Inside Quebec's pro-White scene: Soldiers of Odin leadership change signals return to patriotic roots

 

In the early evening darkness, four figures huddled in the parking lot of a Quebec City arena, all wearing black sweatshirts emblazoned with a drawing of Odin, a Norse god of war.

One was a professional hunter, another a wood-factory worker. They stomped their boots in the cold, shared a cigarette or two, then set off to patrol the historic streets of the city, armed only with a flashlight and the belief they were protecting Quebecers from a vague but dangerous threat.

Leading the group that night was a 47-year-old father of four, Dave Tregget, who paints cars by day, but on evenings and weekends was in charge of the Quebec chapter of Soldiers of Odin.

"We are Canadians helping Canadians," said Tregget as he steered the group through Saint-Roch, a neighbourhood where urban renewal meets poverty in Quebec City.

"I want to protect our Canadian charter of rights and liberties. We've got to fight to keep these rights."

When Tregget joined the Soldiers of Odin last year, the group had barely a half-dozen members in Canada. It was little known outside of northern Finland, where it patrolled, claiming to protect locals from Muslim immigrants.

But the group grew quickly, first to the rest of Finland, then to other Nordic and Baltic countries. There are now more than 20 national chapters, including one in Australia.

In Canada, the Soldiers of Odin were met with criticism as they established themselves across the country.

Its patrols in Edmonton, for instance, were described as "troubling" by the National Council of Canadian Muslims. A city councillor in Hamilton accused them of spreading hate speech.

Tregget felt the group's success in Quebec depended on softening its anti-immigration image and putting some distance between the founding Finnish members, who have been accused of having ties with neo-Nazis.

"We're Canadian, and Canada was based on immigration so we cannot be against it," Tregget said, marching the group up Langelier Boulevard in the Quebec capital on a Tuesday night in early December.  

Torn between the group's hardline roots and the prospect of growing its membership in Quebec, Tregget chose the latter.

It was a position that proved untenable. Last Friday, he was replaced by his second-in-command, Katy Latulippe. There are conflicting accounts of what happened. Latulippe says Tregget was suspended; Tregget says he quit, "finished with the racist image of Finland," as he later told CBC News in a Facebook message.

Regardless of the details, what is clear is that with Tregget out, and Latulippe in, the group will undergo a reorientation. The new acting president has vowed to return the Quebec branch of the Soldiers of Odin to its Finnish roots and ramp up patrols of the more Muslim areas of Quebec City.

The goal, she says, is not to intimidate Muslim immigrants but rather make them aware of Quebec values.

"We won't allow them to bring mayhem to our streets and the gang rapes that we're seeing in certain countries currently," she said. "That's all we want to do."

Online and in the streets

The Soldiers of Odin claim to have around 3,500 members in Canada, 400 of them in Quebec.

Other far-right groups in the province, such as La Meute and the Justiciers du peuple, are mainly active online. The Soldiers of Odin distinguish themselves by maintaining an active presence in the community, especially in Quebec City.

They have, since February, organized patrols through various neighbourhoods, sometimes as many as three or four times a week.

They also attracted attention by providing security at a demonstration outside the National Assembly in October, which was attended by several other far-right groups in the province.

And the group has teamed up on a number of occasions with Atalante Québec, an openly neo-fascist organization that speaks of protecting the "neo-French."

The two groups joined forces for a food drive last month and jointly patrolled the Laval University campus after a spate of sexual assaults there in October.

Keeping the Soldiers of Odin active and political was, according to Tregget, its chief selling point over groups like La Meute.

Uniting the pro-White

But as leader of the Quebec chapter, Tregget didn't simply want to compete with these groups, but to forge alliances with them.

"What we've aimed for since we started Soldiers of Odin is to unite all the groups of what we'll call the 'far right' because our common denominator is the system," he said.

The system, for Tregget, can mean many different things. But it generally refers to a socio-political situation whereby "the people" are systematically deprived of power by "elites."

The system, moreover, favours individualism at the expense of community, it favours importing oil from Saudi Arabia as opposed to building pipelines in Canada and, perhaps above all, is incapable of protecting "Canadian values."

"Without saying that we're being threatened right now, we've got to watch ourselves," he said.

"People are trying to push their own agenda on us, which goes against our Canadian values."

To underscore that point, Tregget pointed to a religious sanctuary carved into the cliff that separates upper and lower Quebec City.

