Category: The Conversation

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Tunisie : les médecins pratiquent une discrimination subtile envers les patients les plus pauvres , selon une enquête

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Timothy Powell-Jackson, Professor of Health Economics, Global Health Economics Centre, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Les personnes ayant des revenus plus faibles et un niveau d’éducation moins élevé tombent plus souvent malades. Elles ont un aussi un accès plus difficile aux soins et vivent moins longtemps. C’est l’une des conclusions les plus constantes des recherches menées dans le domaine de la santé à travers le monde.

Mais les médecins eux-mêmes amplifient-ils ces inégalités ?

En tant qu’économistes de la santé intéressés par le comportement des prestataires de soins, nous avons cherché à explorer un facteur peu étudié des inégalités en matière de santé en Tunisie : la question de savoir si les médecins traitent différement les patients selon leur origine selon le milieu socio-économique lors d’une consultation.

Nous avons choisi la Tunisie car c’est un pays à revenu intermédiaire où les inégalités socio-économiques et sanitaires s’accentuent. Jusqu’à récemment, il existait peu de preuves solides de discrimination de la part des prestataires de soins de santé dans les pays à revenu faible et intermédiaire, où les inégalités en matière de santé sont souvent plus importantes et les systèmes de santé plus sollicités que dans les pays plus riches.

Nous avons conçu une expérience d’audit dans le pays, en envoyant des patients standardisés (des travailleurs de terrain formés pour se faire passer pour des patients anonymes) présentant des symptômes identiques à des médecins généralistes publics et privés.

Nous avons varié l’attitude et l’apparence des patients afin qu’ils semblent « pauvres » ou « issus de la classe moyenne ». Les profils des patients ont été élaborés à partir de recherches qualitatives antérieures afin de refléter la manière dont les médecins perçoivent généralement les différences socio-économiques. Le problème médical étant identique à chaque consultation, toute différence dans le comportement des médecins pouvait être attribuée à leur perception du milieu socio-économique du patient.

Nous n’avons trouvé aucune preuve que les médecins traitaient les patients différemment. Les diagnostics et les décisions thérapeutiques étaient similaires pour tous les profils sociaux. Mais notre étude a révélé une forme plus subtile d’inégalité : si les patients les plus pauvres recevaient un traitement médical similaire à celui des patients plus aisés, ils étaient moins susceptibles :

  • d’obtenir des explications sur leur maladie et les raisons du traitement proposé

  • d’obtenir des conseils médicaux corrects sur les recommandations futures.

Nous avons conclu qu’en communiquant moins efficacement avec les patients les plus pauvres, les médecins pouvaient contribuer indirectement aux inégalités en matière de santé.

Les inégalités en matière de santé ne s’arrêtent pas à la porte de la clinique

Des recherche menées dans des pays à revenu élevé ont montré que les jugements des médecins peuvent parfois être influencés (souvent inconsciemment) par le milieu social du patient.

Cela influe sur le temps que les médecins consacrent à expliquer un diagnostic, sur le sérieux avec lequel ils prennent les préoccupations du patient et sur la clarté avec laquelle ils communiquent les étapes suivantes.

Pour explorer cette question, nous avons mené une expérience sur le terrain auprès de 130 médecins généralistes en Tunisie. Deux patients standardisés ont rendu visite à chaque médecin. Ils ont tous suivi le même scénario soigneusement élaboré et ont présenté le même problème médical : les symptômes d’une bronchite aiguë, une affection courante qui ne nécessite généralement pas d’antibiotiques.

La seule différence résidait dans la manière dont les patients acteurs se présentaient socialement.

Certains patients semblaient plus pauvres, s’exprimaient avec hésitation et portaient des vêtements bon marché. D’autres semblaient appartenir à la classe moyenne, communiquaient avec plus d’assurance et portaient des vêtements plus élégants.

Ce que nous avons découvert

Les résultats étaient mitigés et révélateurs.

Tout d’abord, rien n’indiquait que les médecins dispensaient des soins de moins bonne qualité aux patients plus pauvres. Les diagnostics et les décisions thérapeutiques étaient similaires quel que soit le profil social. Cela est rassurant et suggère que les médecins ne dispensaient pas délibérément des soins de moindre qualité aux patients qu’ils percevaient comme plus pauvres.

Cependant, la qualité globale des soins était faible pour tout le monde. Seul un patient sur trois environ était pris en charge selon les meilleures pratiques. Plus de 90 % ont reçu des traitements inutiles, le plus souvent des antibiotiques ou des stéroïdes.

Deuxièmement, les patients les plus pauvres étaient moins susceptibles de devoir payer leurs médicaments. Les médecins leur donnaient souvent des échantillons gratuits, généralement fournis par les laboratoires pharmaceutiques. Bien que cela puisse sembler généreux, la plupart de ces médicaments étaient inutiles. Les médicaments gratuits n’améliorent pas la santé s’ils n’auraient pas dû être prescrits en premier lieu.

La différence la plus frappante est apparue ailleurs.

L’inégalité cachée : la communication

Les patients les plus pauvres étaient moins susceptibles de recevoir une explication claire de leur état de santé. Ils recevaient moins d’informations sur les raisons pour lesquelles un médicament leur était prescrit. Ils étaient moins susceptibles de recevoir des conseils sur ce qu’il fallait faire si leurs symptômes s’aggravaient ou quand revenir pour un suivi. Ces écarts étaient plus prononcés dans les cliniques privées. Il se peut que les médecins y adaptent leur communication aux patients ayant une plus grande capacité de paiement, qui sont plus susceptibles de revenir.

Seule une recherche minutieusement conçue permet de mettre en évidence ces inégalités en matière de communication. Cette forme d’inégalité est « cachée » car elle est moins visible que les différences de diagnostic ou de traitement : elle apparaît rarement dans les dossiers médicaux, lorsqu’ils existent, et a été beaucoup moins documentée que d’autres inégalités dans les soins de santé.

Une bonne communication n’est pas simplement une question de courtoisie, c’est un élément important des soins. Comprendre une maladie aide les patients à suivre leur traitement, à éviter des inquiétudes inutiles et à savoir quand demander de l’aide. Lorsque les explications font défaut, les patients sont amenés à deviner, à mal comprendre ou à retarder les soins.

Au fil du temps, ces petites différences peuvent s’accumuler. Les patients qui quittent systématiquement les consultations avec moins d’informations peuvent avoir du mal à gérer leur santé, même si la décision médicale initiale était correcte.

Pourquoi ces résultats sont-ils importants ?

Notre étude ne suggère pas que les médecins tunisiens discriminent intentionnellement les patients les plus pauvres dans leurs décisions cliniques. Mais les différences dans la qualité de la communication et des conseils peuvent néanmoins renforcer les inégalités.

Une ordonnance sans explication n’est pas la même chose qu’un traitement qui permet aux patients de comprendre et de gérer leur état de santé.

Ces résultats soulignent également l’urgence de lutter contre les prescriptions inappropriées. L’utilisation généralisée d’antibiotiques inutiles observée dans cette étude reflète les tendances observées dans des pays tels que l’Inde, la Chine et l’Afrique du Sud.
Cela contribue à la résistance aux médicaments, à l’augmentation des coûts et à des effets secondaires évitables : des problèmes qui touchent tout le monde, mais qui frappent souvent plus durement les populations les plus pauvres.

Perspectives d’amélioration

Alors que la Tunisie réforme l’enseignement médical et les pratiques du système de santé, il existe une opportunité évidente de placer la communication avec les patients au centre des soins. Cependant, les implications dépassent le cadre de la Tunisie. Dans une grande partie de l’Afrique, les systèmes de santé fonctionnent avec d’énormes contraintes de capacité, des consultations courtes, des charges de travail variables et de profondes fractures sociales. Ces conditions peuvent influencer les rendez-vous médicaux et creuser les écarts de communication.

Renforcer la capacité des médecins à expliquer, écouter et s’adapter aux patients issus de milieux sociaux différents pourrait contribuer à réduire ces inégalités cachées.

Encourager des explications plus claires, de meilleurs conseils sur le suivi et une plus grande sensibilisation aux préjugés inconscients sont des changements relativement peu coûteux qui peuvent avoir un rendement élevé.

La continuité des soins, qui consiste à faire en sorte que les patients consultent régulièrement le même médecin, peut réduire davantage le recours à des jugements sociaux hâtifs dans la prise de décision clinique.

