Ukrainian regions ban largest Orthodox church

Lawmakers in Rovno and Volyn have prohibited all activities of the UOC

The governments of two regions in western Ukraine have banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC) and its activities this week.

The UOC is canonically part of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate – the largest Orthodox Church in the world, with 150 million worshippers around the globe.

The local parliament in Ukraine’s northwestern Rovno Region, which borders Belarus, was the first to ban the UOC. The 55 lawmakers present in an emergency session on Monday supported the move in a unanimous vote, the parliament said in a statement.

The legislators also revoked the registration of the UOC’s religious chapters in Rovno Region and terminated lease agreements with them, the statement added.

They then vowed to demand that Ukraine’s parliament – the Verkhovna Rada – “immediately adopt a law on the prohibition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [of] the Moscow Patriarchate” in the entire country.

On Tuesday, the parliament in neighboring Volyn Region, which borders Poland, followed suit and banned the UOC in another unanimous vote. The lawmakers also published an appeal to members of the UOC and called on them to sever all the ties with the Church.

The legislators then called on the regional military administration to terminate the lease contracts with the UOC granting the church access to temples and other religious building complexes, including monasteries.

Ukrainian lawyer Vasily Samoliuk told the media that any decision by a local authority such as this “is currently illegal.” Lease contracts with religious organizations also cannot be terminated unilaterally if there are “no grounds for this,” he added. The UOC has yet to comment on the development.

The UOC has historical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and was accused by Ukrainian officials of being a security threat amid the military conflict with Russia. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has been raiding UOC churches, ostensibly searching for weapon stockpiles and evidence of treason.

Earlier, The mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv also declared the UOC – the only canonical Orthodox church in Ukraine according to most other Orthodox Churches in the world – “ended” in the city, as the authorities demolished some of the properties of the Church and handed others over to the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

Established in 2018, the OCU was recognized only by the pro-Western Patriarchate of Constantinople and three other Orthodox Churches out of 15.

https://www.rt.com/russia/574549-ukraine-regions-ban-orthodox-church/

The Taliban did in one year what Washington couldn’t in 20, sparking new panic

The ban on Afghan poppy cultivation is set to hit Europe’s heroin supplies

It’s been nearly a year since the Taliban banned Afghan poppy farming used for the production of opioids. The impact of the move is set to hit global markets sometime soon, given the delay from farm to customer.

You’d think that would bring a welcome sigh of relief. Apparently not. Reports are now suggesting that a lack of Afghan heroin on the global market and a reduction of available natural opioids like heroin could lead to increased use of synthetic opioids like fentanyl. If that’s the case, then it’s only because Washington and the West are about as competent at curtailing skyrocketing drug overdose deaths as they were at tackling the cultivation of Afghan opioids back when they had control of the country. Synthetic opioids from China and Mexico are increasingly being used, as are those procured through prescriptions within America’s own healthcare system.

Over the course of the US-led Global War on Terror that kicked off in Afghanistan in 2001, heroin overdoses in the US and elsewhere spiked. Despite having control over the country and its government for two decades, Washington not only failed to curtail farming and exports of Afghan opium, but oversaw an increase.

In February 2004, then US Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Robert Charles, outlined a new policy for countering “narcoterrorism” in Afghanistan before Congress. He cited a desire to assist the US-backed Afghan government with its objective “to eliminate opium poppy cultivation and trade in 10 years.” The project would involve deploying CIA-linked USAID to poppy-growing areas to help find alternative farming solutions. But there have always been strong doubts over the sincerity of such efforts. A US Department of Justice policy paper from 1991 accused the CIA of “complicity in the narcotics trade” in Afghanistan, underscoring that “covert CIA operations in Afghanistan, for example, have transformed South Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market.”

The CIA would certainly be in a position to know, having backed Mujahideen jihadist fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Cold War while the trafficking occurred right under its nose. Apparently old habits die hard.