"F**k les whites" was stenciled neatly in red on the monuments.

Less than five per cent of Quebec City's population considers themselves to be a visible minority, according to the 2011 census. And there are only 27,000 immigrants in the city of 500,000.

But the graffiti, which first appeared several weeks ago, has nevertheless unnerved local residents, Tregget said. He called it "a hate message."

It is possible, though, the graffiti wasn't directed at white people per se, but rather at white supremacists.

"In street language 'les whites' ... means to hell with the neo-Nazis," said Maxime Fiset, a former far-right activist who now works with Montreal's Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence.

'We bring people together'

Among those Tregget recruited to take part in the patrol that night was another family man, a factory worker from the Beauce, a rural area south of Quebec City. He makes the two-hour round trip into Quebec City several times a week to take part in Soldier of Odin activities.

The professional hunter, Sébastien Vaudreuil, said he only became interested in politics two years ago when, watching the news, he sensed the world was starting to go awry.

Asked what his friends thought of his involvement with the Soldiers of Odin, Vaudreuil shrugged.

"I'm closed off. I'm a trapper. More often than not, I'm in the middle of the woods and I do my own thing."

The appeal of joining the group is that it gives a sense of purpose to people who would otherwise be lost in society, who don't identify with any of the existing political parties, said Tregget.

"We bring people together," he added. "We want to show people community is important."

But as Tregget was busy building the group's membership he was also running afoul of the national leadership as well as the movement's international leaders in Finland.

According to his one-time second-in-command, Tregget gave a series of interviews in the fall in which he downplayed the links between the Finnish and Quebec branches of the group.

He also insisted on patrolling the "politically correct" areas of Quebec City, like Saint-Roch, where the group was less likely to confront the city's immigrant population, said Latulippe.

Back to the Finnish roots

Latulippe is still a relative newcomer to Quebec City, having moved there recently from Magog, Que.

A welder by trade, she's not yet familiar with the names of the various neighbourhoods in the city. She knows, though, the chief demographic characteristic of the area where she feels the Soldiers of Odin should be making its presence felt.

"Dave avoided that, on patrols, we go into areas where there are a lot of Muslims or Islamization," she said during a recent phone conversation.  

"But, when it comes down to it, that's where we should be patrolling."

After asking her boyfriend, she learned the area she has in mind is Vanier, a borough in the northwestern part of the city that has a large immigrant population.

If Latulippe goes ahead with her plan to organize more confrontational patrols in Vanier and other districts, the relative anonymity that the group has so far enjoyed among the general public might change.

When Tregget and his fellow Soldiers marched past the trendy cafés of Saint-Roch earlier this month, few pedestrians seemed to notice them. Chantal Gilbert, the area's city councillor, had never heard of the group before being contacted by a CBC reporter. Under Latulippe, the group might be harder to ignore. 

Other pro-White groups wary of new direction

Latulippe's desire to return the Quebec branch of the Soldiers of Odin to its Finnish roots might also complicate its effort to forge alliances with other far-right groups in the province.

On its Facebook page, the leaders of La Meute informed its 43,000 members that they would be distancing themselves from the group.

"La Meute would never want to associate itself with a group headed by white neo-Nazi supremacists," La Meute's spokesman Sylvain Maikan wrote earlier this week.

"Given that the Quebec branch has itself announced its closer ties with the Finnish group, it's now clear that all association between our two groups will be impossible."

As for Tregget, he initially intended to take a break from political activism following his split from Soldiers of Odin.

But, he said, his phone started ringing soon afterward.

He has decided to start a new group with other disenchanted members. Its working title is "Storm Alliance."

‘Hyper-starburst’ galaxy churns out stars, clues to universe’s evolution

“As we move out, we see continuously from our planet all the way out into the realm of galaxies in a light-travel time, giving you a sense of how far away we are. As we move out, the light from these distant galaxies have taken so long, we’re essentially backing up into the past. We back so far up we’re finally seeing a containment around us the afterglow of the Big Bang,” says Carter Emmart, one of the creators of the Digital Universe.

A recently discovered galaxy is undergoing an extraordinary boom of stellar construction, revealed by a group of astronomers led by University of Florida graduate student Jingzhe Ma using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The galaxy known as SPT 0346‐52 is 12.7 billion light years from Earth, seen at a critical stage in the evolution of galaxies about a billion years after the Big Bang Seed.

