Dear Progressive Detective: I’ve been hearing a lot about e-cigarettes. What are these things, and can they really help me kick my habit? E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that detect the user’s pull and vaporize a nicotine solution that recreates the smoking experience without carcinogens, odour, ashes, stubs, or even litter. Without the 4,000 chemicals added […] More »

Almost one year ago Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the currently contested President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, delivered his infamous speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Putting aside for a moment that the U.N. has failed its mandate to prevent wars between countries and, therefore, is rather debunked as an institution, it has also been a […] More »

Marriage certificates in hand, middle-class gays and lesbians have drifted away from the fight for queer rights. Underfunded and burnt out, the activists left behind say there’s still plenty of work to do. Last January, Helen Kennedy sat behind the Hockey Night in Canada desk with CBC’s Ron MacLean, explaining why her organization, Egale Canada, […] More »

Until 1999, Nigeria was a land of military rule, repression, and instability. Helon Habila’s novel, Waiting for an Angel, evokes the mental and social climate of the country during the military’s last few years of power in the late 90s. Matching the chaos that rapid changes of power — mainly by military coups — must […] More »

[Editor’s note: This Magazine columns editor Eva Salinas will be reviewing films and rounding up news about the Toronto International Film Festival over the next week. Visit us online next week for more of her dispatches.] And so it begins. This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicked-off last night, a little later […] More »

I feel like I’ve been re-reading the same article all week. Politicians quoted in The Globe and Mail, National Post and others talk about this weekend’s Le Moulin à Paroles like it’s the last nail in Confederation’s coffin. “There was the death of a man. These were tragic events,” Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, Josée Verner told […] More »

Alan Turing, pioneer of the digital computer, codebreaking war hero, and godfather of geeks everywhere, got a posthumous apology yesterday — many years overdue — from the British government. Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement acknowledging the government’s “appalling” treatment of Turing when it tried and convicted him of “gross indecency” based on his […] More »

It’s a familiar ritual in movie palaces and multiplexes all over the country. You find yourself in a lineup for a film that you know nothing about, aside from its reputation as a remarkable new work by a hot young director from the Carpathians, or maybe Polynesia. For sustenance, you have foregone popcorn in favour […] More »

One evening in December, during the post-election violence in Kisumu, Western Kenya, Dennis Otieno was walking down Tom Mboya Street with four other friends. Once a busy thoroughfare, he was now walking past empty stores with their windows smashed in and their goods looted. Suddenly, a police car pulled up and two policemen spilled out […] More »

Two elections. Two women. Two killings. One legacy? Not really. One victim became a world icon, while the other barely registered on the books of the international media. Such are the divergent post-mortem fates of Neda Agha Soltan and Zeina al-Miri. The former was shot in the streets of Tehran during post-election disturbances in June. […] More »

In Salmon Arm, B.C., there’s been a long-standing fight over plans to build an enormous shopping centre directly on the floodplain of the Salmon River. Last fall, the city voted not to allow mall developer SmartCentres to build big box stores on this ecologically sensitive tract of land. Well, now we receive a report that […] More »