Cet article est basé sur les recherches doctorales du Dr Rym Ghouma. Elle a dirigé la conceptualisation de l’étude, le travail sur le terrain, l’analyse des données et la rédaction de l’article universitaire. Elle est actuellement consultante en économie de la santé pour la Direction de la santé de l’OCDE.

The Conversation

Timothy Powell-Jackson bénéficie d’un financement du Medical Research Council (Royaume-Uni) et du National Institute for Health and Care Research (Royaume-Uni).

Mylene Lagarde reçoit un financement du Medical Research Council (Royaume-Uni).

– ref. Tunisie : les médecins pratiquent une discrimination subtile envers les patients les plus pauvres , selon une enquête – https://theconversation.com/tunisie-les-medecins-pratiquent-une-discrimination-subtile-envers-les-patients-les-plus-pauvres-selon-une-enquete-277556

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Boncana Maïga était le maestro malien de la salsa africaine : comment il a façonné la musique dansante

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Lucy Durán, Professor emeritus of music, SOAS, University of London

Le décès du célèbre flûtiste, compositeur et arrangeur malien Boncana Maïga à l’âge de 77 ans marque la fin d’une époque dans la musique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest.

C’était un interprète et un chef d’orchestre charismatique, doté d’un talent musical inné et d’une oreille fine. Son histoire est unique et n’aurait pu se produire qu’à cette époque, grâce à sa personnalité et à sa formation musicale, à Cuba.

En tant que musicienne, productrice et chercheure spécialisée dans la musique malienne et cubaine, j’ai suivi la carrière de Boncana Maïga pendant de nombreuses années. J’ai travaillé avec de nombreux groupes de danse cubains et j’ai produit de nombreux albums primés de musiciens maliens.

Maïga ne s’est jamais particulièrement intéressé aux instruments traditionnels de son pays natal. Sa véritable passion était plutôt la composition et l’arrangement pour les orchestres de danse. Ce talent allait avoir un impact majeur sur la musique populaire du Mali à l’ère post-indépendance.

Salsa africaine

Maïga restera sans doute dans les mémoires comme le producteur musical des nombreux albums Africando (1992-2013) qui fusionnaient la musique de danse latine avec les voix d’Afrique de l’Ouest. La musique afro-cubaine était populaire depuis longtemps et il y a ajouté un style unique de « salsa africaine », une musique entraînante appréciée sur les pistes de danse du monde entier.

On peut toutefois affirmer que le groupe qu’il a formé à Cuba dans les années 1960, Las Maravillas de Mali (Les Merveilles du Mali), avec des musiciens maliens, est son héritage le plus important et le plus durable, bien que le moins documenté.

L’album Las Maravillas de Mali, enregistré à Cuba en 1965, est un joyau de son époque, qui met en valeur les premières compositions et la musicalité de Maïga. Le groupe comprend des voix masculines, des flûtes, des violons, un piano et des percussions, avec des chansons en espagnol, en français et dans les langues maliennes.

Toutes les principales formes de danse cubaines y sont présentes : boléro, danzón, son montuno, chachacha, guaracha. Le groupe maîtrisait parfaitement le style charanga (flûtes et violons), même s’il était à Cuba depuis moins d’un an. Il est clair que Boncana Maïga avait un talent exceptionnel en tant que leader du groupe et flûtiste.

Qui était Boncana Maïga ?

Le Mali est bien connu pour ses musiciens traditionnels virtuoses (Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté, Oumou Sangaré et bien d’autres). Maïga, en revanche, est venu à la musique avec une perspective très différente.

Il était un Songhaï, né et élevé à Gao, dans le nord-est du Mali (aujourd’hui zone interdite en raison de l’insurrection djihadiste). Selon la plupart des sources, il serait né en 1949, mais il est possible qu’il soit né en 1947, voire plus tôt. À l’époque, il était courant au Mali de délivrer des certificats de naissance qui modifiaient l’année de naissance réelle, afin de rajeunir ou de vieillir la personne. Une photo de Maïga jouant de la flûte à Cuba en 1965 suggère qu’il avait au moins 18 ans à l’époque, et non 16 comme cela aurait été le cas s’il était né en 1949.

Ayant grandi dans une ville isolée, Maïga, qui n’avait aucune formation musicale, a appris seul à jouer du saxophone, un instrument moderne dont on entendait peu parler à l’époque dans la région.

En 1959, un an avant l’indépendance du Mali, il a formé un groupe appelé Negro Band de Gao, qui a attiré l’attention du premier président du Mali, Modibo Keita, un leader visionnaire avec un programme socialiste.

Keita a reconnu le potentiel du talent musical du Mali pour cultiver une image internationale pour le pays nouvellement formé. Cuba offrait une excellente formation musicale, et Keita avait noué de bonnes relations avec Fidel Castro.

Keita a donc sélectionné dix jeunes musiciens maliens talentueux pour étudier la musique à Cuba, au Conservatoire Alejandro García Caturla de La Havane, en leur accordant des bourses. L’un d’entre eux était Boncana Maïga.

Ils sont partis à l’aventure dans un monde complètement différent. Ils sont arrivés en 1964 et sont restés huit ou neuf ans. Cette aventure allait avoir un impact durable sur le développement de la musique populaire ouest-africaine et sur la carrière de Maïga.

Cuba

Le flûtiste Dramane Coulibaly était l’un des musiciens maliens qui ont appris à lire et à écrire la musique à Cuba et, comme Maïga, à jouer de la flûte.

J’ai rencontré Coulibaly au Mali et j’ai travaillé avec lui. Nous avons eu de nombreuses conversations sur Cuba, en espagnol, qu’il parlait encore couramment. Il m’a dit que La Havane était un lieu d’apprentissage très intense et que la formation y était rigoureuse.

Trois des étudiants maliens ont abandonné leurs études et sont rapidement rentrés chez eux, mais les sept autres (dont Coulibaly) sont restés et ont formé un groupe, Las Maravillas de Mali, avec Maïga comme arrangeur et chef d’orchestre. Certains membres du groupe se sont installés à La Havane, se sont mariés avec des Cubaines et ont eu des enfants là-bas.

De retour au Mali

Au début des années 1970, sous la présidence de Moussa Traoré – qui avait pris le pouvoir lors d’un coup d’État en 1968 –, le groupe a été rappelé au Mali.

Coulibaly a déclaré que cela avait été traumatisant. En 2001, j’ai enregistré certaines de nos conversations dans le cadre de mes recherches en cours. Il m’a dit

Nous nous étions habitués à la décontraction cubaine, aux amitiés chaleureuses, aux nombreuses occasions de se produire, à l’éducation gratuite, au système de santé gratuit. J’ai quitté l’île à contrecœur, pensant que j’y reviendrais bientôt. Cela ne s’est pas produit. Je n’ai jamais revu ma femme cubaine et j’ai dû lutter pour joindre les deux bouts à Bamako.

À Bamako, Maïga a commencé à se faire un nom en tant que chef d’orchestre. Certains membres des Maravillas de Mali se sont regroupés pour former Le National Badema (La Famille nationale), emblématique du nouveau régime.

Avec son flair caractéristique, Maïga fit venir de son village le jeune chanteur griot talentueux Kassemady Diabaté pour rejoindre le groupe. Il comprenait la nécessité de placer des chanteurs traditionnels au premier plan de ses groupes, afin de donner à la musique une saveur locale.



Read more:
Amadou Bagayoko, l’icône malienne non voyante qui a réinventé la musique ouest-africaine

Cependant, Maïga ne devait pas rester longtemps au Mali. Il n’y avait pas assez d’opportunités pour son type de travail orchestral. Il ne s’intéressait qu’aux orchestres modernes et aux groupes de danse, et les musiciens traditionnels ne savaient pas lire la musique et n’avaient pas la formation nécessaire pour jouer des styles afro-cubains.

En Côte d’Ivoire

Maïga, toujours très demandé en tant que chef d’orchestre, s’installe en Côte d’Ivoire, où il crée RTI (Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne), un orchestre composé d’instruments modernes dont tous les musiciens savaient lire la musique.

