Toronto journalist Janet Pelley got a shock last February while attending a symposium in Burlington, Ont., on water quality research. After a session on Bisphenol-A, she approached two of the researchers who had presented for follow-up information. The researchers “laughed nervously,” says Pelley, then pointed her to an Environment Canada press officer in the corner. […] More »

[On Wednesday, we introduced the first in our new WTF/FTW series of blog posts. Today we bring you the flipside of Wednesday WTF (bad/crazy/stupid news): Friday FTW (good/awesome/fun news).] U.S. website Tappening, a project and blog advocating that you ditch bottled water and drink from the tap like a normal person, launched a separate microsite […] More »

Journalism’s most fearless reporters take on its toughest question If you’re a journalist and still brave enough to announce that fact on social occasions, you can be more or less assured what the next question will be. “Don’t you worry,” someone will always begin with a sheen of sympathy, “that journalism is dying?” There are […] More »

The idea of supplying hydro power to poor communities came to Nyaga Ndiga after hours spent by the river grinding millet. He was inspired to try the same concept—friction—to produce energy. In a country where only 4 per cent of the population can afford electricity, Ndiga was uncovering an untapped market: cheap, sustainable, community-owned rural […] More »

Three Canadian church congregations stood up to Immigration Canada and the police to save the lives of refugees in peril. Some say they should butt out. In 1990, Felicia Abimbola Akinwalere (“Ola” to her friends) arrived in Toronto from Nigeria on a temporary visa to visit family. During that vacation, her husband took part in […] More »

[This is the first blog post in our “WTF/FTW” series. In the magazine we’ve been including tiny articles that come under the heading “WTF?” and “FTW!” for bad/crazy/weird news, and good news, respectively. We’ll now be doing these weekly, as well: Look for Wednesday WTF and Friday FTW. You can probably work out which days […] More »

In late 1996, in a tiny peninsular emirate on the Persian Gulf with a total surface area barely larger than Toronto and Montreal combined, an experiment began. At the invitation of Qatar’s head of state, a small group of former BBC Arabic journalists relocated to the capital, Doha. They had been left jobless when their […] More »

When I first saw the original two-minute teaser trailer, above, for District 9, the new science-fiction movie coming out in August, it was a few months ago and the huge, out-of-control advertising campaign promoting it hadn’t yet blanketed every bus-stop and billboard in the country. Though the subsequent advertising has dulled my interest a bit, […] More »

While a degree in creative writing may not top your career counsellor’s advice for a quick professional turnaround, the formal study of writing was a North American growth industry even before the recession sent more people back to school (or kept them there longer). In an anguished and incredulous Harper’s article, American writer and professor […] More »

I’m back in Scotland this month, for my first trip home since Christmas. Coming home is always incredible — a constant onslaught of the long-lost familiar — but being back also reminds me of some of the reasons I left in the first place. I could give you a few of those, but lurking behind […] More »

Year-round, Mama Agnes feeds a family of six with a comparatively 100 square-metre plot of land. She stands in her backyard garden, an oasis of green in a landscape left yellow and cracked by the hot sun. She points to tomato plants heavy with still-green fruits, sukuma (kale), onions, and spinach. Mama Agnes is currently […] More »