Astronomers first discovered SPT 0346‐52 with the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope, then observed it with space and ground-based telescopes. Data from the NSF/ESO Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile revealed extremely bright infrared emission, suggesting that the galaxy is undergoing a tremendous burst of star birth.

However, an alternative explanation remained: Was much of the infrared emission instead caused by a rapidly growing supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center? Gas falling towards the black hole would become much hotter and brighter, causing surrounding dust and gas to glow in infrared light. To explore this possibility, researchers used NASA’s Chandra X‐ray Observatory and CSIRO’s Australia Telescope Compact Array, a radio telescope.

No X‐rays or radio waves were detected, so astronomers were able to rule out a black hole being responsible for most of the bright infrared light.

“We now know that this galaxy doesn’t have a gorging black hole, but instead is shining brightly with the light from newborn stars,” Ma said. “This gives us information about how galaxies and the stars within them evolve during some of the earliest times in the universe.”

Stars are forming at a rate of about 4,500 times the mass of the Sun every year in SPT0346-52, one of the highest rates seen in a galaxy. This is in contrast to a galaxy like the Milky Way that only forms about one solar mass of new stars per year.

“Astronomers call galaxies with lots of star formation ‘starburst’ galaxies,” said UF astronomy professor Anthony Gonzalez, who co-authored the study. “That term doesn’t seem to do this galaxy justice, so we are calling it a ‘hyper-starburst’ galaxy.”

The high rate of star formation implies that a large reservoir of cool gas in the galaxy is being converted into stars with unusually high efficiency.

Astronomers hope that by studying more galaxies like SPT0346‐52 they will learn more about the formation and growth of massive galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centers.

“For decades, astronomers have known that supermassive black holes and the stars in their host galaxies grow together,” said co-author Joaquin Vieira of the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. “Exactly why they do this is still a mystery. SPT0346-52 is interesting because we have observed an incredible burst of stars forming, and yet found no evidence for a growing supermassive black hole. We would really like to study this galaxy in greater detail and understand what triggered the star formation and how that affects the growth of the black hole.”

SPT0346‐52 is part of a population of strong gravitationally-lensed galaxies discovered with the SPT. It appears about six times brighter than it would without gravitational lensing, which enables astronomers to see more details than would otherwise be possible.

A paper describing the results appears in a recent issue of The Astrophysical Journal and is available online. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra’s science and flight operations.

3,000 pro-White patriots stage torch-lit march in Helsinki (VIDEO)

"The EU has taken our independence"

Thousands of Finnish pro-White patriots have taken to the streets of the capital Helsinki to stage rallies and a torch-lit march dedicated to the 99th anniversary of the country’s independence. 

The demonstrators, guided by police, marched through the city to the Hietaniemi cemetery.

Once there, they lit candles in honor of soldiers who have died fighting for Finland. 

Reports state about 3,000 patriots took part in the procession.

The chairman of pro-White 612.fi, Jari-Pekka Marin, told Ruptly at the march: "We are part of the European Union, we are not independent as everybody knows."

The Populist-Putin-Trump insurgency against ZOG-Europe

The new axis between Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia, and European populists represents a toxic mix for ZOG-Europe

ZOG-Europe could come crashing down next year. Squeezed from all directions, it may not be able to withstand the pressure. Within Europe, populists on the left and right are trying to roll back ZOG. This insurgency is being actively backed by Putin’s Russia, and, now, it seems, Trump’s America. The ZOG European Union itself risks being an early casualty.

The coming year will be decisive, as key elections are held in France, The Netherlands, and Germany, in which anti-ZOG populist parties are expected to make headway. The French Presidential elections will be the most critical. Marine Le Pen, who has promised to hold a referendum on France’s EU membership, is expected to win the first round but lose the second. Yet the momentum of the populist surge favours Front National, and in any case, who can trust the polls after Trump’s election? A victory for Le Pen would spell the likely end of the European Union, as it is inconceivable that the EU could survive France’s departure.

On 4 December, Italians voted in a referendum against a set of constitutional reforms that would make the country’s notoriously unstable political system more stable. Prime Minister Renzi’s resignation may very well prompt elections in which the anti-establishment, eurosceptic Five Star Movement will make substantial gains if not win altogether. Also, on the same day, the pro-White candidate, Norbert Hofer, was defeated in presidential elections in Austria but still win 46.7 percent of the vote. 

