Free Republic

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law announced her conversion to Islam last weekend. Journalist Lauren Booth embraced the faith after what she describes as a ‘holy experience’ in Iran. She is just one of a growing number of modern British career women to do so. Here, writer EVE AHMED, who was raised as a Muslim before rejecting the faith, explores the reasons why. Much of my childhood was spent trying to escape ­Islam. Born in London to an English mother and a ­Pakistani Muslim father, I was brought up to follow my father’s faith without question. But, privately, I hated it. The minute...

Russia has become a danger to Britain and the country must be prepared to take steps to defend itself and its allies, the former head of MI6 says. Sir John Sawers, who recently retired after five years as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Russia poses a "state to state threat".

here were violent clashes on the streets of Newcastle today as hundreds of demonstrators from controversial anti-Islam group Pegida were met by a 2,000-strong counter-protest. Around 400 people from the far-right group were shouted down by the counter-demonstration, with scuffles breaking out as the rally made its way through the city centre, leading to five arrests. The rival demonstrations against the anti-Islam march were led by Respect MP George Galloway who spoke at the pro-Islam rally, branding the far-right protesters a 'German Nazi group'.

Early farming began in the Near East about 10,500 years ago. Farming first reached the Balkans in Europe some 8 to 9,000 years ago, and then crept westward. Locals in Britain, separated from the mainland by the relatively newly formed English Channel, did not start farming until about 6,000 years ago. But an analysis of sediment from a submerged British archaeological site called Bouldner Cliff found something unexpected. “Amongst our Bouldner Cliff samples we found ancient DNA evidence of wheat at the site, which was not seen in mainland Britain for another 2,000 years.” Robin Allaby of the University of...

The UKIP leader will share a stage with high-profile US conservatives including Sarah Palin and NRA gun lobbyists.UKIP leader Nigel Farage is expected to get a celebrity reception in Washington when he addresses America's most high-profile right-wing conference this week. Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Jeb Bush and the National Rifle Association (NRA) gun lobby will be sharing a stage with the British politician after he was invited to address the Conservative Political Action Committee in the US capital. Aides told Sky News his philosophy has much in common with his republican hosts, who also focus on "the battle for smaller...

This seems like a solid enough news hook to revisit a theme I addressed shortly after the Paris attacks, when the Obama administration’s ‘radical-Islamist-violence-has-nothing-to-do-with-Islam’ rhetoric was in full throat. Via The Telegraph: One in four British Muslims sympathise with terrorists behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks, a new poll shows. A poll reveals how a significant minority of Muslims endorse terrorist atrocities against those who mock the Prophet Mohammed. Some 27 per cent of British Muslims said they have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” on the Paris magazine, according to polling by ComRes for the BBC. A...

Britain was pulled closer towards a renewed cold war with Russia when David Cameron announced UK military trainers are to be deployed to help Ukraine forces stave off further Russian backed incursions into its sovereign territory. The decision – announced on Tuesday but under consideration by the UK national security council since before Christmas – represents the first deployment of British troops to the country since the near civil war in eastern Ukraine began more than a year ago. Downing Street said the deployment was not just a practical bilateral response to a request for support, but a signal to...

Ancient Stonehenge Houses Unearthed Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Oct. 13, 2006 —Nine Neolithic-era buildings have been excavated in the Stonehenge world heritage site, according to a report in the journal British Archaeology. The structures, which appear to have been homes, date to 2,600-2,500 B.C. and were contemporary with the earliest stone settings at the site's famous megalith. They are the first house-like structures discovered there. Julian Thomas, who worked on the project and is chair of the archaeology department at Manchester University in England, said Stonehenge could have been a key gathering place at the Neolithic era's version of a...

Is Stonehenge Roman? Geoffrey Wainwright, the co-Director of the excavations. Geoffrey's friends will be glad to note that he has now recovered from his hip replacement, though he can still not get down the deep holes After a gap of some forty four years, Stonehenge is once again being excavated. Admittedly, this time it is only a very small hole, and is only being dug for a fortnight, but it is a very important hole, and on April the 9th, we were invited down to Stonehenge to inspect it. It was a wonderful trip, not least because the weather was...

The teams, from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth and University College London, all working on the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP), explored not just Stonehenge and its landscape but also the wider social and economic context of the monument's main stages of construction around 3,000 BC and 2,500 BC... Previous theories have suggested the great stone circle was used as a prehistoric observatory, a sun temple, a place of healing, and a temple of the ancient druids. The Stonehenge Riverside Project's researchers have rejected all these possibilities after the largest programme of archaeological research ever mounted on this iconic...