Au début des années 1980, Abidjan disposait de studios d’enregistrement et était un centre important de l’industrie musicale ouest-africaine. Des musiciens célèbres tels que la Sud-Africaine Mariam Makeba et le Camerounais Manu Dibango y ont fait escale, se produisant avec la RTI. C’est là que Maïga a également enregistré – et, semble-t-il, produit – certains des plus grands chanteurs traditionnels du Mali, tels que Nahawa Doumbia et Kandia Kouyaté. (Kandia m’a confié lors d’une interview à Paris en 1998 qu’il y occupait uniquement un rôle de direction et non de création.)

Africando

Maïga s’est ensuite installé en Europe, où il a produit des albums avec Syllart, un label basé à Paris qui a lancé la carrière du Malien Salif Keita, entre autres. En collaboration avec le fondateur du label sénégalais Ibrahima Sylla, il a créé Africando. Il s’agissait d’un groupe de danse « salsa » vedette de la scène musicale latine, notamment à New York, accompagné de chanteurs invités provenant de plusieurs pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest.

Africando a connu un succès financier et critique considérable. Les musiciens ont fait de nombreuses tournées et concerts et ont sorti de nombreux albums. Malgré des performances vocales sublimes, les arrangements du groupe ont parfois été critiqués pour leur caractère stéréotypé.

Boncana Maïga était le dernier membre survivant de Las Maravillas de Mali, et avec son décès, ce groupe éphémère mais très talentueux disparaît à jamais.

Il a certainement contribué à faire prendre conscience des liens entre l’Afrique et l’Amérique latine, le Mali et Cuba, qui remontent à l’époque de la traite transatlantique d’esclavage. Les musiciens maliens continuent d’avoir un fort sentiment d’attachement à la musique cubaine, qui fait partie de cet héritage, et Maïga l’a mis en valeur dans la culture populaire.

The Conversation

Lucy Durán 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. Boncana Maïga était le maestro malien de la salsa africaine : comment il a façonné la musique dansante – https://theconversation.com/boncana-ma-ga-etait-le-maestro-malien-de-la-salsa-africaine-comment-il-a-faconne-la-musique-dansante-277986

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Hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound – that knowledge could help save them

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie Lund Rasmussen, Research fellow in Ecology and Conservation, University of Oxford

The hedgehog is one of Europe’s most familiar and well-loved wild mammals. Many people encounter them in gardens, hear their snuffling at dusk, or glimpse their spiny shapes moving through the night.

But sadly, across Europe, hedgehog populations are shrinking rapidly. The European hedgehog is now listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conversation of Nature red list for Europe. Understanding why this is happening – and what can realistically be done to halt or reverse it – has become an urgent priority.

My team’s new research shows that hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound. With this knowledge, it could be possible to design sound-based deterrents that target hedgehogs specifically, without disturbing people or their pets. In theory, ultrasonic signals could warn hedgehogs away from approaching vehicles or keep them clear of dangerous machines in the future.

This is significant because one of the greatest threats to hedgehogs comes from road traffic. Cars are estimated to kill huge numbers of hedgehogs across Europe every year, with some studies suggesting that up to one in three of these animals may die on roads annually.

Hedgehogs are simply not built for modern infrastructure. Their primary defence strategy evolved to escape natural predators that see movement in the dark. They freeze, assess the threat, and then either flee or curl into a tight ball of spines. Against a fast-moving vehicle, this strategy is fatal.

David Attenborough talks about ways to help hedgehogs survive.

Roads also fragment landscapes, making it harder for hedgehogs to find food, mates and new habitats. When this is combined with barriers such as massive fences, intensively managed agriculture and gardens, and widespread use of machinery such as garden strimmers and robotic lawn mowers, it becomes clear that the problem is not hedgehog behaviour. It is the environment humans have created.

Could sound offer a solution?

For years, I kept returning to the same question: could humans somehow warn hedgehogs before danger arrives? Could we deter them from roads and machines in a way that does not disturb people?

To explore that possibility, I had to start with a surprisingly basic question: what can hedgehogs actually hear?

I assembled a multidisciplinary team including experts specialising in imaging, bioacoustics (studying what animals hear), animal behaviour, hedgehog ecology, animal experiments and hedgehog anaesthesia.

Using high-resolution micro-CT scans of a hedgehog that had been put to death at a wildlife rescue centre for welfare reasons, the team built a three-dimensional model of the middle and inner ear.

The model showed that hedgehogs have very small, dense middle-ear bones and a partly fused joint between the eardrum and the first of these bones. This makes the whole chain of bones stiffer, helping it pass very high-pitched sounds efficiently – a hallmark of animals, such as echolocating bats, that can hear ultrasound.

The scans also revealed that hedgehogs have a small stapes (the smallest middle-ear bone that connects the chain of ear bones to the inner ear’s fluid-filled cochlea). A smaller, lighter stapes can vibrate more quickly, enabling it to transmit high-frequency sound waves. The cochlea was also found to be relatively short and compact, enabling it to better process ultrasonic vibrations.

Ultrasound refers to sound frequencies above 20kHz, beyond the upper limit of human hearing. But anatomy alone is not proof. To confirm what hedgehogs could actually hear, we needed direct measurements. But how does one measure hedgehog hearing?

Measuring hedgehog hearing

We tested the hearing of 20 European hedgehogs using Auditory Brainstem Response recordings. Under brief anaesthesia, small electrode needles placed just under the skin of the hedgehogs, measured their brain activity while they were soundly asleep. During this time, we played sounds across a wide range of frequencies and pulses, and if the hedgehogs could hear it, their brain activity would indicate this. They were fit and ready for release back into the wild the night after their tests.

The results were striking. Hedgehogs heard sounds from around 4kHz up to at least 85kHz, with peak sensitivity around 40kHz – well into the ultrasonic range. Hedgehogs can therefore hear sounds that humans, dogs and cats cannot. This could be a game changer for hedgehog conservation.

This would, in theory, make it possible for scientists to use ultrasonic signals to warn hedgehogs away from approaching vehicles or keep them clear of potentially dangerous machines.

Many questions remain though. Which sounds are effective? Do hedgehogs become used to specific noises and start ignoring them? How far do ultrasonic signals travel?

Further research is now needed to design effective and beneficial sound repellents for hedgehogs, but this is a significant step forward. Perhaps the car industry could help fund this important research?

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Sophie Lund Rasmussen 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. Hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound – that knowledge could help save them – https://theconversation.com/hedgehogs-can-hear-high-frequency-ultrasound-that-knowledge-could-help-save-them-275255

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‘We’re the good guys’: why moral storytelling doesn’t make the war on Iran necessary or legal

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Tamer Morris, Senior Lecturer, International Law, University of Sydney

Since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran, most international law experts appear to be speaking with one voice on the legality of the attacks.

Legal experts have said the attacks violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against states. The US and Israel have not produced any evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to either of them. And neither has brought the matter to the UN Security Council. As such, this was a clear breach of international law.

But even though most scholars agree the strikes were unlawful, the public and political debate has shifted somewhere else entirely.

Instead of wrestling with the legal questions, many politicians, commentators, and everyday observers are counterbalancing the illegality with arguments about legitimacy.

Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have cast the war as a “necessary” fight between good and evil. Netanyahu said:

I know the cost of war. But I know sometimes that war is necessary to protect us from the people who will destroy us. […] We have to understand that we’re fighting here the bad guys. We’re the good guys. These people massacred their own people.

Canada and Australia, two of the US’ closest allies, have both used strikingly similar language in their statements about the war, saying they supported the US:

acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.

This idea of legitimacy – that is, what is “right”, “necessary”, or “just” – is now being thrown around in almost every conversation about the war.

Two arguments for a ‘just’ war

These arguments echo centuries‑old thinking about “just” wars.

Christian philosophers such as St Augustine (4th–5th century) and St Thomas Aquinas (13th century), for example, were early proponents of what is known as the “just war theory”. Basically, this means you
may violate the moral rule against violence if the cause is “just”.

In modern debates, arguments about the legitimacy of wars tend to fall into two categories.

The first claims attacks like the ones launched by the US and Israel are morally just and therefore ought to be permitted, regardless of what international law says.

This line of reasoning goes something like this: “So what if the action breaches international law? We removed an evil dictator.” Or: “Do we really want Iran developing nuclear weapons or long-range missiles?”

The statements by Netanyahu and Trump frame the use of force as morally necessary, implying that if an action feels righteous, legality should not be a hindrance.

The second argument dismisses international law altogether as ineffective or irrelevant.

The strand of legitimacy reasoning is also becoming common. It’s reflected in statements like: “Where was international law when people were being killed on the streets in Iran?” or “How can international law matter if Iran is constantly threatening western states and funding a proxy war?”