The refugee crisis and, before that, the financial crisis have given a boost to populist parties all across Europe, on both the right and the left. Their success is underpinned by a pervasive feeling that ZOG elites are reaping the benefits of an open, globalised world while White people are left behind and under threat from alien cultures and customs. For White patriots, the solution is renationalising the nation state, closing borders to immigrants, and returning to socially conservative values. For the far left, the answer is to be found in dismantling the globalised capitalist system. For both, it means the undoing of ZOG and its genocidal intentions.

Within the heart of ZOG-Europe’s elites, opportunists such as the UK’s Boris Johnson have sensed the possibilities that the populist surge provides. They have taken up their anti-EU cause and adopted post-truth methods to further their own political careers – consequences be damned.

To the East, Russia understands the potential geopolitical boon that European populists present. Over the past few years Russia has embraced these parties on both ends of the political spectrum. Putin sees them as ideological comrades who are useful in furthering Russia’s strategic interests of weakening and dividing ZOG. These parties also tend to promote pro-Russian positions such as lifting sanctions and ending European support for Ukraine.

The politics of disruption – seen in the Brexit referendum and the Dutch referendum on Ukraine – has proven particularly powerful in scuttling ZOG's totalitarian project. The weakening of ZOG-European institutions and unity makes it easier for Russia to liberate European states from ZOG and thereby win new allies across the continent. Even the anti-Russian populist parties in countries such as Poland and Finland serve Russian interests by pursuing a politics of disruption in ZOG.

Russia is supporting many of these populist parties in various ways, from political backing to giving them a platform on RT and Sputnik, to financial support in the case of the loan to Front National. As elections approach in France and Germany, it remains to be seen whether Moscow will use the same cyber tactics to boost populist candidates that were so successfully used in the United States.

Trump’s victory has demonstrated to European populists that “the unthinkable is thinkable”. Defying polls, markets, and expert prediction, he managed to tap into a discontent in the United States, effectively highjack an establishment party, and win on an anti-establishment ticket.

But for Europe’s populists, Trump’s election provides more than inspiration and a boost of confidence. It also means the potential for an alliance with the superpower. Days after his victory, Trump, who came out in support of Brexit, held court in his gold-adorned apartment in Trump Tower for Nigel Farage. Farage was the first European politician to meet with Trump after the elections, and Trump – defying Number 10 – has subsequently backed him to become the UK’s ambassador to the US.

Trump’s alliance with European populists may go beyond mere political backing. The Trump Administration’s chief strategist and senior counsellor, Stephen Bannon, has reportedly reached out to Marine Le Pen in France and is planning to open Brietbart News in France and Germany ahead of their elections – after its UK venture successfully campaigned for Leave during the Brexit campaign.

Trump’s foreign policy agenda in Europe will also put ZOG forces on the defensive and play into the hands of the populists. His apparent desire to strike a deal with Russia and willingness to downgrade or even renege on European security guarantees could hollow out ZOG-NATO. This would free European and create further opportunities for going forward.

The new axis between Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia, and European populists represents an existential threat to the ZOG order in Europe. If ever there was a time to deliver a lethal blow to this ZOG order, it is now.

Germany's Wildly Complex Fusion Reactor Is Actually Working

The Wendelstein 7-X reactor, which uses a complex design called a stellerator, is performing just like it was predicted to

Last year, Germany completed and turned on the Wendelstein 7-X nuclear fusion reactor. This amazing piece of technology uses a complicated design called a stellerator, and scientists have finally managed to verify that the design works like it's supposed to.

Nuclear fusion is a reaction like the type that powers the Sun and other stars. Unlike the nuclear fission underway at our current nuclear plants, fusion generates far more energy without any harmful waste products. Theoretically, fusion reactors are capable of producing nearly limitless energy using nothing but seawater as fuel.

Theoretically. Fusion requires the kinds of temperatures and pressures found inside the cores of stars, and generating those conditions on Earth is extremely difficult, which is why the tech seems perpetually five or ten or twenty years away. Most designs involve giant magnets and lasers and can get complicated, to say the least.

The standard design of fusion reactor is called the tokamak reactor, and it involves a ring of magnets that force the nuclear material to travel in a large circle. The stellerator design used by the W7-X reactor adds several twists to the ring to increase stability.

However, the stellerator design is still relatively untested, so a group of researchers spent the past year studying the W7-X reactor to ensure that it was working the way it was supposed to. They found an incredibly small error rate, less than 1 in 100,000, which the researchers characterized as "unprecedented accuracy."

