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August 18, 2025

Quand Donald Trump déroule le tapis rouge pour Vladimir Poutine

Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Donald Trump salue Vladimir Poutine à l’aéroport d’Anchorage, en Alaska, le 15 août 2025.
Site officiel du Kremlin, CC BY-NC

La rencontre tenue en Alaska entre le président des États-Unis et celui de la Russie s’est soldée par un triomphe symbolique et diplomatique pour Vladimir Poutine. Les propositions de paix pour l’Ukraine qui semblent devoir en ressortir vont entièrement dans le sens des volontés du maître du Kremlin, et ne pourront sans doute pas être acceptées par Kiev et ses alliés européens. Trump, pour sa part, estime de toute évidence que toute paix, même injuste, temporaire et susceptible de déboucher sur une nouvelle attaque d’envergure menée par la Russie, serait souhaitable, car cela lui permettrait de se présenter comme l’artisan d’une solution.

L’étrange sommet entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine qui vient de se tenir en Alaska devrait finir de convaincre ceux qui en doutaient encore que, aux yeux de la Maison Blanche, il importe plus d’entretenir des relations amicales avec le dictateur russe que d’instaurer une paix durable en Ukraine.

Le programme initial ayant été raccourci, les deux dirigeants ont pu conclure la réunion plus tôt que prévu. Ils se sont ensuite mutuellement félicités lors d’une conférence de presse à l’issue de laquelle ils n’ont pas répondu aux questions des journalistes présents.

Il ressort de cette séquence que Trump ne voit aucun inconvénient à offrir des victoires symboliques à Poutine et qu’il refuse d’exercer à son encontre la moindre pression réelle.

Les victoires symboliques de Poutine

Le choix du lieu où s’est déroulée la rencontre n’avait rien d’anodin. En effet, la Russie affirme régulièrement que l’Alaska, qu’elle a vendu aux États-Unis dans les années 1860, lui appartient toujours de droit. Avant la réunion, les porte-parole du Kremlin ont pris plaisir à affirmer que Poutine et son équipe avaient emprunté un « vol intérieur » pour se rendre à Anchorage – des propos rappelant des panneaux d’affichage installés en Russie en 2022 et proclamant « L’Alaska est à nous ! ». Des prétentions russes sur l’Alaska que Trump a alimentées par une nouvelle gaffe avant la réunion lorsqu’il a déclaré que si les discussions ne prenaient pas le tour qu’il souhaitait… il « repartirait aux États-Unis ».

Lorsque l’avion de Poutine a atterri, des militaires américains se sont mis à genoux pour dérouler un tapis rouge sur lequel le président russe allait faire ses premiers pas sur le sol des États-Unis, comme un leader respecté plutôt que comme un criminel de guerre inculpé par la Cour pénale internationale. Poutine a ensuite été invité à rejoindre le bâtiment de la réunion non pas dans son propre véhicule, mais dans la limousine de Trump, en compagnie de celui-ci.

Au-delà de ces images marquantes, Trump a offert à Poutine plusieurs autres victoires qui ne peuvent que renforcer l’image du président russe dans son pays et confirmer au monde entier que les relations entre les États-Unis et la Russie se sont normalisées.

L’organisation d’un sommet est généralement perçue comme une faveur de la part du pays qui l’accueille, comme le signe d’une volonté sincère d’améliorer les relations bilatérales. En l’invitant en Alaska, Trump a traité Poutine sur un pied d’égalité. Il n’a exprimé aucune critique à propos des violations flagrantes des droits de l’homme commises par la Russie, de ses tentatives de plus en plus violentes visant à fragmenter l’alliance transatlantique ou de sa volonté de multiplier les conquêtes territoriales.

Au lieu de cela, Trump a, une fois de plus, cherché à présenter Poutine et lui-même comme des victimes. Il a notamment déploré que l’un comme l’autre aient été contraints, depuis des années, de supporter « le mensonge “Russie, Russie, Russie” » selon lequel Moscou aurait interféré dans l’élection présidentielle américaine de 2016.

Il a ensuite offert à Poutine une victoire supplémentaire, en rejetant la responsabilité d’accepter les conditions russes pour mettre fin à la guerre en Ukraine sur le gouvernement ukrainien et sur l’Europe, affirmant que « au bout du compte, c’est à eux de décider ».

Poutine a obtenu tout ce qu’il pouvait espérer. Outre le gain symbolique qu’ont constitué ses séances photo avec le président américain, il a pu, sans être contredit, déclarer que la guerre en Ukraine ne pourrait se terminer qu’à la condition que soient réglées ses « causes profondes » – ce qui, dans sa bouche, signifie que c’est l’OTAN qui est responsable du conflit, et non pas l’agression impérialiste non provoquée qu’il mène depuis des années à l’encontre du pays voisin.

Il a également évité d’aborder le sujet d’éventuelles sanctions américaines supplémentaires, menace que Trump avait vaguement brandie dans les semaines précédentes avant de déclarer, comme il l’a si souvent fait par le passé qu’il avait besoin de « deux semaines » pour y réfléchir davantage.

Puis, ayant empoché ces victoires symboliques et diplomatiques, Poutine a rapidement repris son avion pour rentrer chez lui, emportant probablement la statue de bureau de l’aigle à tête blanche, emblème des États-Unis, que Trump lui avait offerte.

Quelles conséquences pour l’avenir ?

Après l’appel téléphonique passé par Trump aux dirigeants européens à l’issue du sommet pour les informer de la teneur de ses échanges avec Poutine, des détails concernant le plan de paix abordé par les deux hommes ont commencé à fuiter.

Poutine serait prêt à fixer les lignes de front actuelles dans les régions de Kherson et de Zaporijia en Ukraine, à condition que Kiev accepte de céder l’ensemble des régions de Lougansk et de Donetsk, y compris les territoires que la Russie ne contrôle pas actuellement. Il n’y aurait pas de cessez-le-feu immédiat (ce que souhaitent l’Europe et l’Ukraine), mais une évolution vers une paix permanente, ce qui correspond aux intérêts du Kremlin.

Qu’on ne s’y trompe pas : il s’agit d’un piège à peine déguisé. Poutine et Trump soumettent à l’Ukraine et à l’Europe une proposition inacceptable, et une fois que celles-ci s’y seront opposées, ils les accuseront de refus d’aller de l’avant et de bellicisme.

D’une part, l’Ukraine contrôle toujours une partie importante de la région de Donetsk. Abandonner les régions de Donetsk et de Lougansk reviendrait non seulement à céder à Moscou les réserves de charbon et de minerais qu’elles recèlent, mais aussi à renoncer à des positions défensives vitales que les forces russes n’ont pas réussi à prendre depuis des années.

Cela permettrait également à la Russie de lancer plus aisément d’éventuelles incursions futures, ouvrant la voie vers Dnipro à l’ouest et vers Kharkiv au nord.

L’apparent soutien de Trump aux exigences de la Russie qui demande à l’Ukraine de céder des territoires en échange de la paix – ce que les membres européens de l’OTAN rejettent – signifie que Poutine a réussi à affaiblir encore davantage le partenariat transatlantique.

De plus, rien ou presque n’a été dit sur qui garantirait la paix, ni sur la façon dont l’Ukraine pourrait être assurée que Poutine ne profiterait pas de ce répit pour se réarmer et tenter à nouveau d’envahir la totalité du pays.

Étant donné que le Kremlin s’oppose systématiquement à l’adhésion de l’Ukraine à l’OTAN, accepterait-il vraiment que des forces européennes ou américaines assurent la sécurité de la nouvelle ligne de contrôle ? Quant à l’Ukraine, serait-elle autorisée à se réarmer, et dans quelle mesure ?

Et même si dans une future ère post-Trump les États-Unis adoptaient une ligne plus ferme, Poutine aura tout de même réussi à s’emparer de territoires qu’il sera impossible de lui reprendre. Voilà qui renforce l’idée selon laquelle conquérir des parties d’un pays voisin est une stratégie payante.

