July14 , 2026

Poisoning of Assad Rumoured in Moscow

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Scotland's Buried Circle Rewrites Violence Before Rome Keywords: Neolithic Scotland, Machrie Moor, conflict, stone circles, archaeology, Roman Britain Brief: Standing stones in moorland mist; a bronze blade laid beside excavated earth.New discoveries at Machrie Moor and a major Edinburgh exhibition are pushing Scotland's prehistory away from pastoral myth and closer to a landscape of ritual, memory and organised violence.Scotland's ancient past is often imagined in stone, fog and silence. The newest archaeology suggests something noisier. Historic Environment Scotland this week announced the detection of a possible new prehistoric ring beneath the peat on the Isle of Arran: a circle of 12 pit-like anomalies forming a feature approximately 28 metres across, with space for two additional settings that may bring the original total to 14 posts or stones. Led by Dr Nick Hannon, the survey team used geophysical scanning equipment that detects underground disturbances without lifting a single turf. "The discovery of a new circle completely surpassed our expectations," Dr Hannon said. The find arrives at the same moment as the National Museum of Scotland opens Scotland's First Warriors, an exhibition tracing 4,000 years of conflict from the Neolithic to the Romans, covering more than 200 objects and asking how and why people fought, what weapons they used and what early conflict did to communities. Taken together, the two stories complicate the old image of early Scotland as a remote edge of prehistory waiting passively for civilisation to arrive. Ritual and Conflict Shared the Same Landscape It is tempting to separate ceremonial monuments from warfare, as if one belonged to religion and the other to politics. The new exhibition suggests prehistoric Scotland did not organise life so neatly. Machrie Moor's circles date from between roughly 3500 and 1500 BCE, and excavations have shown that several were preceded by timber circles in the same positions. The timber circle at Machrie Moor 1 has been radiocarbon-dated to 2030 ± 180 BCE, before the wooden posts were replaced with stone around 2000 BCE. The circles align with a prominent notch at the head of Machrie Glen, where the midsummer sunrise would have been visible, and later served as burial grounds for cremations and inhumations. The Edinburgh exhibition changes the emotional map of prehistoric Scotland. Stone circles were not necessarily built by peaceful mystics untouched by danger. They belonged to societies capable of both ceremony and force, burial and battle, symbolic order and lethal dispute. As the exhibition makes clear, interpersonal violence, fortification and organised conflict were real parts of Scotland's deep past, not marginal episodes but structural features of life on the moor. The landscape was never only sacred space. It was lived space. Before Rome, There Was Already History The most useful thing about these discoveries is that they pull Scottish prehistory out of the shadow of Rome. Too often, Britain's northern story begins when classical writers notice it. The Arran circle and the "first warriors" frame both insist that Scotland already had long, structured histories of monument-building, territorial meaning and conflict before Roman contact ever entered the picture. The Arran cursus, a ceremonial enclosure approximately 1.1 kilometres long sitting adjacent to the stone circles, underlines the landscape's sustained importance as a gathering place across millennia. The new ring at Machrie Moor has not yet been excavated, and the evidence for prehistoric violence remains open to interpretation. But the direction of travel is clear. Early Scotland looks less like an empty northern fringe and more like a dense world of ritual landscapes, armed communities and social memory stretching back 5,000 years. The stones were never mute. We are only getting better at hearing what kind of world they belonged to.Keep up with Daily Euro Times for more updates! Read also: The Outlander Effect: How the Show Put Scotland on the Map Rural Europe Pushes Back Against Megafarms Homer in a Mummy Rewrites Cultural Borders

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Claims about an alleged poisoning attempt on former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow have surfaced, adding to a long history of unproven stories about the exiled leader’s safety and wellbeing.

The Telegram channel General SVR wrote that Assad needed urgent medical care on Sunday after experiencing severe breathing problems and violent coughing in his Moscow flat. Medical staff found toxic substances in Assad’s blood tests, the channel claims, though it provided no evidence to support these assertions.

The channel added that after Assad complained of breathing troubles, his condition worsened rapidly. “Almost immediately after the request, he started coughing violently and began choking,” the post said. Allegedly, Russian officials ordered that Assad be treated in his flat rather than be moved to a hospital.

Source of the Story

A former senior Russian spy allegedly runs General SVR, a social media channel known for spreading sensational but unsubstantiated claims about Russia’s leadership. 

Previously, the channel claimed that President Vladimir Putin died in October 2023. Ukrainian intelligence argues that such narratives are often crafted to test public reactions to various scenarios.

History of False Assassination Reports

Assad’s reported poisoning comes three weeks after his hasty departure from Syria, where rebel forces ended his family’s five-decade rule. The former leader fled to Moscow on the 8th of December under Vladimir Putin’s protection, bringing with him a reported £2 billion in assets.

The poisoning story fits a pattern of dramatic but unfounded claims about threats to Assad’s life. In 2016, Syrian state media called reports of an assassination attempt “completely false” after hackers posted the fabricated story on their website.

Six years later, Iranian news outlets falsely reported Assad survived an attack during Eid prayers, a story Syrian officials quickly denied.

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Poisoning of Assad Rumoured in Moscow  Daily Euro Times

Police caught the wife and daughter of one of the former president’s cousins, Duraid Assad, at Beirut airport trying to flee using forged passports. His uncle Rifaat Assad, known as the “Butcher of Hama” and wanted for war crimes, managed to escape to Dubai. 

Assad’s wife Asma faces her own troubles. Her expired British passport blocks any return to Britain for medical care. The 49-year-old London-born former first lady battles acute myeloid leukaemia, adding ‘personal tragedy’ to political exile.

Associates of Assad face further blows back home. The new ruling authorities have started rounding up regime officials. Security forces arrested nearly 300 people last week, including informants, former soldiers, and Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, the ex-head of military courts accused of overseeing thousands of deaths at Damascus’s notorious Sednaya prison.

Keep up with Daily Euro Times for more updates!

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