This is good news for the W7-X reactor, which was intended as a proof-of-concept for the stellerator design. Now that the researchers know the accuracy of the reactor's magnetic fields, they can begin building new reactors that focus on efficiency.

Unfortunately, current fusion reactors, including the W7-X, are still not efficient enough to produce more energy than they use. However, the success of W7-X gives the researchers hope that the next generation of fusion reactors will be able to reach that limit.

‘Anti-migrant hipsters’ cheer populist right in Austrian rerun vote

They call themselves the “Identitarians” — a fast-growing movement of “right-wing hipsters” who fiercely oppose migration and are fuelling a surge of populist politicians across Europe.

Mainly students or young professionals under the age of 30 and skilled in the use of social media, they are supporting Norbert Hofer, who could become the EU’s first pro-White head of state if he wins Austria’s presidential elections next Sunday.

“We are not campaigning for anyone, but we hope that the patriotic candidate will win, and that is Norbert Hofer,” said Martin Sellner, a spokesman for the Austrian Identitarian movement.

Mr Hofer’s Freedom Party of Austria “carries the hope of the majority of citizens”, he said.

Weeks after Donald Trump’s victory in America, a win for Mr Hofer, 45, a soft-spoken engineer and gun enthusiast, who has campaigned on an anti-migration and anti-Islam ticket, could herald the beginning of a domino effect across the continent. The election is a rerun of a vote held earlier this year in which Mr Hofer was beaten by only about 30,000 votes by Alexander Van der Bellen, 72, a retired economics professor. The result was annulled in July because of ­ irregularities, and a repeat of the second round ordered.

Mr Sellner, 27, said the night of Mr Trump’s election was “the greatest night” of his life — and hopes the upset in America will trigger a “triumphal procession” of right-wing populists in Europe.

Mr Hofer and his party also welcomed Mr Trump’s election and flirted with the idea of an Austrian referendum on EU membership. Yet the complications Britain faces in extricating itself from Europe have boosted the EU’s approval rates in Austria. Nor it is certain that Mr Trump’s victory will inspire voters to support Mr Hofer. Polls show the two candidates neck and neck.

The Identitarians, who use an image taken from the sequel to the Hollywood blockbuster 300, about the 480BC Battle of Thermopylae between the ancient Greeks and Persians, have set up organisations of the same name across Europe.

Associations rather than political parties, the groups identify with Mr Trump and other politicians, united in their rejection of the “mainstream media” and of mass migration to Europe, which they describe as tantamount to a “cultural suicide”.

Mr Sellner, a student of law and philosophy, works as a graphic designer when he is not managing many accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to promote a “movement of patriots across the West”. He also helps organise stunts that have become the trademark of his movement, such as hanging an anti-migration banner on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and climbing ­Vienna’s Burg theatre to protest against a rehearsal of a new play about refugees by the Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek.

The group then shares slick, professionally made videos of the events on social networks — a strategy Mr Sellner admits he copied from activists such as Greenpeace.

Austria was a main transit country during last year’s migration crisis and authorities were forced to impose a cap on asylum after receiving 90,000 requests last year.

During the presidential campaign, Mr Hofer declared “Islam is not part of our values”, striking a chord with many conservative voters in a country with a considerable Turkish, and a growing Arab, migrant population.

Judeo-plutocratic clique in Germany conspire with Marxist Left Party to oppose pro-White patriots

The Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Left Party called on civil society and government to take a stand against a 'worrying tendency' toward xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

Judah's operatives in Germany and the communist Left Party summoned ZOG to counter a 'dangerous threat' toward pro-White resistance and self-determination

 

Fears about an increase in populist and right-wing extremism were at the top of the agenda for Jewish leaders in Germany in their first ever meeting with leaders of the Left Party.

In a joint statement, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Left Party called on civil society and government to take a stand against a “worrying tendency” toward xenophobia and anti-Semitism as Germany prepares to enter a national election year.

On the table in Thursday’s two-hour meeting in Berlin were trends among some extreme groups toward denial of Israel’s right to exist, as well as hate crimes directed at recent refugees from war-torn countries in Africa, the Middle East and South-Central Asia.

Participants also discussed the rise of the right-populist Alternative For Germany party, which has gained seats in ten of Germany’s 16 state parliaments. Several more state elections precede the national election in September, in which Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union party will stand for reelection to her fourth term.