Il existe toutefois un élément à première vue plus encourageant pour l’Ukraine : les États-Unis seraient prêts à lui offrir des garanties de sécurité « hors OTAN ».

Mais là aussi, la plus grande prudence est de mise. L’administration Trump a déjà exprimé publiquement son rapport pour le moins ambigu quant aux engagements des États-Unis à défendre l’Europe en vertu de l’article 5 de l’OTAN, ce qui a remis en question la crédibilité de Washington en tant qu’allié. Les États-Unis se battraient-ils vraiment pour l’Ukraine en cas de future invasion russe ?

Il faut reconnaître que les dirigeants européens ont réagi avec fermeté aux transactions de Trump avec Poutine.

Tout en saluant la tentative de résolution du conflit, ils ont déclaré au président ukrainien Volodymyr Zelensky qu’ils continueraient à le soutenir si l’accord était inacceptable. Zelensky, qui doit rencontrer Trump à Washington lundi, a déjà rejeté l’idée de céder la région du Donbass (Donetsk et Lougansk) à la Russie.

Mais l’Europe se retrouve désormais face à une réalité qu’elle ne peut nier : non seulement elle doit faire plus, mais elle doit également assurer un leadership durable sur les questions sécuritaires, plutôt que se contenter de réagir à des crises qui ne cessent de se répéter.

Les motivations profondes de Trump

En fin de compte, le sommet de l’Alaska montre que la paix en Ukraine n’est qu’une partie du tableau d’ensemble aux yeux de l’administration Trump, qui s’efforce d’établir des relations plus cordiales avec Moscou, si ce n’est de s’aligner complètement sur le Kremlin.

Trump se soucie peu de la manière dont la paix sera obtenue en Ukraine, ou du temps que cette paix durera. Ce qui lui importe, c’est qu’il en retire le mérite, voire obtienne grâce à cette paix précaire le prix Nobel de la paix auquel il aspire ouvertement.

Et bien que la vision de Trump consistant à éloigner la Russie de la Chine relève de la fantaisie, il a néanmoins décidé de s’y accrocher. Cela oblige les partenaires européens des États-Unis à réagir en conséquence.

Il existe déjà de nombreux signes indiquant que, ayant échoué à gagner la guerre commerciale avec la Chine, l’administration Trump choisit désormais de s’en prendre aux alliés des États-Unis. On le constate à travers son obsession pour les droits de douane ; son désir étrange de punir l’Inde et le Japon ; et, plus globalement, la destruction du soft power américain.

Plus inquiétant encore : les initiatives diplomatiques de Trump continuent de le faire passer pour un jouet entre les mains des dirigeants autoritaires.

Cela enseigne une leçon plus large aux amis et partenaires des États-Unis : leur sécurité future dépend peut-être des bons offices américains, mais il serait naïf de croire que cela garantit automatiquement que Washington leur donnera la priorité s’ils se trouvent menacés par des puissances ennemies…

Matthew Sussex a reçu des financements de l’Australian Research Council, de l’Atlantic Council, de la Fulbright Foundation, de la Carnegie Foundation, du Lowy Institute et de divers ministères et agences gouvernementaux australiens.

– ref. Quand Donald Trump déroule le tapis rouge pour Vladimir Poutine – https://theconversation.com/quand-donald-trump-deroule-le-tapis-rouge-pour-vladimir-poutine-263313

August 18, 2025

Putin got the red-carpet treatment from Trump. Where does this leave Ukraine?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

The bizarre summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska should sway all but the most credulous doubters that the White House is more interested in friendly relations with Russia’s dictator than achieving a lasting peace in Ukraine.

An abridged program saw the two leaders swiftly conclude the meeting earlier than had been expected. They then heaped praise on one another at a press conference that didn’t feature any questions from the press.

Worryingly, Trump is still as unconcerned about handing Putin symbolic victories as he is unwilling to put any real pressure on the Russian leader.

Symbolic ‘wins’ for Putin

The venue itself was telling. Russia has long carped that Alaska, which it sold to the US in the 1860s, is rightfully still its territory. Prior to the meeting, Kremlin mouthpieces made much of Putin’s team taking a “domestic flight” to Anchorage, recalling billboards that went up in Russia in 2022 proclaiming “Alaska is ours!” That wasn’t helped by yet another Trump gaffe prior to the meeting when he said he would “go back to the United States” if he didn’t like what he heard.

When Putin’s plane landed, US military personnel kneeled to fix a red carpet for the Russian president to walk across – as a respected leader, rather than an indicted war criminal. Putin was then invited to ride along with Trump in his limousine.

Beyond the optics, Trump handed Putin a number of other wins that will shore up his support at home and reinforce to the world that US-Russia relations have been normalised.

A summit is typically offered as a favour – an indication of an earnest desire to improve relations. By inviting him to Alaska, Trump gave Putin a stage to meet the American president as an equal. There was no criticism of Russia’s appalling human rights abuses, its increasingly violent attempts to fragment the transatlantic alliance, or its desire to reshape its fortunes by conquest.

Instead, Trump sought again to portray Putin and himself as victims. He complained that both had been forced to “put up with the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax” that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

He then gifted Putin yet another win, putting the onus for accepting Russian terms to end the war in Ukraine back onto the Ukrainian government and Europe, by observing “it’s ultimately up to them”.

Putin got exactly what he could have hoped for. Aside from the photo ops, he framed any solution to the conflict around the “root causes” – code for NATO being to blame rather than Putin’s unprovoked war of imperial aggression.

He also dodged any prospect of vaguely threatened US sanctions, with Trump returning to his familiar refrain of needing “two weeks” to think about them again.

And then, having pocketed both a symbolic and diplomatic bonanza, Putin promptly skipped lunch and flew home, presumably also accompanied by the bald-headed American eagle ornament that Trump had presented to him.

What does this mean moving forward?

After Trump’s subsequent call with European leaders to brief them on the summit, details about a peace proposal began to leak out.

Putin is reportedly prepared to fix the front lines as they stand in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, provided Kyiv agrees to cede all of Luhansk and Donetsk, including territory Russia doesn’t currently hold. There would be no immediate ceasefire (which is Europe’s and Ukraine’s preference), but a move towards a permanent peace, which aligns with the Kremlin’s interests.

Make no mistake: this is a thinly disguised trap. It amounts to little more than Putin and Trump slinging a dead cat at Ukraine and Europe, then blaming them as laggards and warmongers when they object.

For one thing, Ukraine still controls a sizeable portion of Donetsk. Giving up Donetsk and Luhansk would not only cede coal and mineral reserves to Moscow, but also require abandoning vital defensive positions that Russian forces have been unable to crack for years.

It would also position Russia to launch potential future incursions, opening the way to Dnipro to the west and Kharkiv to the north.

Trump’s apparent backing for Russia’s demands that Ukraine cede territory for peace – which NATO’s European members reject – means Putin is succeeding in further fracturing the transatlantic partnership.

There was also little mention of who would secure the peace, or how Ukraine can be reassured Putin will not simply use the breathing space to rearm and try again.

Given the Kremlin has opposed NATO membership for Ukraine, would it really agree to European forces securing the new line of control? Or American ones? Would Ukraine be permitted to rearm, and to what extent?

And, even in the event of a firmer US line in a future post-Trump era, Putin will still have achieved a land grab that would be impossible to undo. That, in turn, reinforces the message that conquest pays off.

One apparently brighter note for Ukraine is the hint the US is prepared to offer it a “non-NATO” security guarantee.

But that should also be viewed with caution. The Trump administration has already expressed public ambivalence about US commitments to defend Europe via NATO’s Article 5, which has called its credibility as an ally into question. Would the US really fight for Ukraine if there were a future Russian invasion?

To their credit, European leaders have responded firmly to Trump’s dealings with Putin.

They have welcomed the attempt to resolve the conflict, but told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky they will continue to back him if the deal is unacceptable. Zelensky, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has already rejected the notion of ceding the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk) to Russia.

