Free Republic

Close to 50 churches and monasteries were taken over by the Turkish government in Mardin, a city located in the southeastern part of the country, reported the news outlet Agos. The move was made during the time that the villages that comprise the city were turned into an official municipality. As per legislation that established the city, a “liquidation committee” was established to distribute institutions of the city whose legal permits had expired. “For years, minority foundations could not acquire property in Turkey,” explained Kuryakos Ergun, the chairman of Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation. “Then legislative amendments were introduced in 2002...

The AKP government has usurped churches, monasteries and graveyards belonging to the Syriac community in Mardin and handed them over as state property to the Diyanet, Turkey's Presidency for Religious Affairs. According to the Armenian newspaper Agos many churches, monasteries, graveyards and other assets of the Syriac community in the city of Mardin have been usurped and transferred to the state's Treasury and other relevant state institutions. After Mardin became a Metropolitan Municipality, its villages were officially turned into neighbourhoods as per the law and attached to the provincial administration. Following the legislative amendment introduced in late 2012, the Governorate...

You can buy anything on the internet – even, until recently, a rocket engine. NASA has since confiscated the engine, which contains technology that could form the basis of missiles as well as spacecraft. But the incident highlights security concerns at the space agency . Called the RL-10, this type of engine powered NASA's Saturn-I rocket in the 1960s. That was a precursor to the larger Saturn-V, which took astronauts to the moon. In a recent report, NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) described how in July, it confiscated an RL-10 from a man who had put the engine up...

From the Examiner via Gateway Pundit, another TSA outrage from this weekend: the defendant, Sam Wolanyk says he was asked to pass through the 3-D x-ray machine. When Wolanyk refused, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel told him he would have to be patted down before he could pass through and board his airplane. Wolanyk said he knew what was coming and took off his pants and shirt, leaving him in Calvin Klein bike undergarments. “It was obvious that my underwear left nothing to the imagination,” he explained. “But that wasn’t enough for the TSA supervisor who was called to the...

PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. Mint seized 10 Double Eagle gold coins from 1933, among the rarest and most valuable coins in the world, that were turned in by a jeweler seeking to determine their authenticity. Joan S. Langbord plans a federal court lawsuit to try to recover them, her attorney, Barry H. Berke, said Wednesday. Langbord found the coins among the possessions of her father, longtime Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt, who had acknowledged having sold some of the coins decades ago. She now operates her father's business. David Lebryk, acting director of the Mint, had announced in a news release...