Safiyyah's blog

The UK has been hit by a wave of egg shortages due to struggles in the poultry industry, forcing supermarkets to ration supplies. The shortages, caused by Britain’s bird flu outbreak and rising costs for farmers, have left supermarket shelves empty while shoppers rush to stock up on supply. Several supermarkets have had to consider rationing the product, with Tesco the latest chain to join others in limiting supply.  Tesco, the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, has followed Asda and Lidl in limiting the purchase of eggs. Customers are now limited to just three boxes of eggs at checkout. Although the supermarket introduced restrictions, it claims to maintain a “good availability” of eggs and is simply taking precautions. Asda’s restrictions have reduced customer purchases to two boxes per shopper, while Lidl allows up to three boxes per shopper. Furthermore, a spokesperson for The British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA) estimated the shortages to last past Christmas. He ...

  A Qatar World Cup ambassador and former player, Khalid Salman, described homosexuality as “damage in the mind”. With the FIFA 2022 World Cup kicking off next week in Qatar, there are growing concerns over the country’s treatment and attitudes towards homosexuality. The event, scheduled to start from 20th November to 18th December, will be the 22nd edition of the World Cup. It was postponed to winter due to the extreme heat the Arab country faces during the summertime. Though it is an exciting and well-anticipated event for football fans around the world, many are concerned about Qatar’s hosting. In Qatar, same-sex relations are prohibited under multiple parts of the Penal Code. Most notably, Article 285 criminalises acts of “sexual intercourse” between those of the same sex. Those caught could face up to seven years in prison. The country’s legal system is governed by a combination of civil law and Islamic law. Therefore, under Sharia law, Muslim men could face the death penalty ...

BBC Leicester legend Martin Ballard describes local radio as “a jewel that should be preserved” as the station faces staffing cuts. Radio Leicester has a special significance and place in local radio, as it was one of the first local stations introduced by the BBC in the 1960s. Today (November 8) is the 55th anniversary of the station, and in an exclusive interview, the former presenter says he fears that the cuts will silence the “friendly voice in the corner of the room”. Mr Ballard, 61, has produced and presented a plethora of programmes covering countless elections, budgets and major sporting events, to name a few. Throughout his career spanning almost four decades, he worked predominantly for BBC Radio Leicester. He expressed his sadness towards the looming cuts and explained that once there is shared programming, “the keyword in local radio doesn’t work anymore because it’s no longer local.” Taking East Midlands Today as an example, he said: “People in Leicester who watch East Mi...

After listening to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism podcast : The truth behind filter bubbles by Richard Fletcher (2020), I have been enlightened on a topic I never would have thought held such immense significance in our lives. Filter bubbles.  What is a filter bubble, you may ask? A filter bubble is a state of intellectual or ideological isolation that may arise from algorithms feeding us the information we agree with based on our past behaviour and search history. However, there are advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it's incredibly convenient to find specialised content targeted towards your own personal interests. For example, I could open up TikTok and instantly land on a video that piques my interest. But on the other hand, filter bubbles can produce cognitive biases and create an informational barrier around people. Doing so prevents them from seeing opposing points of view, resulting in a very narrow-minded train of thought. Critics of the filt...

In recent years, a significant emphasis in terms of scientific research has been put on exploring outer space. In 2021 a handful of billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson spent time and resources blasting into space. A decision highly scrutinised by the public, with a  survey  revealing that more than 3/4 of people in the UK believe these wealthy individuals "should focus their resources on problems facing Earth, like climate change, before space travel."  Make no mistake, numerous benefits come with the exploration of space, and it holds great significance in terms of the continuation of human life. Space has not only bolstered our technology and understanding of our habitat but has also aided in correlating peaceful alliances amid nations. The advancement in technology has enabled us to further our knowledge and eliminate various obstacles in our daily lives.  We can thank NASA  for important technology such as precision GPS, camera ph...