But Europe will have to face the reality that not only must it do more, but it must also provide sustained leadership on security issues, rather than just reacting to repeated crises.

Trump’s deeper motivations

Ultimately, the Alaska summit shows that peace in Ukraine is only part of the broader picture for the Trump administration, which is dedicated to achieving warmer ties with Moscow, if not outright alignment with it.

In that sense, it matters little to Trump how peace is attained in Ukraine, or how long it lasts. What’s important is he receives credit for it, if not the Nobel Peace Prize he craves.

And while Trump’s vision of splitting Russia away from China is a fantasy, it is nonetheless one he has decided to entertain. That, in turn, compels America’s European partners to respond accordingly.

Already there is plenty of evidence that having failed to win a trade war with China, the Trump administration is now choosing to feast on America’s allies instead. We see this in its fixation with tariffs, its bizarre desire to punish India and Japan, and the trashing of America’s soft power.

Even more sobering, Trump’s diplomatic forays continue to see him treated as sport by authoritarian leaders.

That, in turn, provides a broader lesson for America’s friends and partners: their future security may well rest on America’s good offices, but it is foolish to assume that automatically places their fortunes above the whims of the powerful.

Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Atlantic Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute and various Australian government departments and agencies.

– ref. Putin got the red-carpet treatment from Trump. Where does this leave Ukraine? – https://theconversation.com/putin-got-the-red-carpet-treatment-from-trump-where-does-this-leave-ukraine-260922

August 18, 2025

If AI takes most of our jobs, money as we know it will be over. What then?

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ben Spies-Butcher, Associate professor, Macquarie University

It’s the defining technology of an era. But just how artificial intelligence (AI) will end up shaping our future remains a controversial question.

For techno-optimists, who see the technology improving our lives, it heralds a future of material abundance.

That outcome is far from guaranteed. But even if AI’s technical promise is realised – and with it, once intractable problems are solved – how will that abundance be used?

We can already see this tension on a smaller scale in Australia’s food economy. According to the Australian government, we collectively waste around 7.6 million tonnes of food a year. That’s about 312 kilograms per person.

At the same time, as many as one in eight Australians are food-insecure, mostly because they do not have enough money to pay for the food they need.

What does that say about our ability to fairly distribute the promised abundance from the AI revolution?

AI could break our economic model

As economist Lionel Robbins articulated when he was establishing the foundations of modern market economics, economics is the study of a relationship between ends (what we want) and scarce means (what we have) which have alternative uses.

Markets are understood to work by rationing scarce resources towards endless wants. Scarcity affects prices – what people are willing to pay for goods and services. And the need to pay for life’s necessities requires (most of) us to work to earn money and produce more goods and services.

This article is part of The Conversation’s series on jobs in the age of AI. Leading experts examine what AI means for workers at different career stages, how AI is reshaping our economy – and what you can do to prepare.

The promise of AI bringing abundance and solving complex medical, engineering and social problems sits uncomfortably against this market logic.

It is also directly connected to concerns that technology will make millions of workers redundant. And without paid work, how do people earn money or markets function?

Meeting our wants and needs

It is not only technology, though, that causes unemployment. A relatively unique feature of market economies is their ability to produce mass want, through unemployment or low wages, amid apparent plenty.

As economist John Maynard Keynes revealed, recessions and depressions can be the result of the market system itself, leaving many in poverty even as raw materials, factories and workers lay idle.

In Australia, our most recent experience of economic downturn wasn’t caused by a market failure. It stemmed from the public health crisis of the pandemic. Yet it still revealed a potential solution to the economic challenge of technology-fuelled abundance.

Changes to government benefits – to increase payments, remove activity tests and ease means-testing – radically reduced poverty and food insecurity, even as the productive capacity of the economy declined.

Similar policies were enacted globally, with cash payments introduced in more than 200 countries. This experience of the pandemic reinforced growing calls to combine technological advances with a “universal basic income”.

This is a research focus of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a collaboration between Macquarie University, the University of Sydney and the Australian National University.

If everyone had a guaranteed income high enough to cover necessities, then market economies might be able to manage the transition, and the promises of technology might be broadly shared.

An array of fruit and vegetables, including oranges, apples, onions, potatoes — If Australia already has an abundance of food, why are some people going hungry?
Jools Magools/Pexels

Welfare, or rightful share?

When we talk about universal basic income, we have to be clear about what we mean. Some versions of the idea would still leave huge wealth inequalities.

My Australian Basic Income Lab colleague, Elise Klein, along with Stanford Professor James Ferguson, have called instead for a universal basic income designed not as welfare, but as a “rightful share”.

They argue the wealth created through technological advances and social cooperation is the collective work of humanity and should be enjoyed equally by all, as a basic human right. Just as we think of a country’s natural resources as the collective property of its people.

These debates over universal basic income are much older than the current questions raised by AI. A similar upsurge of interest in the concept occurred in early 20th-century Britain, when industrialisation and automation boosted growth without abolishing poverty, instead threatening jobs.

Even earlier, Luddites sought to smash new machines used to drive down wages. Market competition might produce incentives to innovate, but it also spreads the risks and rewards of technological change very unevenly.

Universal basic services

Rather than resisting AI, another solution is to change the social and economic system that distributes its gains. UK author Aaron Bastani offers a radical vision of “fully automated luxury communism”.

He welcomes technological advances, believing this should allow more leisure alongside rising living standards. It is a radical version of the more modest ambitions outlined by the Labor government’s new favourite book – Abundance.

Bastani’s preferred solution is not a universal basic income. Rather, he favours universal basic services.

Woman in a headscarf standing by a moving train — Under a universal basic services model, services like public transport would be made available for free.
Ersin Baştürk/Pexels

Instead of giving people money to buy what they need, why not provide necessities directly – as free health, care, transport, education, energy and so on?

Of course, this would mean changing how AI and other technologies are applied – effectively socialising their use to ensure they meet collective needs.

No guarantee of utopia

Proposals for universal basic income or services highlight that, even on optimistic readings, by itself AI is unlikely to bring about utopia.

Instead, as Peter Frase outlines, the combination of technological advance and ecological collapse can create very different futures, not only in how much we collectively can produce, but in how we politically determine who gets what and on what terms.

The enormous power of tech companies run by billionaires may suggest something closer to what former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls “technofeudalism”, where control of technology and online platforms replaces markets and democracy with a new authoritarianism.

Waiting for a technological “nirvana” misses the real possibilities of today. We already have enough food for everyone. We already know how to end poverty. We don’t need AI to tell us.

Ben Spies-Butcher is co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a research collaboration between Macquarie University, University of Sydney and Australian National University.

– ref. If AI takes most of our jobs, money as we know it will be over. What then? – https://theconversation.com/if-ai-takes-most-of-our-jobs-money-as-we-know-it-will-be-over-what-then-262338

August 18, 2025

Images from Gaza have shocked the world – but the ‘spectacle of suffering’ is a double-edged sword

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Sara Oscar, Senior Lecturer, Visual Communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

The power of the war photograph is that it won’t let you look away. And nowhere is this proving truer than in Gaza.

One recent example portrayed a skeletal boy, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, held in his mother’s arms. Palestinian photographer Ahmed al-Arini captured the boy and his mother in the iconic pose of the Madonna and child.

Photographs coming out of Gaza since October 2023 have communicated the severity of the destruction: collapsed buildings, bodies in shrouds, dead and maimed children, and bombed-out hospitals and shelters. There have also been viral AI-generated images, such as All Eyes on Rafah.

But none of these galvanised the public as much as the photographic evidence of Israel’s systemic starvation of Gazans. These photos were ubiquitous among the tens of thousands who marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3.

Between April and July, more than 20,000 people in Gaza were hospitalised for malnutrition, including 3,000 children in life-threatening condition.

The photo of Muhammad is a visual condensation of collective suffering that is impossible to ignore or deny. This is what makes it so powerful.