In 2010, Former Director of the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia, Viktor Ivanov, met with NATO officials to request a mandate for destroying the poppy fields, citing 30,000 opium-related deaths in Russia. “We cannot be in a situation where we remove the only source of income of people who live in the second poorest country in the world without being able to provide them with an alternative,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai replied, according to Reuters.

https://www.rt.com/news/574173-taliban-afghan-poppy-heroin/

DEVELOPING: Several People Shot Outside Funeral Home In Washington DC

Another day, another mass shooting in a Democrat-run city.

Just a day after a former bank employee gunned down five people in cold blood in Louisville, now we have multiple casualties outside a place where people gather to mourn the dead.

Fox News has the details:

Washington, D.C., police confirmed that multiple people were shot at the location of a funeral home Tuesday.

A DC Metro Police Department spokesperson said officers are at the scene where multiple people were shot in the 4000 block of Benning Road NE.

The confirmed numbers of victims and their conditions were not immediately available, the spokesperson added.

This story is developing…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/developing-several-people-shot-outside-funeral-home-in-washington-dc/

Kremlin pours cold water on proposal to unblock Twitter

The platform still doesn’t comply with Russian law, Putin’s spokesman has argued

Any proposal to lift Russia’s ban on Twitter is a matter for the national media regulator, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. A senior member of the State Duma’s Committee on Information Policy recently suggested lifting restrictions on the platform.

MP Anton Gorelkin argued that the Twitter ban, which was imposed more than a year ago, could be removed after a recent policy shift by the social media giant. Twitter has stopped hiding posts by official Russian accounts in its search results and has added labels to Western state-affiliated news outlets, Gorelkin noted.

Even so, Peskov expressed skepticism about removing the restrictions on Twitter when commenting on Tuesday.

“The relevant agency, Roskomnadzor, is the competent party on the matter. It will decide whether its conditions have been met. So far, there is plenty of material which does not comply with the requirements,” said the Kremlin spokesman.

Roskomnadzor expressed similar sentiment on Monday, stating that it has a list of around 1,300 Twitter posts which are in breach of Russian law.

The regulator banned Twitter in early March 2022 at the request of the prosecutor general’s office. It accused the platform of discrimination against Russian news outlets and a failure to police disinformation about Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Previously, Roskomnadzor said Twitter had failed to delete content prohibited in Russia, such as child pornography, advice on the consumption of narcotics, and calls for illegal acts.

On Sunday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk was accused of “not abiding by sanctions” over his refusal to crack down on the account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Musk argued in response that “all news is to some degree propaganda,” and claimed that had been told that Russian President Vladimir Putin “called me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend.”

Peskov was asked to comment on that particular accusation, responding that the billionaire must have been “misinformed” and that the Russian leader had never made remarks of that nature.

https://www.rt.com/russia/574534-peskov-twitter-ban-roskomnadzor/

Dalai Lama Previously Took Selfie With Democrat Mayor Charged With Possession of Child Pornography

The Dalai Lama made unwanted headlines this week after a disgusting video of the Tibetan spiritual leader surfaced on Twitter.

In the video, the Dalai Lama was at a speaking event in India and invited a young boy on the stage.

Once the boy was on stage the Dalai Lama told the boy to kiss his cheek and lips.

The bizarre spiritual leader would then proceed to tell the young boy to “suck his tongue.”

Now a resurfaced photo could land the Dalai Lama in hot water because it shows him together with the disgraced former Democrat Mayor of College Park, Maryland Patrick Wojahn.

Wojahn was charged in March for “with 40 counts of possessing child exploitative material and 16 counts of distribution of child exploitative material.”

The picture of Wojahn with the Dalai Lama stemmed from Wojahn’s Twitter account.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/dalai-lama-previously-took-selfie-with-democrat-mayor-charged-with-possession-of-child-pornography/

='No Business In The Public Domain': Kirby Warns Journalists Not To Report On Leaked Pentagon Documents

Biden administration and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed the media on Monday, asking in so many words that pretty please would journalists not report on the trove of highly classified documents which were leaked online.

"This is information that has no business in the public domain… It has no business… on the front pages of newspapers or on television." But Kirby is a bit late, given already days ago major outlets from the NY Times to Washington Post to foreign outlets like The Guardian and RT have widely reported on them. They classified reports have circulated widely on English-language and foreign social media as well.

