantiers démocratiques s’imposent. Six défis majeurs se dessinent.
La restauration de la crédibilité électorale et l’indépendance des institutions constituent l’un des enjeux les plus sensibles. Elle met en lumière les lacunes concernant la gouvernance électorale, le manque de transparence, de caractère inclusif et d’équité constatées dans le cadre du scrutin de mars 2026.
La fiabilité des listes électorales, l’impartialité de la Commission nationale électorale indépendante (CNEI) et l’accès inégal aux médias posent des problèmes constants, sans audit indépendant effectif. Sans une réforme profonde du système électoral, l’abstention réelle et le désintérêt, notamment des jeunes, continueront de croître et de peser sur l’engagement citoyen et la participation politique.
La mise en place d’un espace politique pluraliste et d’une opposition viable en vue d’une recomposition du paysage politique congolais. Dans ce contexte, la libération des prisonniers politiques et la garantie d’un droit à l’opposition effectif seraient des conditions sine qua non de toute réconciliation nationale. L’élection de 2026 s’est déroulée avec une opposition largement “muselée” ou ayant choisi le boycott.
La protection des libertés fondamentales et de l’espace civique afin de répondre aux questions liées à la recrudescence des violations des droits humains dans un contexte d’absence de dialogue politique entre le régime, l’opposition, et la société civile.
La question cruciale de la succession et de la transition dans l’optique d’une conservation du pouvoir au sein de la majorité présidentielle et/ou de la continuité d’un nouveau mandat en 2031. À cela s’ajouteraient des scénarios de succession dynastique au sein de la famille présidentielle.
La réconciliation de la richesse pétrolière avec le développement humain pour un pays, où, près de la moitié de la population vit en dessous du seuil de la pauvreté. Le défi est de transformer la rente pétrolière en services publics (santé, éducation) et en opportunités pour la jeunesse.
La nécessité de reconnecter la participation citoyenne, notamment des jeunes aspirant au changement et la société civile au processus politique. La participation citoyenne demeure cruciale pour la légitimité du processus électoral.
Quelles implications cette élection pourrait-elle avoir pour la stabilité politique ?
Cette stabilité repose sur des équilibres précaires, notamment la faible légitimité du pouvoir perçue par une partie de la population, la méfiance envers le processus électoral et la frustration politique accumulée au fil des années. Elle s’appuie également sur la continuité des institutions et des élites au pouvoir, l’absence de rupture brutale et le maintien des équilibres internes.
La stabilité du pays repose actuellement sur un équilibre fragile maintenu par une forte centralisation du pouvoir et le renforcement de la mainmise institutionnelle.
La frustration de la jeunesse constitue un baromètre particulièrement préoccupant. Les enquêtes Afrobarometer réalisées en République du Congo en 2024 indiquent que les jeunes ont une faible confiance dans le système politique. Ce qui donne d’ailleurs l’impression d’un sentiment d’inutilité du vote, dont les résultats sont connus d’avance et que l’élection présidentielle ne changera rien dans leur quotidien.
Il y a aussi des frustrations du fait des problèmes de survie économique, le désenchantement face au chômage chronique et l’absence de perspectives économiques dans le pays.
La bataille interne au sein du parti au pouvoir pour “l’après-Sassou” pourrait devenir la principale source d’instabilité si aucun dauphin clair et consensuel n’émerge. Les dissensions internes constatées lors du Congrès ordinaire du parti en décembre 2025 montrent que les problèmes de succession demeurent au centre de la reconfiguration des équilibres internes au sein du parti au pouvoir et du repositionnement des élites dans le champ politique congolais.
L’élection présidentielle de mars 2026 a permis de consolider le pouvoir en place, sans pourtant résoudre les questions liées à la gouvernance électorale, à la participation citoyenne et à l’ouverture démocratique.
Ngodi Etanislas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Carolina Rossini, Professor of Practice and Director for Program, Public Interest Technology Initiative, UMass Amherst
The dollar figures are drawing headlines, but a $375 million penalty against a company worth $1.5 trillion is a rounding error. The award is less than 2% of Meta’s $22.8 billion net income in 2025. Meta’s stock rose 5% on the day of the New Mexico verdict, indicating how the market assessed the effect of the penalty on the company.
Fines without structural change are more akin to licensing fees than accountability. As a technology policyand law scholar, I believe the question of whether these verdicts will produce real changes to the products that millions of children use every day is more consequential than the jury awards.
The answer is not yet, and not automatically. A financial penalty does not rewrite a single line of code, remove an algorithm or place a safety engineer in a role that was eliminated to protect a quarterly earnings report. Meta and Google have signaled they will appeal, with First Amendment challenges to the product-design theory the likely central battleground.
The companies’ lawyers are likely to argue, with some justification, that the science linking the design of platforms to mental health harmremains contested, and that the companies have already implemented safety measures. In the meantime, Instagram, Facebook anf YouTube will continue to operate exactly as they did before the verdicts.
The verdicts against Meta pave the way for hundreds or even thousands of similar cases.
Consumer protection
Most coverage framing the New Mexico verdict casts it as a child safety case. It is that, but it also presents a more technically significant dimension: a consumer protection claim grounded in allegations of corporate deception. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez did not sue Meta for what users posted, but instead sued Meta for its false statements about its own platform safety, employing a novel legal approach.