Drawing from religious imagery

War photography is often impactful because it communicates the brutalities of war with visual mastery.

Photographic elements such as composition, timing, tone, colour and light combine to create a visual story that is full of intent.

This is what American photographer and curator John Szarkowski called “the photographer’s eye”, and what French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson coined as “the decisive moment”. It is to know where to point the camera, when to release the shutter and how to select the “right” image to release into the world.

An iconic war photograph often reproduces a pose or gesture that is familiar to the popular imagination – particularly through iconic religious imagery. Think of the horrifying photos that came out of Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War, where one tortured prisoner was photographed in the pose of Christ on the cross.

Prisoner Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh is standing on the box with wires attached to his left and right hand.
Wikimedia

This was equally true of the 1972 image of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, the naked girl fleeing napalm in Vietnam with her arms outstretched.

Such photographs can change the course of war. They often shape how wars are remembered, even when there is controversy around their truthfulness and authorship, as we have seen with the contested image of Kim Phúc.

Truthfulness and authorship

Historically, there have been many controversies over the staging of war photographs. Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier (Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936) is one of the most famous and yet disputed images in the history of war photography.

It purports to show a soldier shot dead mid-fall during the Spanish Civil War. But historians suggest the man might have been posing, not dying.

Whether it is real or staged remains unresolved. Still, it circulates as though it is true – reminding us that the myths of war are just as important as the facts when it comes to how war is remembered.

Photos are limited by their inability to convey sound, smell, or any broader context. A staged photo might, at times, be even more effective than an unstaged one in conveying the lived experience of a war – even if the ethics of the staging are dubious.

The weaponisation of war imagery

Photos and video from Gaza continue to circulate on social media, despite Israel barring foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

Israeli authorities have killed Palestinian journalists in record numbers. Yet this visual censorship has not stopped citizen journalists and organisations such as Activestills
from sharing the atrocities in Gaza.

In Gaza, control over imagery has become part of the conflict. Al Jazeera was banned from operating inside Israel. Social media platform Meta has been found silencing posts from Palestinian accounts, with graphic images increasingly being labelled with warnings such as “sensitive content”.

What does it mean to be advised to look away from something someone else is living?

As we know from the second world war, images are powerful evidence. The photographs of starved concentration camp survivors during the Holocaust were used to prosecute Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials.

But the meaning of war photographs also depends on timing, context, who controls what is shown, and where the photos are distributed.

While these photos can communicate the horrors of a conflict, they are also entangled in acts of violence. In Abu Ghraib, American soldiers used photography to turn their war crimes into visual souvenirs. Similarly, Al Jazeera is collecting such “trophies” shared by Israeli soldiers as evidence of their war crimes.

Eliciting grief

American gender studies scholar Judith Butler argues Western media weaponise images to construct a hierarchy of grief that determines whose life is publicly mourned.

Publishing a war photograph is not just an act of documentation – it’s an act of interpretation. It shapes what others think is happening. In their book Picturing Atrocity (2012), Nancy Miller and colleagues ask us how we can witness suffering without turning it into spectacle.

The book raises important ethical questions. Who owns an image of someone suffering? What if the person photographed has died? What if the image perpetuates violence that hurts those closest to it?

A war photograph does not stop a missile. It does not feed a starving child. But it can interrupt denial and silence.

It can insist that something happened – and reinforce, as many of the placards on the Harbour Bridge said, “you cannot say you didn’t know”.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Images from Gaza have shocked the world – but the ‘spectacle of suffering’ is a double-edged sword – https://theconversation.com/images-from-gaza-have-shocked-the-world-but-the-spectacle-of-suffering-is-a-double-edged-sword-262693

August 18, 2025

Trump-Putin summit: Veteran diplomat explains why putting peace deal before ceasefire wouldn’t end Ukraine War

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin leave at the conclusion of a press conference on Aug. 15, 2025 in Alaska. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

If you’re confused about the aims, conduct and outcome of the summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, you’re probably not alone.

As summits go, the meeting broke with many conventions of diplomacy: It was last-minute, it appeared to ignore longstanding protocol and accounts of what happened were conflicting in the days after the early termination of the event.

The Conversation U.S.’s politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed Donald Heflin, a veteran diplomat now teaching at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, to help untangle what happened and what could happen next.

It was a hastily planned summit. Trump said they’d accomplish things that they didn’t seem to accomplish. Where do things stand now?

It didn’t surprise me or any experienced diplomat that there wasn’t a concrete result from the summit.

First, the two parties, Russia and Ukraine, weren’t asking to come to the peace table. Neither one of them is ready yet, apparently. Second, the process was flawed. It wasn’t prepared well enough in advance, at the secretary of state and foreign minister level. It wasn’t prepared at the staff level.

What was a bit of a surprise was the last couple days before the summit, the White House started sending out what I thought were kind of realistic signals. They said, “Hopefully we’ll get a ceasefire and then a second set of talks a few weeks in the future, and that’ll be the real set of talks.”

Two men in dark clothes hugging each other. — UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, here embracing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London on Aug. 14, 2025, is one of many European leaders voicing strong support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.
Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images

Now, that’s kind of reasonable. That could have happened. That was not a terrible plan. The problem was it didn’t happen. And we don’t know exactly why it didn’t happen.

Reading between the lines, there were a couple problems. The first is the Russians, again, just weren’t ready to do this, and they said, “No ceasefire. We want to go straight to permanent peace talks.”

Ukraine doesn’t want that, and neither do its European allies. Why?

When you do a ceasefire, what normally happens is you leave the warring parties in possession of whatever land their military holds right now. That’s just part of the deal. You don’t go into a 60- or 90-day ceasefire and say everybody’s got to pull back to where they were four years ago.

But if you go to a permanent peace plan, which Putin wants, you’ve got to decide that people are going to pull back, right? So that’s problem number one.

Problem number two is it’s clear that Putin is insisting on keeping some of the territory that his troops seized in 2014 and 2022. That’s just a non-starter for the Ukrainians.

Is Putin doing that because that really is his bottom line demand, or did he want to blow up these peace talks, and that was a good way to blow them up? It could be either or both.

Russia has made it clear that it wants to keep parts of Ukraine, based on history and ethnic makeup.

The problem is, the world community has made it clear for decades and decades and decades, you don’t get what you want by invading the country next door.

Remember in Gulf War I, when Saddam Hussein invaded and swallowed Kuwait and made it the 19th province of Iraq? The U.S. and Europe went in there and kicked him out. Then there are also examples where the U.S. and Europe have told countries, “Don’t do this. You do this, it’s going to be bad for you.”

So if Russia learns that it can invade Ukraine and seize territory and be allowed to keep it, what’s to keep them from doing it to some other country? What’s to keep some other country from doing it?

You mean the whole world is watching.

Yes. And the other thing the world is watching is the U.S. gave security guarantees to Ukraine in 1994 when they gave up the nuclear weapons they held, as did Europe. The U.S. has, both diplomatically and in terms of arms, supported Ukraine during this war. If the U.S. lets them down, what kind of message does that send about how reliable a partner the U.S. is?

The U.S. has this whole other thing going on the other side of the world where the country is confronting China on various levels. What if the U.S. sends a signal to the Taiwanese, “Hey, you better make the best deal you can with China, because we’re not going to back your play.”

Police dressed in combat gear help an old woman across rubble left after a bombing. — Ukrainian police officers evacuate a resident from a residential building in Bilozerske following an airstrike by Russian invading forces on Aug. 17, 2025.
Pierre Crom/Getty Images

At least six European leaders are coming to Washington along with Zelenskyy. What does that tell you?

They’re presenting a united front to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say, “Look, we can’t have this. Europe’s composed of a bunch of countries. If we get in the situation where one country invades the other and gets to keep the land they took, we can’t have it.”

President Trump had talked to all of them before the summit, and they probably came away with a strong impression that the U.S. was going for a ceasefire. And then, that didn’t happen.

Instead, Trump took Putin’s position of going straight to peace talks, no ceasefire.