If you have not yet heard, the scandal at Downing Street is making headlines right now. Government officials and Downing Street staff have been accused of holding Christmas parties in the winter of 2020, while millions abided by the Covid-19 restrictions put into place for the safety of the nation. This has sparked fury across the UK and could quite possibly be the end of Boris Johnson's run as Prime Minister.  The accusations have been denied by a number of ministers on public television. However, after a week of allegations towards his Party- no pun intended, the Prime Minister finally announced an investigation will commence. The Cabinet Secretary Simon Case will be investigating the events. These include an alleged gathering on the 27th of November, the Department for Education gathering on the 10th of December, the Downing Street Christmas quiz on the 15th of December and the main allegation, the Downing Street party on the 18th of December. Mr Case will be looking into the pu...

  As of right now , the coronavirus has taken more than 1.5 million lives. It has  hammered the world economy and upended our daily lives. The recently developed vaccinations are a marvellous way to end what some may call the worst year of their lives. This vaccinatio n has given us hope and light among the darkness that has been 2020. As the year comes to an end, things are finally starting to look up. However,  this may not be the case for everyone.   In a press release today, Amnesty International urged wealthy countries to stop hoarding the vaccines as this could severely affect low-income countries. They state that " Pfizer-BioNTech has already agreed deals for more than one billion potential doses of its vaccine". In an extensive study , they calculated that  “Nearly 70 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in ten people against COVID-19 next year unless urgent action is taken”.  But is it the responsibility of wealthy countries to wo...

A cold reality has been revealed. As humans and the dominating species of the world, we experience many luxuries that other species cannot, simply due to our intelligence. For example, we can roam many parts of the world freely due to us destroying the natural order that is the wilderness and making places suitable for human life to thrive. In place of forests and natural greenery, we now have concrete jungles we call cities. It is a wonderful thing to see how far humans have come since the stone ages but at what cost? Moderation doesn't seem to exist when greed takes over. Humans have already cleared half of the world's rainforests and we have driven many species to extinction. These animals are gone forever and never coming back. Climate change and habitual destruction are both consequences of our doing which is leading to our planet's demise.  When explaining the severity of the situation in his documentary: A Life on Our Planet, David Attenborough said, "We rely en...

Credits Greg Johnson Penn Today There is a missing perspective in COVID-19 news and that is of women.  Women have been left out of many things over the years. Although there is now more equality between genders than there was 50 years ago, we have not reached total equality yet. The gender pay gap still exists. There is an enormous und errepresentation of women in the news. Take the coronavirus, for example.  A report commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "uncovers a substantial bias towards men’s perspectives in both newsgathering and news coverage of the pandemic, spanning across all regions." It demonstrates the gravity of the exclusion. Across the globe, women have been left out of crucial decisions related to the coronavirus, so what happened to equality? Statistics from AKAS analysis show that in England, there is not one woman in the COVID-19 response decision-making bodies. Countries like the US and Nigeria follow closely with the majority of t...

France-Presse - Getty Images Who are the Uighurs?  They are a Muslim minority who live in Xinjiang, an autonomous region of China located in the northwest. In Xinjiang, there are around 11 million Uighurs. Xinjiang has been controlled by China since it was annexed in 1949. However, many Uighurs still proudly identify their homeland by its previous name, East Turkestan.  In 2017, the Xinjiang Government passed a law prohibiting women from wearing veils and men from growing long beards. Many mosques have been destroyed and it is estimated that over 1 million Uighurs have been imprisoned in camps since 2017, in at least 85 identified camps within Xinjiang. In case you're unaware, China has been accused of keeping the Uighurs in concentration camps but they have only admitted to keeping them in "re-education centres" as they believe that the Uighurs hold extremist views and are a threat to security. Their reasoning comes from attacks in 2013 and 2014 which Uighur militants cl...

Illustrated by Rose Wong At this moment, COVID-19 cases are frightfully increasing across the UK and scientists have forecast 50,000 new cases a day by mid-October if we do not take action now. This virus has affected all of us, some more than others but today I'm going to be writing about the impact on university students, being one myself.  Senior politicians across the UK have suggested that young people may be the reason for the increase in coronavirus cases. However, a s Eisenhower once said, "The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions."  I believe that this virus is so extensive that there simply cannot be one culprit when it comes to the blame. Although it is true that many students do love to party and socialise, that is just a minority and a small part of the UK's population. How can this minute number cause such a rise? It's impossible. Instead of focusing on students and now closing pubs and restaurants at 10pm to diminish nigh...