The conclusion drawn here is simple: if the law fails to prevent harm, it must be irrelevant. And if international law is irrelevant, then the US-Israeli strikes on Iran are legitimate.

Both of these lines of reasoning carry their own risks, not least the danger of allowing subjective morality to replace objective legal constraints.

Can a morally just war be deemed illegal?

The first argument hinges on the notion that the US and Israel strikes on Iran are just, given the brutal, repressive nature of the Iranian regime and the fact it is pursuing nuclear weapons. And international law should allow just actions.

But who decides what is just?

For the US and some of its allies, this is a binary moral equation: Iran is bad, we are good.

But this argument can also be made from Iran’s perspective: Israel and the US are bad. Therefore, we need nuclear weapons to protect ourselves.

Once states are permitted to act on their own sense of morality and justice, the international system goes down an extremely dangerous road. Every state can consider itself the “good” actor in its own story. If we allow individual morality to override the law, moral chaos follows.

Historically, moral arguments about “civilisation”, “enlightenment”, or “improvement” were also used to justify colonisation and slavery.

This is still happening in different contexts today: one group assumes its moral compass is universal, superior and mandatory for all others. If the world returns to that mode of thinking, the strongest states will once again become the arbiters of what counts as “good”.

International law must therefore remain objective, free from claims of moral exceptionalism.

Does international law still have relevance?

The second argument is even stranger: where was international law when a state like Iran committed atrocities?

This requires a clearer understanding of the role of international law. If we disregard international law because someone violates it, it’s like rejecting the rule book while still using its language to call out a foul.

Without it, there would be no norms to appeal to, no expectation of protection, no shared belief that certain harms are prohibited.

This argument also doesn’t follow logic. Murders still happen in countries like Australia. Should we therefore abandon domestic laws that prevent them?

Of course, there are double standards in international law. Powerful states have greater impunity and weaker states face more scrutiny.

But double standards also exist in domestic legal systems – wealthier people generally receive better outcomes than those with less means.

The existence of inequality in international law, then, shows the need for reform, not the abandonment of the law altogether.

Why this matters

The Iran war reveals a dangerous shift in the way states justify their actions: a growing preference for moral storytelling over legal reasoning.

Once the narrative of a “just war” replaces the rule of law, there is little left to restrain the powerful states from dominating the weaker ones.

The purpose of international law is not to determine who is morally good; it is to maintain order in a world where every state believes it is waging the “good” fight.

The Conversation

Tamer Morris 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. ‘We’re the good guys’: why moral storytelling doesn’t make the war on Iran necessary or legal – https://theconversation.com/were-the-good-guys-why-moral-storytelling-doesnt-make-the-war-on-iran-necessary-or-legal-277952

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Commercial space technology is shaping the Iran war – the law can’t keep up

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato

When the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran nearly two weeks ago, the first confirmation didn’t come from governments. It came from commercial satellites.

Images from US companies Planet Labs and Vantor captured smoke billowing over central Tehran and ships burning at the coastal city of Konarak – evidence of strikes on naval bases, airfields and missile sites that global media confirmed within hours.

But space-based technology was not just observing the conflict, it was also a target. US officials said early strikes hit “Iran’s equivalent of Space Command”, undermining Tehran’s ability to coordinate via satellite.

Iran has also used extensive “spoofing” to create false GPS signals to mislead receivers about their true location.

Simultaneously, US Space Command and Cyber Command launched operations to jam, hack and disrupt Iranian software systems, known as “non-kinetic” attacks in the jargon of modern warfare.

Such operations are a kind of “silent sabotage”, disabling communications or corrupting GPS signals without blowing anything up with conventional “kinetic” attacks.

This combination of advanced battlefield tactics and the rapid commercialisation of space technology, as well as the erosion of the old rules-based order in general, means international law is now falling well behind.

Blurred lines of accountability

Non-kinetic tactics have quickly spilled into civilian life. In January, amid anti-government protests, and later during the first wave of strikes, Iran used GPS jamming and spoofing to disrupt Starlink terminals, which civilians and protesters depended on to stay online and share information during internet blackouts.

At the same time, commercial satellite imagery became part of the conflict itself. After Planet Lab’s images revealed Iranian retaliatory strikes on US and US-linked sites in the Persian Gulf, the company delayed releasing new imagery to avoid aiding real‑time damage assessment by Iranian forces.

On March 10, Planet Labs extended the delay time to two weeks for non-government users, but the US military still receives immediate access.

Modern warfare depends heavily on these kinds of commercial, dual-use space systems. The same satellites that time financial transactions, support hospitals and manage global logistics also guide military operations.

This blurs the traditional legal boundary between civilian and military objects and activities. The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned repeatedly that interference with satellites can harm civilians by disrupting power grids, navigation, emergency services and humanitarian operations.

Outer space is not a legal vacuum. The United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty, the UN Charter itself, and international humanitarian law all apply to warfare in orbit. But the Iran war shows how real‑world practice is advancing faster than these legal frameworks.

A proper treaty is unlikely

Dual-use satellites providing both civilian broadband and military communications also complicate decisions about what constitutes a lawful target.

Legal experts say satellites providing essential civilian services should be presumed to be non-military unless direct military use is demonstrated. But this precept is tested daily over Iran.

Another challenge is political neutrality. If a private company based in a neutral state provides data that can assist military operations elsewhere, the neutral state may face serious questions and diplomatic pressure from other governments about whether it should be held responsible.

The law has not caught up with these commercial realities. Planet Lab’s imagery delays show how companies are having to improvise policy themselves during armed conflict.

And because cyber-attacks can disable military systems without causing physical destruction, they can fall short of “armed attack” thresholds under international law. States can exploit this legal grey zone to gain strategic advantage.

New legal norms may eventually evolve out of the behaviour of governments and commercial operators rather than through formal agreements and treaties. Indeed, geopolitical tensions make a new treaty on military space operations highly unlikely.

This leaves companies, regulators and militaries to define the boundaries of acceptable conduct through their real‑time responses. The result is a battlefield where satellites shape strategy faster than lawmakers can respond.

The Conversation

Anna Marie Brennan 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. Commercial space technology is shaping the Iran war – the law can’t keep up – https://theconversation.com/commercial-space-technology-is-shaping-the-iran-war-the-law-cant-keep-up-277940

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Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere exposes the business model of misogyny

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Steven Roberts, Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Monash University

Netflix

Over the past two years, viral clips, news headlines and TV series such as Adolescence have ensured much of the public has encountered the “manosphere” – an online ecosystem that repackages misogyny, anti-feminism and male grievance as self-improvement and hustle.

Journalist Louis Theroux is further lifting the lid on this dangerous ideology with his new Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere, in which he showcases the individuals driving this culture.

In his measured and sometimes risky style, Theroux traces not only the rhetoric of “high-value men”, but also the livestream formats and business models that sustain this world. The result is both illuminating and unsettling.

An insidious ideology

What emerges in Theroux’s exposé is not just provocation, but a clear misogynistic worldview. Across interviews and through influencers’ own content, we see the defence of a regressive gender hierarchy – and attempts to restore it.

Women are described as having innate value through their beauty and sexuality, yet dismissed as less rational and emotionally stable. Monogamy is framed as binding for women, but optional for men. Gender equality is blamed for cultural decline.

At times the language is openly authoritarian. Infamous influencer Myron Gaines describes himself to Theroux as a “dictator” in his romantic relationship. He casts intimacy as something he permits, and domestic care as something owed to men.

But Gaines also rejects that he is a misogynist; he claims he loves women, but that women don’t know what they want, and must be led.

The hypocrisy is striking. Several manosphere figures such as Harrison Sullivan publicly deride women who use platforms such as OnlyFans, while claiming to privately profit from managing their accounts.

Misogyny as a business model

Theroux also shows how the audiences of these influencers form.

In one early scene, young boys who look to be around tween age (with blurred faces) repeat lines about hating women and gay people with unsettling ease. Later, young adult men speak of having “no value” unless they accumulate wealth, status and dominance. Working a nine-to-five job is framed as submission to the “matrix” and the “hustle” as freedom.

The complaint that stable work no longer guarantees security will resonate with many. But in the manosphere, economic strain becomes personal failure: if you are struggling, you have not worked hard enough. This is not just ideology. It is a business model.