I don’t think they liked it. I think they’re coming in to say to him, “No, we have to go to ceasefire first. Then talks and, PS, taking territory and keeping it is terrible precedent. What’s to keep Russia from just storming into the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – next? The maps of Europe that were drawn 100 years ago have held. If we’re going to let Russia erase a bunch of the borders on the map and incorporate parts, it could really be chaotic.”

Where do you see things going?

Until and unless you hear there’s a ceasefire, nothing’s really happened and the parties are continuing to fight and kill.

What I would look for after the Monday meetings is, does Trump stick to his guns post-Alaska and say, “No, we’re gonna have a big, comprehensive peace agreement, and land for peace is on the table.”

Or does he kind of swing back towards the European point of view and say, “I really think the first thing we got to have is a ceasefire”?

Even critics of Trump need to acknowledge that he’s never been a warmonger. He doesn’t like war. He thinks it’s too chaotic. He can’t control it. No telling what will happen at the other end of war. I think he sincerely wants for the shooting and the killing to stop above all else.

The way you do that is a ceasefire. You have two parties say, “Look, we still hate each other. We still have this really important issue of who controls these territories, but we both agree it’s in our best interest to stop the fighting for 60, 90 days while we work on this.”

If you don’t hear that coming out of the White House into the Monday meetings, this isn’t going anywhere.

There are thousands of Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia – essentially kidnapped. Does that enter into any of these negotiations?

It should. It was a terror tactic.

This could be a place where you can make progress. If Putin said, well, “We still don’t want to give you any land, but, yeah, these kids here, you can have them back,” it’s the kind of thing you throw on the table to show that you’re not a bad guy and you are kind of serious about these talks.

Whether they’ll do that or not, I don’t know. It’s really a tragic story.

Donald Heflin 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.

– ref. Trump-Putin summit: Veteran diplomat explains why putting peace deal before ceasefire wouldn’t end Ukraine War – https://theconversation.com/trump-putin-summit-veteran-diplomat-explains-why-putting-peace-deal-before-ceasefire-wouldnt-end-ukraine-war-263314

August 17, 2025

Rosalind Franklin : la scientifique derrière la découverte de la structure de l’ADN, bien trop longtemps invisibilisée

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Coralie Thieulin, Enseignant chercheur en physique à l’ECE, docteure en biophysique, ECE Paris

*En 1962, le prix Nobel de physiologie ou médecine est attribué à Watson, Crick et Wilkins pour la découverte de la structure de l’ADN. Rosalind Franklin n’est pas mentionnée, elle est pourtant à l’origine de cette découverte majeure. Découvrez son histoire et tous ses exploits scientifiques, notamment en virologie. *

« La science et la vie quotidienne ne peuvent pas et ne doivent pas être séparées. »

Cette phrase de Rosalind Franklin éclaire sa vision singulière : pour elle, la science n’était pas une abstraction, mais un chemin concret vers une meilleure compréhension du monde. Tout au long de sa vie, elle a su allier une rigueur scientifique sans faille à un engagement discret, dans un univers où les femmes peinaient encore à obtenir la reconnaissance qu’elles méritaient.

Ni figure publique ni militante affichée, Rosalind Franklin travaillait dans l’ombre, avec une exigence et une méthode implacables. Et pourtant, c’est grâce à son expertise que la lumière a traversé la molécule d’ADN, révélant sa fameuse forme en double hélice.

À une époque où la place des femmes en science restait fragile, elle imposa sa voie avec précision et détermination, convaincue que la véritable beauté réside dans la structure profonde des choses.

Une détermination née dès l’enfance

Le 25 juillet 1920, au cœur du quartier londonien de Notting Hill, naît Rosalind Elsie Franklin, deuxième enfant d’une fratrie de cinq. Issue d’une famille juive britannique aisée et cultivée, elle grandit dans un environnement où la rigueur intellectuelle et l’engagement social sont des piliers. Son père, Ellis Arthur Franklin, banquier passionné de physique, rêvait d’être scientifique mais a vu ses ambitions fauchées par la Première Guerre mondiale. Sa mère, Muriel Waley, militait activement pour l’éducation des femmes. Ce mélange d’idéalisme, de savoir et de devoir allait profondément façonner Rosalind.

Dès l’enfance, elle fait preuve d’une intelligence hors norme. À six ans, elle passe ses journées à résoudre des problèmes d’arithmétique, sans jamais faire d’erreur, selon sa tante. À neuf ans, elle se lance un défi personnel : finir chaque semaine première de sa classe. Elle tiendra ce pari pendant deux ans. Déjà se dessine une personnalité exigeante, compétitive et intensément tournée vers la connaissance. Mais dans la société britannique des années 1920, une telle ambition, chez une fille, suscite autant d’admiration que de réticence, dans un contexte où la place des femmes restait largement cantonnée à la sphère domestique.

Une vocation affirmée dès l’adolescence

Rosalind Franklin poursuit ses études au prestigieux St Paul’s Girls’ School, l’un des rares établissements à enseigner les sciences aux jeunes filles. Elle y brille, notamment en physique et en mathématiques. En 1938, elle entre au Newnham College de l’Université de Cambridge, l’un des deux collèges féminins de l’époque. Son choix de se spécialiser en chimie et en physique n’est pas encore courant chez les femmes.

En 1941, en pleine guerre mondiale, elle obtient son diplôme. Tandis que beaucoup de femmes sont orientées vers des rôles d’assistante, Rosalind refuse tout compromis et intègre un laboratoire du British Coal Utilisation Research Association (Association britannique pour la recherche sur l’utilisation du charbon). Elle y étudie la microstructure du charbon par diffraction des rayons X, technique qui deviendra sa spécialité.

Ces recherches, bien que menées dans un contexte de guerre, auront des retombées industrielles majeures, notamment pour la fabrication de masques à gaz et de matériaux isolants.

En 1945, Rosalind Franklin obtient un doctorat de Cambridge – un exploit pour une femme à cette époque. En effet, à cette période, Cambridge ne délivrait pas officiellement de diplômes aux femmes, ce qui rend cet accomplissement d’autant plus remarquable, car Franklin fait partie des premières à obtenir un doctorat dans un contexte universitaire encore très fermé aux femmes.

Un interlude heureux à Paris

En 1947, une nouvelle étape marque sa vie : elle rejoint le Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l’État, à Paris, sur invitation de Jacques Mering. Elle y perfectionne ses compétences en cristallographie par rayons X et découvre un environnement de travail plus ouvert, où sa parole est écoutée et ses idées respectées.

Elle se lie d’amitié avec des chercheurs, découvre la culture française, et adopte un mode de vie simple mais libre. Elle parcourt les Alpes à pied, discute dans les bistrots, s’immerge dans la langue et la gastronomie. Elle confiera plus tard :

« Je pourrais vagabonder en France pour toujours. J’adore le pays, les gens et la nourriture. »

Pour une femme qui a toujours ressenti le poids du sexisme britannique, la France offre alors un souffle de liberté. En effet, l’université britannique, en particulier Cambridge et King’s college, reste encore profondément patriarcale : les femmes sont exclues des clubs et réunions informelles et ne reçoivent officiellement des diplômes à Cambridge qu’à partir de 1947.

La « Dark Lady » de la double hélice

Mais la science l’appelle ailleurs. En 1951, elle retourne en Angleterre avec une bourse prestigieuse (Turner and Newall Fellowship). Elle rejoint le King’s College de Londres, au département de biophysique, pour travailler sur une mystérieuse molécule encore peu comprise : l’ADN. On sait, depuis Avery (1944), qu’elle joue un rôle dans l’hérédité, et Chargaff (1950) a établi que les bases azotées se répartissent selon des proportions constantes (A=T, G=C), mais la structure tridimensionnelle demeure inconnue. C’est là que son destin scientifique se joue.