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1645499884131295263

Independent media outlets have also widely shared images of the documents, which Pentagon officials claim could have been altered by the Kremlin to make the US look bad.

Kirby took the opportunity to reiterate this as well in a briefing: "We don’t know who is behind this. We don’t know what the motive is . . . we don’t know what else might be out there." He emphasized: "We know that some of them have been doctored . . . we are still working through the validity of all of the documents that we know are out there."

Some observers have speculated that given the high number of documents marked SECRET/NOFORN, which literally means Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals (and thus it can't be shared with even close allied services of the US), this points to the leak originating within the US chain of command. Others have said the leak may have come from the Ukrainians, given the high numbers of Ukraine-related battlefield assessments that were part of the trove that appeared online.

The Pentagon and DOJ meanwhile says they are still "working around the clock" to assess the source and scale of the massive breach of highly classified data. New bombshell documents have continued to trickle out in media stories into Monday and Tuesday, likely with more revelations to come throughout the week.

Assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs Chris Meagher told reporters Tuesday, "We’re still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue." He explained: "There have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom." A criminal investigation has been opened, he confirmed.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kirby-asks-journalists-pretty-please-dont-report-leaked-pentagon-documents

>>18678804

Make more

Here's demi moore

https://www.unilad.com/celebrity/demi-moore-kissing-15-year-old-boy-785314-20221229

Loudoun County Public Schools under investigation over its handling of sexual assault cases, Department of Education reveals

The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights revealed Wednesday that it has launched an investigation into Loudoun County Public Schools over its handling of two sexual assault cases perpetrated by a biological boy who claimed to be transgender, according to a Department of Education letter sent to America First Legal.

The first sexual assault case, which occurred in May 2021, involved a skirt-wearing biological boy accused and convicted of raping a 15-year-old female student in the school's girls' bathroom.

The biological boy, who self-identified as "non-binary," was removed from the school and transferred to another school in the Loudoun County district.

In October 2021, the student was again accused and later convicted of sexually assaulting another female student.

In January, America First Legal sent a letter urging the Education Department to launch an investigation into the district's mishandling of the sexual assault cases following a December grand jury report that found the district displayed a "stunning lack of openness, transparency and accountability, both to the public and to the special grand jury."

"LCPS administrators were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests of LCPS," the grand jury report stated.

America First Legal alleged that LCPS violated Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972 and that school officials failed to take proper action following the sexual assault cases.

"It is paramount that our public schools enact and enforce policies to keep students safe while at school," stated Ian Prior, America First Legal senior adviser. "A special grand jury report demonstrated that Loudoun County Public Schools woefully failed in that respect, in part because of the utter lack of a competent Title IX process. We are pleased that the Department of Education has opened an investigation into this dereliction of duty."

Former LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler was fired, then indicted on three misdemeanor charges by a Loudoun County special grand jury in December for his involvement in the mishandling of the sexual assault cases.

"You have wasted enough of our time and our money and you have shown that you put politics and agendas above the best interest of our children, putting them in harm's way," stated Elicia Brand-Leudemann, a Loudoun County parent, during a school board meeting. "More indictments will come down, and you are all compromised."

"All children are deserving of compassion, and some are not more 'equal' than others. Accommodations can be made without sacrificing the needs of one student over another," Suparna Dutta, a Fairfax County mother and former member of the Virginia Board of Education, told TheBlaze. "Young lives have been traumatized by policies in school districts when the schools prioritized radical gender ideology over school safety. Parents were left in the dark and the superintendent lied about the sexual assaults in Loudoun County. I hope the USDOE OCR does a thorough investigation and justice is served."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/loudoun-county-public-schools-under-investigation-over-its-handling-of-sexual-assault-cases-department-of-education-reveals

https://www.theblaze.com/news/loudoun-county-public-schools-under-investigation-over-its-handling-of-sexual-assault-cases-department-of-education-reveals

>>18678837

>>18678823

another