Subscription “academies”, private groups and coaching schemes convert insecurity into income. In one example from the documentary, we see American influencer Justin Waller promoting The Real World – an online university run by his close friend and business partner Andrew Tate (who is currently facing charges of rape and human trafficking in multiple countries).

Young men and boys are told they are deficient unless wealthy, muscular and emotionally invulnerable, and then charged for access to the mindset said to fix them. The hierarchy that elevates dominant men and denigrates women simultaneously and exploitatively monetises the boys beneath it.

The worldview is not confined to provocation. In one segment, Waller’s partner Kristen explains that she feels fulfilled staying in her “lane”, and caring for the children and home, while he occupies his role as provider and leader.

She speaks warmly of their respective “masculine and feminine energies”, presenting inequality not as constraint but as comfort – despite viewers learning she has no legal right to his wealth as they are not legally married.

Breeding ground for conspiracies

Running alongside the hustle narrative is a thread of conspiracy theorising. The “matrix” is invoked as a metaphor for societal and institutional systems said to keep men compliant and blind to alternative paths to power.

From there it darkens into talk of shadowy elites engineering cultural decline, including “moral” decline and the erosion of men’s place in the world (which they bizarrely link to the growth of pedophilia).

The “manfluencers”, notably Sullivan and Gaines, suggest recent political developments – such as the rise of President Trump – vindicate their worldview.

Theroux’s instinct is to return to the manfluencers’ own accounts of absent fathers and unstable upbringings. That humanising impulse tilts the story toward sympathy and, problematically, to trauma as a key explanation.

But misogyny does not require trauma to flourish, nor are most boys who experience hardship drawn into sexist worldviews. These ideas are ideological and structural, with long-standing gender hierarchies repackaged and broadcast at scale.

The real-life consequences

Inside the Manosphere does acknowledge harms to women, but doesn’t dwell on it very long.

One segment on schools uses news clips from English-speaking countries to signal the spread of misogynistic language among boys. But the documentary could have done more to highlight these significant manosphere-inspired flow-on effects.

Research I conducted with Stephanie Wescott and colleagues extensively documents how manosphere narratives have permeated schools internationally. This has resulted in higher levels of harassment and gender-based violence by some boys against girl peers and women teachers, eroding women’s workplace safety and girls’ participation.

Theroux is right to suggest we are all, in some sense, now living inside the manosphere. Understanding what drives the men at its centre matters – as does focusing on the real-world harms they cause.



Read more:
Andrew Tate’s extreme views about women are infiltrating Australian schools. We need a zero-tolerance response

Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere is on Netlix from today.

The Conversation

Steven Roberts receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is also a Board Director at Respect Victoria, but the article is written wholly independently from this role.

– ref. Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere exposes the business model of misogyny – https://theconversation.com/louis-therouxs-inside-the-manosphere-exposes-the-business-model-of-misogyny-277509

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The Oscars are usually a mess, but this year’s Best Picture nominees are strong. Here’s who should win

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

Film critics – myself included – love to bemoan the death of high-quality cinema in the age of streaming, pointing to mediocre Best Picture Oscar nominees as evidence that the production of great (or even good) films is on the wane.

But perhaps things are changing. Are people sick of being inundated with short videos on TikTok and Youtube, and once again hankering for a cinematic experience? The quality of this year’s nominees suggests they are.

For the first time in a while, most of the nominated films are excellent – and nearly all of them are watchable.



Read more:
The Oscars aren’t a meritocracy – there’s a complex formula for winning

My top pick: Sentimental Value

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is my pick for the Best Picture Oscar. It’s the kind of meticulously crafted film in which the naturalism seems effortless.

The narrative follows acclaimed filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a quintessential Euro-auteur, who comes back into the lives of his estranged daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) following their mother’s death.

Gustav is making a new film, and wants his daughter Nora – an acclaimed theatre actress who has her own demons to battle (stage fright among them) – to star in it.

Nora assumes it’s a cynical manoeuvre for funding on her father’s part and refuses. So Gustav casts American star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) instead, who is immediately out of her depth.

The drama unfolds around the family home in Oslo, interweaving narratives of the home’s history across generations with the tensions plaguing its current inhabitants.

Sentimental Value has a strikingly lyrical quality. Some may say it’s overdone, but every element is so perfectly executed that it doesn’t come across as pretentious or laboured. It is, in many respects, thoroughly sentimental – yet never feels like it’s performing this as some kind of effect.

Despite its considerable formal and narrative complexity, it plays in a starkly simple fashion, thanks to the light touch of Trier, coupled with stunning cinematography by Kasper Tuxen Andersen.

The lead performances by Reinsve, Lilleaas and Skarsgård are extraordinarily convincing and, perhaps more surprisingly, Fanning is awesome as the uncomfortable American trying to please the European artiste.

Sentimental Value brilliantly weaves a sense of European social and cultural history with carefully observed character moments, becoming, by the end, a kind of treatise on the affirmative potential of art to transcend and transform interpersonal barriers.

Despite the difficulties of life, the detritus of broken promises and hearts, and the disappointments minor and not so minor, we can still come together – beautifully and wholeheartedly – through the practice of that abstract dream that is called art.

Other excellent contenders

There are a few other strong contenders – films which, any other year, would have stood out above the pack.

Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the past decade, and yet his films have been hit and miss. After his last great film, the 2015 black comedy The Lobster, Bugonia marks a return to form.

The film follows bumbling paranoiac conspiracy nut Teddy (Jesse Plemons) as he and his half-witted cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of pharmaceutical company Auxolith.

Fuller is the kind of ruthless business leader who appears on the cover of Forbes magazine with the caption “Breaking Barriers” and who spouts endless nonsense about diversity while her company wreaks havoc on the planet and the people around them.

According to Teddy, she is also an “Andromedon” alien sent to Earth to enslave and exploit the human population, bringing death to humans as it has been brought to the bees.

The brilliance of the film largely revolves around its manipulation of our identification with the two leads. At times Teddy seems like a lunatic serial killer, and Fuller a heroic victim. At times we empathise with Teddy, while Fuller looks like a manipulative, cold-hearted sociopath.

The whole thing builds up to an immensely satisfying resolution, suitably nihilistic and absurd in equal measure.

As is often the case with Lanthimos’ films, the figures are caricaturish, but the comedic timing – and the oscillation between humour and discomfort for the viewer – is spot on, so it works.

Sinners

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a great yarn: a well-executed rock ‘n’ roll fable slash vampire siege, full of electrifying music.

It’s 1932. Twin gangster brothers Smoke and Stack (a dual role played by Michael B. Jordan) return from working for Al Capone in Chicago to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to open up a juke joint.

Their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a cotton picker and bluesman – with Charley Patton’s guitar – steals the show at the hugely successful opening night, fulfilling the legend of a musician who can play so well the barriers between the living and the dead come down. Everything seems to be going well – until some redneck vampires decide to assail the venue.

The whole thing is rather gaudy and silly. But like its forebear From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) – it’s so energetically (and pleasurably) handled that it doesn’t matter.

Michael B. Jordan is brilliant in the two roles, and the end result is a muscular, satisfying film that feels like a good pulp novel or comic book – capped off with a Buddy Guy jam session in the final moments.

Sinners is a delicious dream. It’s unlikely to win Best Picture; there was a time, not so long ago, when this kind of genre film wouldn’t have made it into the mix. But it’s well worth its more than two-hour runtime.

Marty Supreme

It would be hard to think of a stupider premise for a movie. In the 1950s, fast-talking entrepreneurial New York hustler Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) has to raise money so he can make it to Japan to beat world number one Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) in the table tennis showdown of the century.

Yet, director/co-writer Josh Safdie treats the premise with enough seriousness that we end up with a high octane sports film to rival Rocky IV. This is helped by the stunning cinematography by Darius Khondji. Shot on 35mm film, the images have a rich colour and texture rarely matched in digital cinematography.

There’s also a dynamite score from Daniel Lopatin, and an anachronistic soundtrack featuring several stellar 1980s pop tunes from the likes of Public Image Limited, New Order and Tears for Fears, to name a few.

Despite Marty’s arrogance, sweet-talking, womanising, con-artistry and generally bad behaviour, Chalamet invests the character with enough pathos and humour that he comes across as a thoroughly loveable – or at least likeable – rogue.

He is a crackpot whose self-belief and willingness to do anything to achieve his dream tricks the viewer into becoming equally invested in his absurd quest as he (and the film) bounce around New York and the world like a bright ping pong ball.