Franklin apporte au projet son expertise pointue en diffraction X. En quelques mois, elle améliore considérablement les images de l’ADN, et capture l’une des photographies les plus célèbres de l’histoire de la biologie : le « cliché 51 ». Cette image révèle, avec une clarté inédite, la forme hélicoïdale de la molécule d’ADN. On y voit des taches disposées en forme de X, révélant que la molécule forme une double hélice régulière. L’espacement des taches renseigne sur la distance entre les bases (A, T, C et G), et leur symétrie suggère une structure très ordonnée.

Rosalind Franklin identifie également deux formes distinctes de l’ADN selon l’humidité (forme A et B), et démontre que les groupements phosphate sont orientés vers l’extérieur.

Mais derrière cette réussite, l’ambiance au laboratoire est tendue. Franklin est la seule femme scientifique du département, et ses collègues masculins, notamment Maurice Wilkins, voient son indépendance comme de l’insubordination. En effet, Wilkins pensait que Franlkin arrivait au laboratoire comme assistante sous sa direction. De son côté, Rosalind pensait avoir été recrutée pour diriger ses propres recherches sur l’ADN,de manière indépendante. Cette incompréhension institutionnelle a été exacerbée par une communication défaillante de la part de John Randall, directeur du laboratoire, qui n’a pas informé Wilkins de l’autonomie accordée à Franklin. Wilkins n’a appris cette décision que des années plus tard, ce qui a contribué à des tensions professionnelles. Ce dernier, persuadé qu’elle est son assistante, se heurte à son refus catégorique de toute hiérarchie injustifiée. Leur relation devient glaciale. Dans ce climat conservateur et misogyne, Franklin se heurte à un plafond de verre invisible, mais solide.

C’est dans ce contexte qu’un événement aux lourdes conséquences se produit. Sans son consentement, Wilkins montre le cliché 51 à James Watson, jeune chercheur de Cambridge. Ce dernier, avec Francis Crick, travaille lui aussi sur l’ADN, mais sans données expérimentales directes. En découvrant la photographie, Watson est stupéfait :

« Ma mâchoire s’est ouverte et mon pouls s’est emballé. »

La photographie de Franklin devient la pièce manquante qui leur permet de construire leur célèbre modèle de la double hélice. En avril 1953, trois articles fondamentaux sur l’ADN paraissent dans la revue Nature. Le premier, signé par Watson et Crick, propose le célèbre modèle en double hélice, fondé sur des raisonnements théoriques et des données expérimentales issues d’autres laboratoires – notamment le cliché 51, transmis à leur insu par Maurice Wilkins. Le second article, coécrit par Wilkins, Stokes et Wilson, présente des résultats de diffraction des rayons X qui confirment la présence d’une structure hélicoïdale, en cohérence avec le modèle proposé. Le troisième, rédigé par Rosalind Franklin et Raymond Gosling, expose avec rigueur leurs propres données expérimentales, parmi les plus décisives, mais sans que Franklin ait été informée de leur utilisation préalable par Watson et Crick. Bien que sa contribution soit déterminante, elle n’est mentionnée que brièvement dans les remerciements.

Watson la surnomme plus tard dans ses mémoires « Rosy », un diminutif qu’elle n’a jamais utilisé et qu’elle détestait. Il la décrit comme austère, inflexible, difficile – un portrait injuste qui trahit davantage les préjugés de l’époque que la réalité de sa personne. Ses collègues masculins l’appellent la « Dark Lady » de l’ADN.

Blessée, fatiguée par ce climat toxique, Franklin quitte le King’s College dès la fin 1953. Mais loin d’abandonner, elle rebondit immédiatement.

La renaissance scientifique : les virus

Elle rejoint alors le Birkbeck College, un établissement de l’Université de Londres situé à Bloomsbury, sur l’invitation du physicien John Bernal qui la qualifie de « brillante expérimentatrice ». Elle y obtient un poste de chercheuse senior, à la tête de son propre groupe de recherche, financé par l’Agricultural Research Council. Là, elle applique ses compétences en diffraction X à un nouveau domaine : les virus. Elle se lance dans l’étude du virus de la mosaïque du tabac, un petit virus végétal très étudié. Avec son équipe, les doctorants Kenneth Holmes et John Finch, le jeune chercheur postdoctoral Aaron Klug, futur prix Nobel, ainsi que l’assistant de recherche James Watt, elle démontre que l’ARN du virus est situé à l’intérieur d’une coque protéique hélicoïdale. Cette découverte est essentielle car elle montre la forme en 3D du virus, explique comment l’ARN est protégé à l’intérieur, et crée les bases pour mieux comprendre les virus. Cela a aidé à progresser dans la recherche pour trouver des traitements contre les infections virales.

Entre 1953 et 1958, elle publie plus de 15 articles majeurs, établissant les bases de la virologie moléculaire. Elle travaille également sur la structure du virus de la polio, en collaboration avec le futur prix Nobel Aaron Klug, récompensé en 1982 pour son développement de la microscopie électronique cristallographique et l’élucidation des complexes biologiques entre acides nucléiques et protéines. Elle est enfin dans un environnement où elle est écoutée, respectée, et même admirée.

Un destin interrompu

Mais en 1956, le destin frappe cruellement. Au cours d’un séjour aux États-Unis, Franklin ressent de fortes douleurs abdominales. Le diagnostic tombe : cancer des ovaires. Elle a 36 ans. La maladie est probablement liée à son exposition répétée aux rayons X, à une époque où les protections étaient rudimentaires, voire absentes.

Malgré plusieurs opérations et de lourds traitements, elle continue de travailler, fidèle à sa discipline et à sa passion. Jusqu’à ses derniers mois, elle écrit, corrige, encourage, dirige. Elle meurt le 16 avril 1958, à l’âge de 37 ans.

Un prix Nobel sans elle

Quatre ans après sa mort, en 1962, le prix Nobel de physiologie ou médecine est attribué à Watson, Crick et Wilkins pour la découverte de la structure de l’ADN. Rosalind Franklin n’est pas mentionnée. Officiellement, le prix ne peut être attribué à titre posthume. Officieusement, elle n’a jamais été sérieusement envisagée comme co-lauréate, car son nom ne circulait pas dans les cercles masculins du pouvoir scientifique.

Une reconnaissance restaurée

Il faudra attendre les années 1970 pour que sa contribution soit pleinement reconnue. D’abord par Anne Sayre, amie de Franklin, journaliste américaine et amie proche de Franklin rencontrée à Londres dans les années 1950 grâce à leur cercle social commun lié au monde scientifique, qui publie Rosalind Franklin and DNA en 1975 pour rétablir les faits. Puis, bien après, en 2002, avec la biographie The Dark Lady of DNA, écrite par Brenda Maddox et qui rencontre un grand écho international.

Aujourd’hui, son nom est inscrit sur des bâtiments universitaires, des bourses, des prix scientifiques. En 2020, elle est sélectionnée par le magazine Nature parmi les plus grandes scientifiques du XX^e siècle. En 2021, la mission spatiale européenne vers Mars, nommée Rosalind Franklin Rover, a été lancée pour chercher des traces de vie passée dans le sous-sol martien. Ce nom rend hommage à Franklin, dont les travaux sur la structure de l’ADN symbolisent la recherche des bases moléculaires du vivant.

Rosalind Franklin, longtemps éclipsée par ses pairs, incarne aujourd’hui bien plus qu’une figure oubliée de la science. Elle est devenue un symbole de ténacité, d’éthique scientifique, et de justice. Une pionnière dont l’éclat posthume inspire chercheuses et chercheurs à persévérer malgré les obstacles, les discriminations et les injustices qu’ils peuvent rencontrer.

Coralie Thieulin ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Rosalind Franklin : la scientifique derrière la découverte de la structure de l’ADN, bien trop longtemps invisibilisée – https://theconversation.com/rosalind-franklin-la-scientifique-derriere-la-decouverte-de-la-structure-de-ladn-bien-trop-longtemps-invisibilisee-262141

August 17, 2025

Online reviews influence what we buy, but should they have that much power over our choices?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Katie Mehr, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Business Economics, and Law, University of Alberta

Imagine you’re looking to buy a new grill. You want to make sure you purchase a well-built, easy-to-use grill for you and your family. How can you determine which one is best to purchase?

