Free Republic

The number of Muslim converts in Britain has passed 100,000, fuelled by a surge in young white women adopting the Islamic faith. The figure has almost doubled in ten years – with the average convert now a 27-year-old white woman fed up with British consumerism and immorality. The numbers, revealed in a study by multi-faith group Faith Matters, have led to claims that the country is undergoing a process of ‘Islamification’. But the organisation’s report argued that most converts saw their religion as ‘perfectly compatible’ with living in Britain.

Two white British men who were fighting alongside Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan have been killed in a drone attack, it was reported last night. The two men are believed to have been ‘white converts’ to Al Qaeda who changed their British names to Islamic ones after becoming radicalised. They died five days ago when a Hellfire missile

Hundreds of angry and frightened Britons left stranded in Thailand by the volcanic dust cloud today were battling for plane seats out of the country's capital. Many were left to sleep on cardboard mats in Bangkok airport after their money ran out. Some were also without a meal or roof over their heads because non-European airlines - including Thailand's main air carrier - declined to offer customers hotel accommodation which must be offered by air carriers under EU regulations. The problems in Thailand have been exacerbated by a violent attempted coup being mounted on the streets of the capital. One...

An Armada of Royal Navy ships is poised to rescue Britons stranded by the aviation shutdown. The dramatic operation would carry thousands of families home from Channel ports in a rerun of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Security Minister Lord West said commercial ships and amphibious landing craft could also be drafted into service.

Voters are deeply pessimistic about the state of Britain today, believing that society is broken and heading in the wrong direction, a Populus poll for The Times has found. Nearly three fifths of voters say that they hardly recognise the country they are living in, while 42 per cent say they would emigrate if they could. But worries over the pace of social change and dislocation are balanced by the belief that life will get better, according to the survey undertaken at the weekend. It suggests that 70 per cent believe that society is now broken, echoing a Conservative campaign...

Most voters believe we are living in broken Britain, according to a poll. Nearly three fifths say they hardly recognise the country they are living in and are deeply pessimistic about the state of Britain today. The survey shows that 70 per cent believe that society is now broken and 68 per cent believe people who play by the rules get a raw deal. Many say they are worried by the pace of social change and 42 per cent admit they would like to emigrate, the Populus poll for the Times found. Women, working-class people and Tory voters were more...

British couple kidnapped by pirates while sailing off the east coast of Africa fear that they could be killed within days, the Times of London reported. Paul Chandler, 59, a retired quantity surveyor, and Rachel Chandler, 55, an economist, disappeared after heading from the Seychelles towards Tanzania in their yacht, Lynn Rival, on October 23, 2009. In an interview with ITV News broadcast Thursday night Chandler said that he was “just existing in hope.” “I’m afraid that they will just kill us and abandon us in the desert

British public are concerned at the rise of Islam in the UK and fear that the country is deeply divided along religious lines. More than half the population would be strongly opposed to a mosque being built in their neighbourhood, the study found. The Finsbury Park Mosque, London A large proportion of the country believes that the multicultural experiment has failed, with 52 per cent considering that Britain is deeply divided along religious lines and 45 per cent saying that religious diversity has had a negative impact. Only a quarter of Britons feel positive towards Muslims, while more than a...

The British hostage Peter Moore was dramatically set free yesterday after the United States handed over an Iraqi insurgent suspected of planning the deaths of five American servicemen. Mr Moore, an IT consultant, was freed by League of the Righteous, or Asaib al-Haq (AAH) — an extremist Shia group allied to Iran — after 31 months and spent his first night of freedom at the British Embassy in Baghdad. He is expected to fly home today.

The racing yacht, the Kingdom Of Bahrain, owned by Sail Bahrain and crewed by the five Britons, was stopped by Iranian naval vessels last Wednesday as it sailed from Bahrain to Dubai. The crew members are still in Iran and are understood to be safe and well. Their families have been informed. The Foreign Office said the yacht might have "inadvertently" strayed into Iranian waters. The sailors were heading to Dubai to join the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race. One of the men onboard has been named as David Bloomer, believed to be a radio presenter in Bahrain. A source later...