Marty Supreme is an odd – and oddly arresting – film capturing something of the madness at the heart of the American dream. Mauser does whatever he can to make it to Japan. And after several escapades – and some downright brutal scenes featuring cult director Abel Ferrara as an ageing gangster – he does make it.

The rest

Unusually for the Oscars, the pack of 2026 nominees is rounded out by several other good films.

Although not as good as some of his other films, such as Neighbouring Sounds (2012) and Bacurau (2019), Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent is a rollicking political thriller. Set in the 1970s, it features a standout performance by Wagner Moura as a dissident academic evading persecution from a brutal dictatorship.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a wacky comedy occasionally masquerading as a serious political action thriller. It follows the burnt out leftist Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) as, with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti), he evades capture by police and a militia led by the moronic Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). The whole thing is pretty silly, but like its inspiration – Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland – it is fun nonetheless.

F1 is likewise good. This finely wrought racing flick follows all of the delightfully dumb cliches of the genre. Hard-boiled and burnt-out old timer Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) makes it to Formula One for the first time, and contends with a new era of racing epitomised by his nemesis, the brash young gun Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

It’s hard to imagine such a film being nominated for Best Picture in any other era; Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder (1990) is equally stupid, but better made, and has been universally lampooned by critics. But people seem to be craving (and appreciating) big screen popcorn films in an era where streaming and second-screen viewing has all but destroyed commercial narrative cinema.

Only three nominees stick out as dreary

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is an earnest but visually unappealing Netflix film, following a ho-hum period love story about class, racism and the American Dream. Joel Edgerton is solid as usual, and the film is watchable enough, but the whole thing seems rather tired. And the digital video look really doesn’t work with the kinds of exterior, panoramic images that dominate the film.

In Frankenstein, director Guillermo del Toro takes one of the duller, more proselytising novels in the Gothic canon and gives it a suitably ponderous treatment. Oscar Isaac hams it up in full actor mode as Dr Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi is ridiculous as the monster. And Christoph Waltz as Harlander delivers such humdingers as “Can you contain your fire, Prometheus, or are you going to burn your hands before delivering it?” (in case you didn’t know, the novel’s subtitle is The Modern Prometheus).

Made for Netflix, Frankenstein tries hard to look sumptuous with period décor, but it can’t mask the sterility of its digital images. While the novel, at least, has a simple elegance to it, del Toro’s version is meandering, gaudy and cheap-looking.

It is difficult to treat Hamnet – the unbearably pretentious latest film from director Chloe Zhao – seriously, because the filmmakers do it for you. Though there are some things to like – Paul Mescal, for instance, is nice to watch, the cast are generally proficient, and the score is fine – this self-satisfied nonsense plays more like an Instagram video performing its own seriousness than a genuinely engaging feature film.

7 hits out of 10

As usual, the best films of 2025 haven’t been nominated for Best Picture (where’s Sirât, Redux Redux, or Harvest?). Nonetheless, most of this year’s nominees are films that warrant watching more than once for a variety of reasons: pleasure, complexity, nuance.

Perhaps Hollywood is starting to make good films again after decades of superhero trash. Or, at least, the Academy has started to recognise them.

The Conversation

Ari Mattes 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. The Oscars are usually a mess, but this year’s Best Picture nominees are strong. Here’s who should win – https://theconversation.com/the-oscars-are-usually-a-mess-but-this-years-best-picture-nominees-are-strong-heres-who-should-win-274431

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Why shadow tankers are the only ships still moving through the Strait of Hormuz

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Charles Edward Gehrke, Deputy Division Director of Wargame Design and Adjudication, US Naval War College

Many oil tankers aren’t moving in the Middle East. DedMityay/iStock / Getty Images Plus

The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Since the beginning of the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, oil tanker traffic through the world’s most critical oil shipping choke point has collapsed, dropping by more than 90%.

Iran has threatened to destroy any ships, including oil tankers, that pass through the strait from the oil depots of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and the rest of the world. Companies that insure ships against the risks of traveling in war zones are deciding whether to issue coverage on an individual-ship basis. The international body that sets many shipping regulations has told ships’ crews that they have the right to refuse to sail into the area.

As of March 6, more than 400 tankers were stranded in the Persian Gulf, without permission from their owners to move.

But some vessels are still transiting the strait. Most of the ships still moving are those that operate outside the rules.

In maritime circles, these vessels are called the “shadow fleet.” They are vessels that ignore international restrictions on trade with certain countries, violate anti-pollution regulations, smuggle unauthorized goods or don’t want their cargo or activities too closely monitored.

They exist, even in a world filled with electronic tracking, because the world’s oceans aren’t governed the same way the land is. On land, armed personnel closely monitor carefully delineated borders, seeking to force everyone to follow clear rules. But at sea, regulation is almost the opposite. The system that governs international shipping is, at its foundation, voluntary.

The oceans run on trust

The tracking of ships is voluntary. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea – signed by 167 countries – requires almost every commercial vessel to carry a radio transponder that broadcasts the ship’s identity, position, speed and heading to port authorities, coast guards and commercial tracking networks.

That international agreement, which is enforced by individual countries, requires ships to leave the transponders on and active. But there is no physical mechanism preventing a crew from switching it off or broadcasting a false position.

When a vessel turns off its transponder and goes dark, it doesn’t trigger an alarm at some global maritime headquarters. There is no such headquarters. The ship simply disappears from the map. Every map.

National jurisdiction is a matter of preference, not law. Every vessel sails under the flag of a nation, and that nation is theoretically responsible for regulating and inspecting it. But in practice, a ship’s registration in a particular country is a commercial transaction. Many law-abiding shipping companies make this business decision, but this system leaves an opening for those who seek to skirt the rules.

A ship owned by a shell company in the United Arab Emirates can register under the flag of Cameroon, Palau or Liberia, or any country that may lack the resources or the incentive to conduct real inspections. Even landlocked Mongolia has a registry of oceangoing ships flying its flag.

When a vessel comes under scrutiny from port inspectors or coast guards, it can simply reregister under a different flag. Some registries even offer online registration. If the new registration is fraudulent or the registry doesn’t actually exist, the vessel effectively becomes stateless.

Then there is insurance, which is the closest thing the maritime system has to a real enforcement mechanism. Mainstream insurers, mostly based in London, require vessels to meet safety standards, carry proper documentation and comply with international trade sanctions. A ship without insurance coverage cannot easily enter major ports or secure cargo contracts with reputable firms.
Those restrictions are precisely what froze so many law-abiding ships in the Persian Gulf when war broke out.

But companies can avoid those rules, too. Two-thirds of ships carrying Russian oil – the trade of which is restricted by the U.S. and other countries – reportedly have “unknown” insurance providers, meaning nobody knows whom to call to cover the cleanup costs after a spill or collision. The enforcement mechanism works until ship owners realize they can just opt out of it entirely, using less reputable ports or transferring oil from ship to ship out at sea.

A large tanker ship sits alongside a pier.
An oil tanker seized by Belgian and French forces for its alleged participation in Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ sits at a pier in Belgium.
Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

What opting out looks like

The results of this voluntary system can be surreal. In December 2025, the United States seized a sanctioned tanker called the Skipper, which was flying the flag of Guyana – even though that country had never registered it. The vessel was, in legal terms, stateless, sailing under the authority of no nation on Earth.

Another vessel, the Arcusat, went further. Investigative reporting found that it had changed its International Maritime Organization identification number, a unique seven-digit code assigned permanently to every ship. It is the maritime equivalent of scraping the VIN off a car.

Now layer these techniques together. An entity purchases an aging tanker that would otherwise be scrapped. It registers the ship through a shell company, pays for a flag of convenience, carries opaque insurance and switches off its transponder when approaching sensitive waters.

It loads sanctioned oil through a ship-to-ship transfer on the open ocean and delivers its cargo to a buyer who asks no questions. If the vessel attracts attention, it changes its name, reregisters under a different flag and starts over.

According to maritime intelligence firm Windward, approximately 1,100 dark fleet vessels have been identified globally, representing roughly 17% to 18% of all tankers carrying liquid cargo, which is primarily oil.

Why it matters now

The dark fleet did not emerge because the maritime system is broken. It emerged because the system is built on voluntary participation, all theoretically ensured by market forces.

For decades, the system worked not because it forced compliance but rather because opting out was more costly than opting in.