On the one hand, you can rely on information the manufacturer provides to understand things like what material the grill is made from, how big it is and whether it has additional features like a grease management system. But this information doesn’t really tell you what it’s like to own the grill, or whether the grill will work well for your summer barbecue aspirations.

For that, you probably want to hear from people who have bought and used the grill and can speak to its quality.

This example highlights the appeal of product ratings and reviews: by providing insight from people who actually bought and used the grill, aspiring grill owners learn more about what owning it will be like.

Predicting experience

People rely on reviews because they want to predict what their experience will be like with a product. They see reviews as a good source of information for making this prediction.

Reviews are also plentiful and almost costless to produce and access, bolstering the likelihood that people use them. And, people can sort through reviews to find information about specific attributes and benefits of the product (for example, whether a grill evenly cooks steak), which can help address specific queries or concerns.

Taken together, these benefits lead people to rely on reviews to determine whether they should buy a given product.

In fact, reviews are so heavily relied upon that they influence product sales and even stock prices. Given up to 98 per cent of consumers read reviews before making a purchase, the out-sized role reviews have makes sense.

But should people rely so heavily on reviews? The answer to this question is much more nuanced. On the one hand, product reviews are easy to access, provided by a third party (not the same entity trying to sell the product) and are often written with good intentions.

On the other hand, academic research, including my own, has shown there are many reasons to suspect reviews are not quite as valuable as they may seem.

Bias in reviews

Many of these reasons stem from a common argument, which is that reviews may not provide an objective, unbiased measure of product quality. Indeed, a number of seemingly irrelevant factors affect the star ratings and reviews that are given.

For example, asking raters to fill out both an overall rating and several attribute ratings leads them to give a higher overall rating when their experience with the product was subpar. Additionally, filling out a review on a smartphone leads reviewers to provide more emotionally driven, less specific reviews.

The context of product use can also affect ratings given; a winter jacket is rated more favourably when the outdoor temperature is warmer because raters attribute their comfort not to the warm temperatures, but to the coat. And, receiving a special designation, like being a “Superhost” on Airbnb, can actually decrease average ratings, as raters now compare their experience to higher expectations when determining what rating to give.

Previous research has also documented how the way reviews are displayed affects review readers’ product perceptions. For instance, people often make categorical distinctions between favourable and unfavourable ratings, while being insufficiently sensitive to differences between ratings of the same valence (for example, between 1 and 2 stars or 4 and 5 stars).

Additionally, people often heavily weigh a product’s average rating, at the expense of considering important quality signals, like the number of ratings and price.

AI and fake reviews

More recently, additional concerns have been raised about review quality. Fake reviews can make up a sizeable proportion of available reviews, and businesses that are more affected by these reviews, like smaller, independently owned restaurants, are more likely to engage in review fraud.

Additionally, the proliferation of AI has led to an increase in chatbot-authored product reviews, which can be difficult for both companies and consumers to filter out.

Taken together, reviews can be a useful source of information, but have a number of important flaws and limitations. In theory, providing information about what owning a product is actually like from a neutral, third-party source is extremely useful.

In practice, however, the execution of this vision leaves room for improvement and future research.

Katie Mehr 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.

– ref. Online reviews influence what we buy, but should they have that much power over our choices? – https://theconversation.com/online-reviews-influence-what-we-buy-but-should-they-have-that-much-power-over-our-choices-261162

August 17, 2025

As negotiations on a global plastics treaty stall, cleanup efforts are more vital than ever

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Chelsea Rochman, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto

Representatives at the recent United Nations conference in Geneva have once again failed to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle plastic pollution. The Switzerland gathering was the sixth round of talks in less than three years and was held after countries failed to reach agreement at a 2024 meeting in South Korea. Chair of the negotiating committee, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, said countries will now work on finding a date and location for another meeting.

Plastic pollution is a global crisis. An estimated 23 million metric tons of plastic waste enters global aquatic ecosystems annually. This massive amount is expected to more than double by 2030 if we don’t change our relationship with plastic. To avoid this fate, we cannot focus just on prevention or cleanup — all actions to tackle plastic pollution must occur together.

Urgent and co-ordinated action is needed to reduce plastic production, redesign plastics to manage toxic chemicals and increase recyclability, improve waste management systems and clean up pollution.

Among these strategies, cleanup — recovering plastic waste from the environment — is often considered a lower priority compared to prevention at the source. Preventing plastic pollution is imperative, but we must not forget that plastic left in the environment does not disappear. It persists, accumulates, breaks apart into micro- and nanoplastics and continues to cause harm.

As long as we are producing plastics there will be leakage into the environment. As such, cleanup is needed to mitigate ecological, economic and social impacts of plastic pollution now and in the future.

Scaling up cleanup solutions

Cleanup efforts are most often carried out by hand through volunteers. These can range from a couple of people cleaning their local park or beach to large groups coming together for an event.

Cleanups remove millions of kilograms of trash from the environment each year. However, with plastic pollution becoming an ever-growing problem, we need to increase cleanup efforts by orders of magnitude.

International collaboration is necessary to tackle this global problem. At the University of Toronto Trash Team, we came together with Ocean Conservancy to found the International Trash Trap Network (ITTN), a global network of local groups working together to clean up plastic pollution using trash traps.

What is a trash trap?

Trash traps are technologies designed to clean up plastic waste from aquatic ecosystems. They range in design from simple river booms to roaming robots that clean beaches.

Trash traps are increasingly used to supplement manual cleanup efforts. They can work around the clock to target pollution, both on land and in waterways, cleaning areas that are unsafe or inaccessible for humans.

Some trash traps can also clean up small plastic waste, such as microplastics, that humans often miss as they are difficult to see.

With every trash trap program in the network, local stakeholders come together to clean up plastic waste, monitor local sources and pathways, engage and inform communities about the issue, and contribute to an open-source global cleanup database to inform and motivate upstream solutions to prevent plastic pollution.

The ITTN serves as a platform for anyone using a trash trap to share their local impact and facilitate knowledge exchange to motivate and empower global action to clean up, monitor and prevent plastic pollution.

Benefits of cleanup efforts

Although cleanup primarily addresses the symptoms of plastic pollution, it can address the root causes through its additional benefits. Citizen scientists have recorded data on the weight and count of items they collect during cleanup events. This is evident in the extensive datasets compiled by organizations such as Ocean Conservancy, which has logged 40 years of data from volunteer-led International Coastal Cleanup events.

Using this data, we can better understand local sources of pollution, identify prominent pollutants and prioritize specific solutions that will have the greatest impact. Policies to reduce single-use plastic consumption in Canada, and in U.S. states like California and Maryland, have been developed based on evidence from cleanup data.

Cleanup data collection is a means for developing baselines and to measure policy efficacy. In the United States, shoreline cleanup data was recently used to demonstrate that plastic bag policies significantly reduced the proportion of plastic bags in shoreline litter.

Cleanup also serves as a powerful platform for public communication about plastic pollution. A significant driver of our plastic pollution crisis is human behaviour. As such, we must also consider how public understanding and perception of plastic pollution affects behaviour change and support for policy change.

Bringing communities together to clean up and share information facilitates community engagement and inspires hope. What’s more, by allowing individuals to encounter the problems caused by plastic pollution firsthand, this experience often changes their perspective on the issue from being just another news story to a reality.

The hands-on nature of cleanup empowers communities to act, reduce the issue and motivates calls for social and policy change.

Although cleaning your local park, beach or waterway might seem like a small act, it is an important tool for reducing plastic pollution, increasing awareness and informing polices that have lasting impact.

By strategically increasing cleanup efforts, we can target areas of greatest impact, incite behavioural change, and collect and share monitoring data. This can inform baselines, trends over time, reduction targets and solutions for plastic pollution — reducing the harm of plastic pollution while we work locally and globally to prevent it.