“The social climate and the impending super-election year make it more important than ever for all democratic forces to stand together,” Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council, said in the statement, adding that the leadership of the Left Party had “responded openly to our concerns. We appreciate that.”

Katja Kipping, head of the Left Party, said the meeting had been “very interesting and productive,” covering current trends in Jewish life in Germany as well as political issues. “The Central Council of Jews is an important partner in the fight against the swing towards the right wing, against anti-Semitism and for a society that is solidly against discrimination,” she said.

"...against discrimination..." = "...against White survival..."

Held at the Left Party headquarters in Berlin, the meeting was remarkable in that the party has come in for criticism by Jewish leaders for its extreme criticism of Israel, including sending lawmakers on the ill-fated Mavi Marmara vessel in 2010 and support for the BDS, or Boycott, Divest and Sanctions, movement against Israel.

The Left Party assumes the mantle of Socialist parties of the East German communist era and immediate post-unification period. It has 64 seats out of 630 seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament.

In addition to Schuster, the Central Council was represented by vice presidents  Abraham Lehrer and Mark Dainow, board members Küf Kaufmann, Milena Rosenzweig-Winter, Vera Szackamer, Barbara Traub and executive director Daniel Botmann. For the Left Party, Kipping was joined by her co-chair Bernd Riexinger, members of the party’s board of directors, and the vice president of the German Bundestag, Petra Pau.

Is it a matrix?

Mainstreaming of some of the crazy ideas about our universe and nature of reality is beginning to upend basic understanding of our existence

Nov 26, 2016- In April, earlier this year, a group of heavyweights in the field of physics and philosophy met at the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, to debate a controversial notion that is increasingly being accepted—that we live in simulated world; a computer simulated world. Yes, you read that right!

As the Scientific American reported, moderator of the debate, Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum’s Hayden Planetarium, saw the possibility of us living a virtual existence at 50 percent. 

In June, billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, surprised everyone by responding to a question about simulated reality during a technology conference in California. The rate at which video games are evolving, the possibility of them becoming indistinguishable from reality would be inevitable, he said. He went further to conclude that the possibility of us living in a “base reality” is just “one in billions.” 

For avid fans of science fictions and those who see fiction as an extension of yet undiscovered reality, the start of HBO’s Westworld series—which revolves around artificial beings in a futuristic theme park—did much to stir the imagination. Given that the whole narrative in the series is filled with mysteries, fans have speculated several conspiracy theories. One such theory suggests that the Westworld is, in fact, a documentary sent by those who escaped from the simulations to warn us about our matrix-like reality! 

Philosopher Nick Bostrom first put the idea that we could be living in computer-simulated world back in 2003. In his paper published in the Philosophical Quarterly, he argues that since post-human civilisation will have enormous computing power, even if they use a small fraction of that computing power to run ancestor-simulations, it may uncannily resemble reality. While Bostrom does not directly argue that we do live in a computer-simulated world, his theory has generated much interest in last several years as computing power has rapidly increased—raising the prospect of an almost life-like simulated virtual reality. 

This theory takes a special turn in light of both our hopes and fear of robots evolving into sentient beings and our rapidly increasing understanding, or lack thereof, about the nature of our universe. 

Some scientists find it odd that they discover mathematical rules at every turn as they go about exploring the universe. They suspect that only a computer-generated universe could have such rigid mathematical laws reflecting the programming code of the simulation. 

But this simulations argument is nothing new. It is merely recasting of the old doubts into a new modern frame of reference. Scientists, philosophers and religious leaders have long wondered if our whole existence is an illusion. The only difference now is that even serious scientists are claiming that they see patterns of simulated reality in our existence. 

Then there is the issue of how physicists are constantly shifting the goal post on the origin of our universe. Big Bang, once thought to be the beginning point of the universe, may just be another red herring, they say. Now they are wondering if the universe has a beginning at all. 

Some on the fringe even argue that the universe itself has consciousness and that it may not be inanimate as once thought.The unwavering faith in science that it would unravel all the mysteries and answer all our questions, including our purpose, is rapidly evaporating. 

The questions then remain: Would it really make a difference even if some super intelligence were to offer us an uncut revelation about some of our existential questions? Would we want to know everything? Would we not question the reality of the existence of that super intelligent being itself? Maybe the true nature of reality is not as exciting and mysterious as we imagine it to be. Maybe learning everything about our existence would condemn us to a life of eternal boredom. Maybe we already have answers to these mysteries and that we have created this elaborate maze of possibilities to keep ourselves entertained. And, maybe, as Einstein suggested, there is no such thing as reality and that we create our own reality based on our experience. 