What changed is that international sanctions made compliance ruinously expensive and politically disastrous for some countries. A system built on voluntary participation, it turned out, could be voluntarily left.

If your national economy depends on oil exports, and the compliance system is preventing those exports, you build a parallel system. Iran began doing so in 2018, after sanctions were reimposed as part of negotiations over its nuclear development. Russia dramatically expanded that system in 2022 as restrictions hit in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Now, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to aboveboard maritime trade, the only vessels still moving are the ones that ignore the rules.

But the existence of the dark fleet doesn’t mean that the rules of the sea have failed. Rather, it reveals what kind of rules they always were. Illegal oil is the only oil moving in a crisis. In my view, that sends a message to those still playing by the rules: Opting out might be a viable option.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of the Navy or the U.S. Naval War College.

The Conversation

Charles Edward Gehrke 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. Why shadow tankers are the only ships still moving through the Strait of Hormuz – https://theconversation.com/why-shadow-tankers-are-the-only-ships-still-moving-through-the-strait-of-hormuz-277785

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Derrière les invasions biologiques, un remodelage silencieux des écosystèmes

Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Franck Courchamp, Directeur de recherche CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay

Et si on pensait le problème des espèces invasives au-delà du cadre strict de l’espèce ? En effet, les invasions biologiques interagissent étroitement avec l’écosystème local : elles peuvent modifier durablement les sols, l’eau ou encore les interactions écologiques. Nous avons développé un nouvel outil de classification pour mieux tenir compte de ces effets, encore trop souvent ignorés.

Lorsque l’on évoque les invasions biologiques, l’imaginaire collectif convoque souvent une scène de duel dramatique : un prédateur qui débarque d’un autre continent pour éradiquer une proie native. Pourtant, cette focalisation sur le risque direct d’extinction occulte une réalité bien plus insidieuse. En effet, bon nombre des invasions les plus dévastatrices ne se contentent pas d’éliminer des espèces : elles remodèlent fondamentalement l’environnement. Elles altèrent les habitats, recâblent les interactions entre espèces et modifient des processus vitaux d’une façon que les listes d’espèces menacées ne sauraient révéler à elles seules.

Prenez la chèvre, le cheval sauvage ou le cerf, introduits sur des îles où ces espèces ne sont pas natives. Leur voracité peut conduire la flore locale à l’extinction, mais leur impact s’inscrit bien plus profondément, dans la chair même du paysage.

Ces herbivores envahissants compactent les sols, accélèrent l’érosion, ouvrent les sous-bois, ce qui modifie ensuite les régimes de feux de forêt. Leur action laisse des cicatrices sur les paysages bien après que les troupeaux aient disparu. Ces bouleversements systémiques menacent la biodiversité tout aussi profondément que la perte d’une espèce.



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Retour à l’état sauvage : l’étonnante histoire des vaches de l’île Amsterdam perdue dans l’océan Indien

Pour naviguer dans cette complexité, les sciences des invasions biologiques s’appuient sur un outil de référence international : l’EICAT (Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa, en français, classification de l’impact environnemental des taxons exotiques). Ce cadre pionnier a marqué une avancée majeure, offrant une méthode transparente et fondée sur des preuves pour classer les envahisseurs selon la sévérité de leurs effets sur les espèces natives.

Cependant, l’EICAT a un angle mort important : il place l’espèce au cœur de son raisonnement. Il attribue ainsi un score de sévérité global unique à un envahisseur donné, généralement basé sur le pire scénario enregistré pour toutes ses invasions connues. Intéressante pour permettre la priorisation des enjeux à l’échelle mondiale, cette approche gomme les subtilités des écosystèmes locaux, chacun possédant ses propres vulnérabilités. C’est pourquoi, dans une étude récemment publiée dans la revue PLOS Biology, nous proposons d’aller plus loin.

L’architecture invisible des invasions

De fait, les invasions biologiques génèrent un spectre d’impacts qui vont bien au-delà de la simple prédation ou compétition entre espèces considérées dans les évaluations classiques. Dans une synthèse publiée en 2025, nous avions catalogué 19 types distincts d’impacts environnementaux.

Lorsque nous avons examiné l’ensemble des impacts documentés, il est devenu évident que la plupart opèrent au niveau des communautés, des écosystèmes ou des processus physiques. 12 de ces catégories concernent des échelles plus larges que celle de l’espèce, par exemple le cycle des nutriments, la structure de l’habitat ou les propriétés physiques du sol et de l’eau, dont les impacts sont donc sous-estimés.

Sont ainsi considérés trois niveaux distincts :

  • celui des individus et populations (avec des impacts sur le comportement ou la santé des individus par exemple),

  • celui des communautés d’espèces (assemblages d’espèces et aires de distribution par exemple)

  • et enfin celui des écosystèmes et de leurs composantes abiotiques, c’est-à-dire physiques et chimiques non vivants de l’environnement, mais affectant les organismes vivants (la pollinisation ou le régime des feux par exemple).

Le castor est une espèce dite « ingénieur d’écosystèmes ».
Max Saeling

Tous ces impacts sont documentés, étendus et souvent sévères, mais restaient encore largement ignorés par les classifications actuelles, qui se concentrent avant tout sur la perte d’espèces natives.

Cette omission est critique, car de nombreuses espèces envahissantes agissent comme des « ingénieurs des écosystèmes – par exemple, le castor. Ces organismes ne se contentent pas d’habiter un environnement donné, mais le modifient activement, influençant le destin de communautés entières.

Pour capturer cette nuance, nous avons développé dans notre dernière étude un outil complémentaire d’évaluation, que nous avons baptisé EEICAT (Extended Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa, en français, classification étendue des impacts environnementaux des invasions biologiques). Autrement dit, une version étendue de l’EICAT.



À lire aussi :
Les invasions biologiques, un fardeau économique pour la France

De l’envahisseur à l’invasion

L’EEICAT n’est pas un remplacement, mais une évolution de l’EICAT qui déplace le périmètre de l’espèce invasive à celle l’événement d’invasion. Il permet ainsi d’évaluer l’ensemble des 19 types d’impacts (et non seulement 12 comme précédemment).

Prenons par exemple les systèmes aquatiques envahis par les moules zébrées (Dreissena). Dans d’innombrables lacs, ces mollusques menacent les populations de moules natives par compétition et bio-incrustation (aussi appelé biofouling, qui correspond à la colonisation biologique des surfaces sous-marines, par exemple la surface immergée des navires).

Moules zébrées (Dreissena polymorpha) installées sur une moule endémique.

Cette compétition avec les moules natives est bien capturée par les évaluations standard. Mais celles-ci ignorent qu’elles transforment l’eau elle-même. En filtrant massivement les particules, ces moules invasives réduisent la turbidité, altèrent les cycles des nutriments et déclenchent des changements en cascade dans la végétation et les réseaux trophiques (c’est-à-dire, les chaînes alimentaires).

L’EEICAT permet alors de cartographier, avec un cadre unique, à la fois les effets directs portés à la biodiversité et la réingénierie écosystémique du lac.

Une logique similaire s’applique pour les espèces terrestres. La fourmi d’Argentine (Linepithema humile), par exemple, est connue pour complètement éliminer les nombreuses fourmis natives des régions envahies. Mais son influence est bien plus profonde. En perturbant les mutualismes anciens entre plantes et insectes, ces envahisseurs altèrent la dispersion des graines, la pollinisation, les assemblages d’invertébrés et même les processus du sol.

La fourmi d’Argentine, accidentellement propagée dans le monde du fait du commerce international, est une espèce invasive de fourmi particulièrement agressive envers les autres espèces de fourmis.
Alex Wilde (réutilisation interdite sans autorisation)

Ces effets indirects au niveau communautaire varient considérablement selon le climat et l’intégrité de l’écosystème récepteur, si bien que chaque invasion pourra manifester des effets différents. Avec l’EEICAT, on peut désormais les prendre en compte.



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Ce que l’on sait de « Tapinoma magnum », la fourmi noire et brillante qui envahit l’Europe

Des invasions variables en fonction du contexte, même pour un même envahisseur

Ce sont probablement les invasions biologiques touchant le règne végétal qui plaident le plus pour une telle approche centrée sur l’invasion et non l’envahisseur. Les espèces d’Acacia, introduites mondialement, agissent comme des caméléons écologiques. En Afrique du Sud, elles saturent les sols en azote et assèchent les cours d’eau, supprimant agressivement la flore native du Fynbos.