(11-13) 17:44 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Friday the 13th was the luckiest day of the year for two British adventurers who passed under the Golden Gate Bridge on Friday morning after rowing a 23-foot-long boat more than 5,000 miles across the Pacific from Japan. The voyage took 189 days - more than six months - on a boat made of Kevlar and propelled only by muscle power. The two men were stalked by whales, tossed by storms, ran low on food and sometimes despaired. They did not sight land until Thursday, when the dim silhouette of Point Reyes appeared on...

LONDON (AFP) – Britons are so lazy that one in six cannot be bothered to change television channel if the remote control is not working, according to a study published on Monday. More than half said they would take the lift rather than climb two flights of stairs to their workplace, while three quarters had too little energy for sex at the end of a long day. An entire generation risks being blighted by idleness, warned Nuffield Health, a non-profit organisation which commissioned the poll. "Ready-meals, remote controls and even Internet shopping are all contributing to a dangerously lazy and...

BRITAIN'S row with Iran deepened last night after the Tehran government threatened to put British Embassy staff on trial. The Muslim clerics who call the shots in Iran accuse local workers at the embassy of fanning the anti-government protests which followed last month's disputed election. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was urgently trying to speak to his counterpart in Tehran over the legal threat to the staff. Earlier, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, claimed embassy workers had confessed to involvement in the protests. Jannati said: "In these events, their embassy had a presence. "Some people...

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday it has freed five of the local British embassy staff it arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London. "Eight people were arrested. Five were freed and three are still being interrogated," ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference in Tehran. Earlier English-language state television Press TV had spoken of a total of nine arrests. Ghashghavi also said that Iran, which has accused Western nations particularly Britain and the United States of "meddling," has no current plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with...

Iran has arrested eight local British embassy staff, triggering London's fury and further exacerbating tensions with the West over the post-election turmoil in the Islamic republic. The latest backlash against what Iranian leaders have branded as foreign "meddling" came as opposition leaders continued to defy the regime, rejecting a panel set up to hold a partial recount in the hotly-disputed presidential vote.

The European Union’s 27 nations on Sunday joined forces to condemn Iran’s detention of British embassy staff in Tehran,as tensions escalated between Iran and the west in the wake of the disputed elections. After Iran arrested nine local employees working at the UK embassy in Tehran, EU foreign ministers meeting in Corfu said they would respond firmly to any further “harassment or intimidation [by Iran] of foreign or Iranian staff working in embassies”. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he was “deeply concerned” by the arrests and warned their continued detention was “quite unacceptable’’.The seriousness of the diplomatic stand-off was...

Iran 'must free UK embassy staff' David Miliband: "Harassment and intimidation" The European Union has demanded the immediate release of Iranian staff at Britain's embassy in Tehran detained on Saturday over post-election unrest. EU ministers meeting in Greece warned that "harassment or intimidation" of embassy staff would be met with a "strong and collective" response. Iranian media reported the detention of eight local staff at the UK mission over their alleged role in the unrest. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the allegations as baseless. Relations between the countries are strained since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the UK of stoking...

CORFU, Greece (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Iran's crackdown on post-election protesters and said the EU would meet any Iranian intimidation of European diplomatic staff with a "strong and collective response". Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency from Wednesday, said the Iranian government had been weakened at home and abroad. "Obviously the regime is trying to preserve its position by very harsh repression. But that cannot hide the fact that this is a weakened regime. It has lost legitimacy both internally and externally," Bildt said. EU foreign ministers were meeting on...

Iran has detained several local British embassy staff, sparking a new row with Britain on Sunday that underscored the hardline leadership's effort to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger. EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iranian police stand guard during an anti-Britain protest in front of the British embassy in Tehran June 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Fars News/Files) British Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded the release of all the staff still held and said his European Union colleagues had agreed to a...

Iran arrested nine local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran Saturday, drawing a terse response from the U.K. government and signaling an escalation of tensions between two countries with a history of difficult relations. AFP/Getty Images Iranian riot policemen stood guard outside the British embassy in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Iranian media reported the arrests on Sunday, saying the employees had been detained for allegedly playing a role in post-election demonstrations in Tehran. Speaking Sunday during a visit to Greece, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said some of the nine who were arrested have been released, though he...