For one Canadian artist, the vibrancy of Japanese washi pulled her out of the darkness of mental illness. Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka and Ashoona Ashoona with their collaborative art piece at the Fogo Island Arts gallery in 2023. The piece, “Uummatima tillirninga, I can...
The global toy industry has a plastics predicament: How to feed children’s appetite for new toys, keep prices low and not harm the Earth in the process. A pile of plastic toys at a toy landfill. (Illustration by News Decoder) Plastic is omnipresent in our lives...
The Olympics are the pinnacle of an athletic career. But after athletes step off the podium a deeper challenge awaits. Who are they when the uniforms come off? Olympic rower Christine Roper (frontside) hugging her teammate as they celebrate their gold medal victory....
Across cultures and times, midwives have been at the side of women, helping bring healthy babies into the world. Finally, the world recognizes their value. Midwife Sifa Ndeze attends to mother and baby. (Credit: UNFPA DRC/Junior Mayindu) Call them “baby catchers,”...
In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s unrelenting attacks on Gaza, around the world people curious about Islam flock to their local mosque. The Gothenburg Mosque in Sweden has seen an uptick in visitors since 7 October. Credit: Andrzej Otrębski...
A spiral-shaped algae is cheap and easy to grow. It’s so nutritious that NASA thinks it can power people to Mars. On earth it can keep kids healthy. Spirulina powder. (Credit: Madeleine Steinbach for Getty Images) An algae that has been around since before...
We pass down our eye color and baldness to our kids. It seems we also pass along health problems from bad food we consume and smoke we inhale. Two hands hold a fast food burger against the backgrop of DNA strands. Illustration by News Decoder This article was...
The Indian government has proposed strengthening privacy protection, but at the cost of transparency. Is this about protection or repression? Photo illustration by News Decoder. India’s proposed digital privacy law is creating fault lines between the right to privacy...
With the killing of six sex workers in Lima this year already, people are calling on the government to address the unequal treatment of transgender people. A group of transgender women protest outside the police station in downtown Lima, Peru. Since the beginning of...
If a government agency stores the DNA and fingerprints of its residents can it serve them more efficiently or control them more effectively? (Image: News Decoder) A year after Kenya’s historic digital identity program was declared illegal, the Kenyan government is...
As more countries around the world adopt digital identification systems, concerns about the legality of such programs have come to the fore. This month, University of Toronto global journalism fellow Shefali Malhotra walks us through arguments for and against the implementation of digital IDs in Kenya.
Exercise: As students are reading the article, have them create a list of arguments for and against the implementation of digital IDs. Then, have students write a paragraph on whether or not they support adopting digital IDs in your country. The paragraph should include arguments around at least two of the following subtopics: data protection (legal), privacy (personal & commercial), internet penetration/the digital divide, potential discrimination against vulnerable groups. To extend the activity, students can engage in a structured debate with classmates after writing their paragraphs.