En France méditerranéenne, l’impact se déplace : l’Acacia argenté (Acacia dealbata, appelé aussi Mimosa d’hiver), très inflammable, modifie radicalement le régime des feux. Par l’accumulation de litière, il crée une « échelle de feu », qui permet aux flammes de monter dans la canopée. Il rend de ce fait les incendies beaucoup plus difficiles à maîtriser.

De plus, le passage du feu lève la dormance de ses graines : une zone brûlée voit souvent une explosion de mimosas, rendant la zone encore plus inflammable pour l’avenir. Cet arbre invasif perturbe également l’hydrologie locale par une consommation d’eau excessive qui réduit le débit des nappes de surface en période estivale. L’EECIAT permet de documenter ces contrastes, où chaque preuve contextuelle redéfinit la sévérité de l’invasion.



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Impact écologique des feux : et les insectes ?

Réinterpréter l’histoire écologique des invasions

Adopter l’EEICAT n’implique pas de réinventer la roue. Il est possible de l’appliquer aux études d’impact existantes déjà produites au cours des dernières décennies. Il est d’ailleurs organisé selon les cinq mêmes niveaux de sévérité que l’EICAT, avec une échelle allant de préoccupation minimale à impact massif, avec les mêmes règles. Cette rétrocompatibilité permet de réinterpréter de façon plus large et plus précise l’histoire écologique des invasions.

Parce que l’EEICAT est basé sur l’invasion, et non sur l’espèce, il permet de rendre compte des différentes façons dont une espèce invasive peut avoir des effets en fonction des écosystèmes, comme l’acacia, ou encore comment plusieurs envahisseurs peuvent cumuler les pressions sur un même écosystème. Ce sont des enjeux que des scores globaux ne savaient jusqu’à aujourd’hui pas articuler.

Les invasions biologiques ne se résument pas à la perte d’espèces : elles sont aussi une réécriture silencieuse des écosystèmes. De la chimie du sol au rythme des feux de forêt, leurs impacts résonnent dans l’environnement bien après leur arrivée. En embrassant le cadre EEICAT, nous pouvons enfin capturer toute l’ampleur de ce que les invasions biologiques font réellement aux écosystèmes, et adapter nos stratégies de gestion aux réalités complexes du monde vivant, invasion par invasion.

Créé, en 2007, pour aider à accélérer et à partager les recherches scientifiques sur des enjeux sociaux majeurs, le Fonds d’Axa pour la recherche soutient près de 700 projets dans le monde mené par des chercheurs issus de 38 pays, dont celui de Franck Courchamp. Pour en savoir plus, visiter le site ou bien sa page LinkedIn.

The Conversation

Franck Courchamp a reçu des financements du Fond AXA pour la Recherche.

Laís Carneiro a reçu des financements du Fond AXA pour la Recherche.

– ref. Derrière les invasions biologiques, un remodelage silencieux des écosystèmes – https://theconversation.com/derriere-les-invasions-biologiques-un-remodelage-silencieux-des-ecosystemes-277411

Posted on

Middle East conflict is pushing oil prices higher — and most Canadians will feel the costs

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Subhadip Ghosh, Associate Professor, School of Business, MacEwan University

Since American and Israeli missiles began striking Iran, global oil prices have jumped sharply. The conflict has resulted in the disruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments.

For Canadians, the effects have been immediate, with higher prices at the gas pump.

A familiar refrain has already surfaced in Canadian political commentary: higher oil prices are good for Canada. That intuition is understandable, given that Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, with oil and gas being Canada’s highest export earner.

But that claim misses two key points. First, while Canada as a whole might gain from higher oil prices as a net energy exporter, those gains are unevenly distributed across sectors and provinces. Second, the mechanism that softened that pain — a stronger Canadian dollar — has weakened.

Together, these two facts clarify why rising oil prices are hitting Canadians harder than they did in previous decades.

Not all Canadians benefit

Oil and gas are undeniably important to Canada. Oil and gas extraction alone has averaged about five per cent of national GDP since 2000, and the sector supported approximately 446,600 direct and indirect jobs in 2023.

The importance of oil also varies dramatically across provinces. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, for example, oil and gas production accounts for roughly 22 per cent and 16 per cent of provincial GDPs, respectively.

By contrast, in Ontario and Québec — home to about 60 per cent of Canadians — the sector contributes only a small fraction of provincial output.

When crude prices rise, Alberta and Saskatchewan collect more royalties, and energy company revenues climb. For that slice of Canada, conflict in the Persian Gulf can bring economic benefits.

Yet windfall gains are also constrained by infrastructure. Pipeline capacity and production limits mean Canadian producers cannot expand quickly when global prices surge.

The completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project in 2024 increased access to Pacific markets, but production cannot be scaled overnight and bottlenecks still blunt the swift supply response needed to realize a windfall gain.

For most Canadians, the picture is simpler and less pleasant. Higher oil prices means higher costs not only at the pump, but also gradually in grocery stores and heating bills, and reduced purchasing power.

A sustained $10 increase in oil typically raises Canadian inflation by roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points over the following year.

How oil shocks spread

Economists typically analyze oil shocks through four transmission channels: terms of trade, income, costs and monetary policy.

The first is the terms-of-trade channel. Because Canada exports more energy than it imports, higher oil prices mean the country earns more for its exports relative to what it pays for imports. That improves Canada’s purchasing power in global markets.

The second is the income channel, which determines who receives those gains: higher oil prices raise producers’ revenues and governments’ royalties, concentrating much of the windfall in oil-producing regions and among shareholders.

The third is the cost channel: oil is a key input into transportation, manufacturing and agriculture, so higher energy prices ripple through supply chains and into household budgets.

The fourth is the monetary policy channel, which often shapes the broader economy. Central banks like the Bank of Canada aim to keep inflation near a stable target. If rising oil prices keep inflation elevated for long enough, policymakers may delay interest rate cuts or keep borrowing costs higher.

Higher interest rates help contain inflation but slow spending and investment across the economy. In short, the same oil shock that boosts Canada’s energy sector can, via inflation and interest rates, slow other parts of the economy.

A weaker currency cushion

Perhaps the most consequential shift over the past decade is the changing relationship between oil prices and the Canadian dollar.

As noted by the Bank of Canada, for most of the 2000s and early 2010s, the Canadian dollar behaved like a petrocurrency. When oil prices rose, the loonie often strengthened as well.

A stronger currency made imported goods cheaper and helped offset some of the inflationary pressure from higher gasoline and energy prices. The exchange rate acted as a natural shock absorber.

That cushion has weakened substantially. Research by Alberta Central, CIBC Capital Markets and several economists all point out that the relationship between oil prices and the Canadian dollar weakened in the mid-2010s and continues to remain weak.

A line graph illustrating how the cushion provided by the Canadian dollar has weakened over time
Rolling correlation between oil prices and the CAD-USD exchange rate from 2000 to 2025.
(Author provided), CC BY

One reason is that investment in Canada’s oil and gas extraction fell 55 per cent from 2014 to 2019, then dropped a further 36 per cent in 2020. This decline reduced the foreign investment flows that once pushed the Canadian dollar higher when oil prices rose.

Second, energy companies are now more likely to return profits to shareholders through dividends and buybacks than to launch new projects. However, many of those shareholders are foreign investors, and even domestic holders, such as pension funds, distribute returns across global portfolios.

As such, the reinvestment of oil windfalls back into the Canadian economy has declined significantly compared to the investment-led boom years of the 2000s. Other factors, like the rise of U.S. shale, have also weakened the oil-currency link.

The practical consequence is that when oil spikes today, Canadians absorb more of the inflationary impact and receive less of the offsetting currency benefit they did a decade ago. For Canada, war-driven oil price spikes are therefore less a national windfall than a redistribution across sectors, provinces and from consumers to energy producers.

With the Canadian dollar no longer rising alongside oil as it once did, price spikes now translate more directly into higher living costs for Canadians.

The author would like to thank Vinh Nguyen, a research assistant and undergraduate student at MacEwan University’s School of Business, for her contribution to this article.

The Conversation

Subhadip Ghosh 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. Middle East conflict is pushing oil prices higher — and most Canadians will feel the costs – https://theconversation.com/middle-east-conflict-is-pushing-oil-prices-higher-and-most-canadians-will-feel-the-costs-277811