For three decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has shielded internet platforms from liability for content generated by their users. Courts have interpreted Section 230 immunity broadly, and many earlier attempts to hold platforms accountable for child harm have foundered on it.
The New Mexico complaint, filed in December 2023, was drafted with explicit awareness of this obstacle. It asked a single question: Did Meta knowingly lie to New Mexico consumers about the safety of its products?
The jury’s answer was yes, on all counts, and its verdict rested on three distinct legal theories under New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.
The first was straightforward deception: Meta’s public statements, ranging from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony claiming research about the platform’s addictiveness was inconclusive to parental guidance materials that omitted known risks of grooming and sexual exploitation, qualify as representations made in connection with a commercial transaction.
Users pay for Meta’s platforms not with money but with their data, which Meta then converts into advertising revenue. New Mexico successfully argued that this data-for-services exchange constitutes commerce under the state’s consumer protection statute, and that misrepresentations made within it are actionable regardless of Section 230.
The second theory was unfair practice, or conduct offensive to public policy, even if not technically deceptive. Here, the evidence centered on what Meta’s own engineers and executives knew and then ignored.
Internal documents showed repeated warnings. These alarm bells centered around child sexual abuse material proliferating on the platforms, about algorithms that amplified harmful content because it generated engagement, and about age verification systems that were essentially cosmetic. The company overrode those warnings for commercial reasons.
The jury was shown a specific sequence: Meta executives requested staffing to address platform harms, Zuckerberg declined, and the company continued to publicly represent its safety efforts as adequate.
The third theory was unconscionability: taking advantage of consumers who lacked the capacity to protect themselves. Children are the clearest possible case. Children cannot evaluate terms of service, cannot negotiate platform architecture, and cannot assess the neurological implications of engagement-maximizing design. Meta had comprehensive internal research documenting these vulnerabilities and chose to ignore rather than mitigate them.
Bellwether on addictiveness
The Los Angeles case, which concluded on March 25, tested a different theory. It was a personal injury trial rather than a government enforcement action.
The plaintiff, identified in court as KGM, is a 20-year-old woman who began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9. Her lawyers argued that the platforms’ deliberate design choices such as infinite scroll, autoplay video and engagement-based recommendation algorithms were the causes of her addiction, depression and self-harm.
The jury found both Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms and found that each company’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to KGM. Meta bears 70% of the liability; YouTube 30%. The individual $3 million compensatory award is modest. The punitive damages phase, still to come, will be calculated against each company’s net worth and is likely to produce a very different number.
An attorney for, and family members of, child victims of social media harms react to the verdict in a lawsuit in Los Angeles on March 25, 2026. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Beyond the general precedent, this case matters because it is a bellwether. It was selected from a consolidated group of hundreds of similar lawsuits to test whether a product-design theory of liability could survive a jury trial, and it did. That finding has immediate and concrete implications: Each of those plaintiffs now litigates on a stronger footing, and if the damages awarded to KGM are even partially scaled across similar cases, the total financial exposure for Meta and YouTube moves from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.
More importantly, the bellwether verdict signals to every other plaintiff, attorney and state attorney general that this legal pathway is viable, and to every platform that the courtroom is no longer a safe harbor. The legal strategy established that negligence claims against platform design are viable in California courts.
Public nuisance
Beginning May 4, 2026, Judge Bryan Biedscheid in the New Mexico case is scheduled to hear the public nuisance count without a jury in a bench trial. Public nuisance is a legal doctrine traditionally used to address conditions that harm the general public. This doctrine has been used in concern over contaminated water, lead paint in housing stock and opioid distribution networks.
New Mexico is arguing that Meta’s platform architecture constitutes exactly such a condition. If the judge agrees, the remedy is not a fine. Instead, it is an abatement: a court order requiring Meta to eliminate the harmful condition.
Attorney General Torrez has already been explicit about what he will ask for: real age verification, not a checkbox asking users to confirm they are old enough; algorithm changes; and an independent monitor with authority to oversee compliance. These are structural demands on how the platform operates.
This is where drawing a parallel with Big Tobacco is apt. The tobacco litigation of the 1990s ultimately produced not just financial settlements but the Master Settlement Agreement, which imposed permanent restrictions on marketing practices and funded public health programs for decades. The public nuisance theory in the New Mexico case is designed to produce an analogous structural outcome for social media.
Precedent for tidal wave of cases
The significant effects of two verdicts are about evidence and precedent. For the first time, a jury has examined Meta’s internal documents – emails from engineers warning about self-harm, the rejected safety proposals and Zuckerberg’s personal decisions to prioritize engagement over protection – and returned a verdict that those documents mean precisely what they appear to say.
That finding, and the legal theories that produced it, is now part of the foundation on which 40-plus pending state attorney general cases, thousands of individual lawsuits and a federal trial later this year are likely to be built.
The abatement phase, beginning May 4, may prove more consequential than the dollar amounts. If the judge in the New Mexico case – or any judge in a subsequent case – orders real age verification, algorithm changes and an independent monitor, that would be a true structural change.
I was staff at organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, which were funded by various foundations and companies. Refer to their websites for disclosures. I was a staff member in the connectivity policy team at Facebook (2016-2018). I am an advisory board member of non-profits, including Internet Lab (Brazil) and Derechos Digitales (Chile). I am a senior advisor (without any honorarium) at the Datasphere Initiative and Portulans Institute. More details at https://www.carolinarossini.net/bio