Chelsea Rochman receives funding from Canadian government institutions and some local partners – PortsToronto, Waterfront BIA, Nieuport Aviation, and others – to fund cleanup work on the Toronto Waterfront.

Britta Baechler and Hannah De Frond do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. As negotiations on a global plastics treaty stall, cleanup efforts are more vital than ever – https://theconversation.com/as-negotiations-on-a-global-plastics-treaty-stall-cleanup-efforts-are-more-vital-than-ever-262875

August 17, 2025

‘Fixing’ neurodivergent kids misses the point — it’s the schools that need to change

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Amina Yousaf, Associate Head, Early Childhood Studies, University of Guelph-Humber

The start of the school year brings excitement and new routines. But for many neurodiverse children, it also marks the return of being misunderstood.

Parents may notice their child struggling with transitions, overstimulated by noisy classrooms or labelled “disruptive” after a few days. Educators, meanwhile, may not be equipped to interpret behaviours that fall outside the expected norms.

Some education programs, like Ontario’s Kindergarten Program, emphasize play-based curricula and encourage assessment of students’ development across varied domains of learning. However, traditional notions of school “readiness” can still linger.

In my experience as an educator and mentor to student teachers, I’ve sometimes observed this “readiness” being narrowly interpreted as sitting still, following routines and complying with adult directions.

For many neurodiverse children — those with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences or other cognitive variations — these misunderstandings can lead to missed supports, exclusionary practices and long-term inequities in education and life outcomes.

When systems fail to understand and accommodate neurodivergent individuals early on, these challenges often persist into adulthood, affecting quality of life and social inclusion.

Racialized children are overlooked

Although public awareness of neurodiversity is growing, many children in Canada are still diagnosed too late to benefit from early intervention.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, while the median age of autism diagnosis is around 3.7 years, only 54 per cent of children are diagnosed before age five, meaning nearly half miss the most critical developmental window.

But diagnosis is only part of the issue. Many neurodiverse children are never identified at all, either because their behaviours are misread or because their families face systemic barriers to health-care and assessment services.

Research shows that South Asian immigrant families, especially in Ontario, often experience delays in autism diagnosis due to stigma, language barriers, cultural misunderstandings and difficulties navigating complex or unfamiliar systems.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis families are also underrepresented in autism data. These communities often face a “frozen in time” response from health and social services — a term that reflects outdated or inflexible systems with little culturally relevant support and/or screening tools to support their needs.

As a result, many racialized children are disproportionately diagnosed late, or not at all, and are denied the early support that could transform their lives.

School-related distress

School transitions can be stressful for neurodivergent students when environments emphasize rigid behavioural norms and overlook diverse ways of learning. Emerging research suggests that these challenges often begin in the early years and continue to shape students’ educational pathways.

Research also shows students with Autism Spectrum Disorder experience school transitions as periods of heightened stress because of changes in relationships, routines and expectations, primarily when individual needs are not adequately supported.

Without adequate training in neurodiversity, many educators feel unprepared and rely heavily on diagnoses to guide support. When educators aren’t prepared, this can result in exclusionary teaching practices, and missed supports and long-term inequities for students. School-related distress is overwhelmingly concentrated among neurodivergent students, and it’s often linked to environments that are inflexible or unresponsive to their needs.

These systemic gaps contribute to the growing school attendance crisis and underscore the need for more inclusive, neuroaffirming educational practices.

Often, educational settings focus on changing the child rather than adapting the system. School systems must shift away from deficit-based approaches, which regard neurodivergent children in terms of what they lack. These approaches overlook systemic barriers, blame students for their challenges and overlook their strengths.

Instead, school systems should focus on transforming the learning environment itself. A neuro-inclusive model reframes behaviours not as problems within the child but as a sign the school environment may not be supportive of their needs. This perspective prioritizes belonging, flexibility and universal support, starting with how we design classrooms, not how we label children.

Neurodiversity is not a problem to fix

Rather than seeing neurodivergence as a problem to diagnose, educators should approach it as a difference to understand. Neurodiversity, first popularized by autistic advocates in the 1990s, recognizes that neurological differences are part of natural human variation.

From this lens, behaviours like fidgeting, stimming or requiring extra transition time are seen as expressions of self-regulation and cognitive needs. A recent educational psychology article reframes stimming as a bodily practice that supports focus and emotional processing in environments designed for neurotypical norms.

Educational systems often create barriers because schools are not built with diverse ways of knowing and being in mind. Neurodiversity is not a problem to fix; it’s a dimension of human diversity to embrace.

Inclusion should not depend on labels; it should be a proactive strategy. Designing classrooms for cognitive and sensory differences from the start ensures all children, especially those from racialized and underserved communities, feel like they belong and can thrive.

What educators and families can do

Creating inclusive classrooms doesn’t require waiting for a diagnosis, it requires a mindset shift. Frameworks like universal design for learning (UDL) offer educators multiple ways for children to engage, express themselves and participate. In early years settings, this might look like:

visual schedules and picture cues to support transitions;
flexible seating, movement breaks or calming corners;
storybooks and materials that reflect neurodiversity as part of everyday life;
observing strengths before jumping in to “fix” perceived deficits.

Research supports these approaches. An inclusive preschool study found that using UDL strategies such as choice-making, varied materials, flexible seating and multimodal activities, led to better skill development, emotional regulation and engagement in both diagnosed and undiagnosed children.

Another 2023 study found that UDL-informed circle-time practices — like predictable routines, participation options and movement supports — fostered greater student participation and a sense of belonging in early-year classrooms.

When classrooms are intentionally designed for neurodiversity, they serve everyone better, from day one.

A call to start September differently

As the new school year starts, educators must shift from asking “is this child ready for school?” to “is the school ready for this child?” This reframing challenges deficit-based notions of readiness and calls for schools to adapt their environments, practices and mindsets to welcome all learners equitably.

This change means educators must slow down, listen to behaviours with curiosity and remember that all children communicate differently. It also means school boards, education ministries and provincial governments need to give educators the tools, time and training to recognize neurodiverse learners with care.

When support is no longer conditional on a formal diagnosis or a child being regarded as having exceptional needs, schools open the door to educational equity. When neurodiverse children are seen and valued from the start, rather than excluded or expected to be fixed, they are more likely to thrive.

As Ontario’s own policy documents show, school systems already have a strong foundation for inclusive practice. What’s needed now is the will to put those principles into action, starting in September.

Every child deserves to feel like school is a place for them.

Amina Yousaf 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.

– ref. ‘Fixing’ neurodivergent kids misses the point — it’s the schools that need to change – https://theconversation.com/fixing-neurodivergent-kids-misses-the-point-its-the-schools-that-need-to-change-258267

August 17, 2025

Quand Donald Trump déploie le tapis rouge pour Vladimir Poutine

Il ressort de cette séquence que Trump ne voit aucun inconvénient à offrir des victoires symboliques à Poutine et qu’il refuse d’exercer à son encontre la moindre pression réelle.

Les victoires symboliques de Poutine

Quelles conséquences pour l’avenir ?

Cela permettrait également à la Russie de lancer plus aisément d’éventuelles incursions futures, ouvrant la voie vers Dnipro à l’ouest et vers Kharkiv au nord.

Il existe toutefois un élément à première vue plus encourageant pour l’Ukraine : les États-Unis seraient prêts à lui offrir des garanties de sécurité « hors OTAN ».

Il faut reconnaître que les dirigeants européens ont réagi avec fermeté aux transactions de Trump avec Poutine.

Les motivations profondes de Trump

Plus inquiétant encore : les initiatives diplomatiques de Trump continuent de le faire passer pour un jouet entre les mains des dirigeants autoritaires.

– ref. Quand Donald Trump déploie le tapis rouge pour Vladimir Poutine – https://theconversation.com/quand-donald-trump-deploie-le-tapis-rouge-pour-vladimir-poutine-263313