Today we travel to southern Illinois, where just across the Mississippi River is located the Cahokia Archaeological Zone. Cahokia was the largest known Native American city north of Mexico. At its peak population around 1250 AD, it was larger that London, England. Of course, Cahokia was not its real name. No one knows its real name. Unlike the ancient towns in the Southeast, where direct descendants of the original occupants still live, no one even knows yet what happened to the population of Cahokia, after it was abandoned. There was an indigenous village in the vicinity of Cahokia as early...

New wooden henge, a circular ditch that aligns with world-famous monument, deemed site's most exciting find in a lifetime -- Without a sod of earth being dug up, a new henge, a circular ditch which probably enclosed a ring of timber posts and may have been used for feasting, has been discovered...only 900 metres away and apparently contemporary to the 5,000-year-old stone circle, as the most exciting find at Stonehenge in a lifetime... The henge was revealed within a fortnight of an international team beginning fieldwork on the three-year Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project, which aims to survey and map 14...

A prehistoric village has been discovered in southern England that was likely home to the builders of Stonehenge, archaeologists announced on January 30, 2007 (read the full story). The village, located 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from the famous stone circle, includes eight wooden houses dated back to around 2500 B.C. The remains of a cluster of homes include the outlines of floors, beds, and cupboards. Tools, jewelry, pottery, and human and animal bones were also found. The excavated houses formed part of a much bigger settlement dating back to the Late Stone Age, according to project leader Mike Parker Pearson...

The team who worked on the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 are to return to their findings to explain the eating habits of the people who built and worshipped at the stone circle over four thousand years ago... the new 'Feeding Stonehenge' project will analyse a range of materials including cattle bones and plant residue... Initial research suggests the animals were brought considerable distances to the ceremonial site.. The original Stonehenge Riverside project, which strengthened the idea that nearby Durrington Walls was part of the Stonehenge complex, yielded a surprisingly wide range of material ranging from ancient tools to animal...

Stone age people drove animals hundreds of miles to a site close to Stonehenge to be slaughtered for ritual feasts, according to scientists who have examined the chemical signatures of animal remains buried there... Durrington Walls is a stone-age village containing the remains of numerous cattle and pigs which are thought to have been buried there after successive ritual feasts. The site is two miles north east of Stonehenge and dates from around 3000 BC, 500 years before the first stones were erected... The evidence points to groups of people driving animals from as far away as Wales for the...

Archaeologists at the University of Sheffield have revealed new radiocarbon dates of human cremation burials at Stonehenge, which indicate that the monument was used as a cemetery from its inception just after 3000 B.C. until well after the large stones went up around 2500 B.C. The Sheffield archaeologists, Professor Mike Parker-Pearson and Professor Andrew Chamberlain, believe that the cremation burials could represent the natural deaths of a single elite family and its descendants, perhaps a ruling dynasty. One clue to this is the small number of burials in Stonehenge´s earliest phase, a number that grows larger in subsequent centuries, as...

Message in the Stones Why transport 82 two-tonne megaliths across more than 250 miles of mountain, river and sea to build a stone circle at Stonehenge? This is one of the greatest mysteries of Britain’s best-known, but least understood, prehistoric monument. Now Tim Darvill thinks he has the answer: the famous bluestones had healing powers, and the builders of Stonehenge were creating a prehistoric Lourdes. The latest issue of CA tells all. Despite centuries of study, we seem no nearer to answering such basic questions as what is Stonehenge, who built it and why. The publication in 1965 of Stonehenge...

Evidence of a large settlement full of houses dating back to 2,600 BC has been discovered near the ancient stone monument of Stonehenge in southwest England, scientists said on Tuesday. They suspect inhabitants of the houses, forming the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain, built the stone circle at Stonehenge -- generally thought to have been a temple, burial ground or an astronomy site -- between 3,000 and 1,600 BC. "We found the remains of eight houses," Mike Parker Pearson, a professor of archaeology at Sheffield University, said in a teleconference to announce the discovery. "We think they are...

Stonehenge builders' houses found The village would have housed hundreds of people (Image: National Geographic) Archaeologists say they have found a huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge. Excavations at Durrington Walls, near the legendary Salisbury Plain monument, uncovered remains of ancient houses. People seem to have occupied the sites seasonally, using them for ritual feasting and funeral ceremonies. In ancient times, this settlement would have housed hundreds of people, making it the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain. The dwellings date back to 2,600-2,500 BC, the same period that Stonehenge was built. "In what were...

A team of 100 archaeologists, from various universities around Britain, along with Wessex Archaeology, has been carrying out excavations as part of the seven-year Riverside Project at Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and Stonehenge Cursus to find out more about the sites and their links with Stonehenge in the 26th Century BC... Professor of archaeology at Sheffield University Mike Parker- Pearson is leading the dig: "I think our most exciting discovery is the ceremonial avenue which leads from Durrington Walls to the river." ...The road, which formed an avenue aligned on the Midsummer Solstice sunset, suggested that Durrington Walls and Woodhenge were...