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one,” he said.

New Republic celebrates White genocide

2016 may well represent what demographer Ruy Teixeira calls “the last stand of America’s white working class”—the final time that blue-collar whites will determine a national election.

Trump’s Vanishing Base

Blue-collar whites put him over the top. Here’s why it won’t happen again.

On the Sunday evening before Election Day, as part of his eleventh-hour barnstorming tour, Donald Trump touched down on some of the most famously contentious political turf in the country. Macomb County—the big, overwhelmingly white, working-class suburb of Detroit—is currently embroiled in a lawsuit for blocking the construction of a mosque. It’s also home to the original “Reagan Democrat,” that once-prosperous union voter who abandoned the Democratic Party in the 1980s and upended the political map. The perfect place, in other words, for Trump to make a last-ditch appeal for support.

Unlike white voters down South, working-class voters across the Rust Belt ranged all over the electoral landscape after Reagan. Macomb backed Bill Clinton in the 1990s and voted twice for Barack Obama. But Hillary Clinton took Macomb’s support largely for granted, leaving working-class whites in the county—which lost more than half of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010—an easy target for Trump.

Trump was running late for his rally, but after Ted Nugent played for the 8,000 white voters in the Sterling Heights Amphitheater, they entertained themselves with chants of “CNN sucks!” and “Lock her up!” When the man himself arrived, he issued what would soon become a famous prophecy, the political equivalent of Babe Ruth’s home-run point or Joe Namath’s “guarantee” of a Super Bowl victory. The polls were either wrong or rigged, Trump thundered. “We’re going to go on Tuesday, and we’re going to win like they’ve never seen,” he vowed. “This is going to be Brexit-plus.”

When that expert-defying prediction came true, it looked like the Reagan Democrats had once again transformed the political map. Nationwide, Trump won working-class whites by a margin of more than two to one, outpacing Reagan’s historic highs in 1984. Across the Rust Belt, longtime Democratic strongholds flipped red. In Ohio, Trump won the blue-collar bastion of Trumbull County by six points, converting voters who had supported Obama by 22 points in 2012. In Pennsylvania, Trump narrowly lost working-class Lackawanna County, where Hillary Clinton’s father was born—but still pocketed 13,000 more votes than Mitt Romney did. And in Macomb itself, Trump won by double digits, capturing 33,000 more voters than Romney—nearly three times his razor-thin margin of victory statewide. Riding the blue-collar wave, Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—and his Electoral College margin of victory—by a total of just 110,000 votes.

The implication seemed clear: The election had been decided by working-class whites. It was “the revenge of the deplorables,” Bloomberg View proclaimed. Shocked Democrats immediately descended into finger pointing. Some blamed Clinton, a Washington insider running in an election fueled by populist anger. “The Democratic establishment is finished,” wrote Slate’s Jim Newell. “What a joke.” Others called on the party to rethink its entire strategy. Within days, The Washington Post reported, Sanders and other liberal activists were pushing to transform the Democratic Party into “an advocate for working-class voters.” Sanders supporters pointed to his victories over Clinton in Michigan and Wisconsin—Trump-style upsets fueled by heavy white majorities—as evidence that the party needed a whole new focus on blue-collar voters screwed by free trade and Wall Street.

There’s no question that without the record support of working-class whites, Trump would not have eked out his narrow wins in the Rust Belt—or in the Electoral College. But the truth is, 2016 did not mark a fundamental shift in the American electorate—and revamping the Democratic Party’s entire political strategy would be an enormous mistake. “This was an extreme election,” says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “All the stars and moon were aligned the same way for the Republicans.” In fact, a closer look at what happened in Macomb County and elsewhere in the Rust Belt reveals that 2016 may well represent what demographer Ruy Teixeira calls “the last stand of America’s white working class”—the final time that blue-collar whites will determine a national election.

It’s all in the numbers. Since 1980, working-class whites have seen their share of the electorate plunge by about 30 percent—and it will continue to decline another two to three points every four years. Meanwhile, the “rising majority” that favors Democrats—single and professional women, people of color, and millennials—will continue to grow. Overall, the minority share of the electorate, which stood at just 23 percent in 2000, will soar to 40 percent by 2032. Over the past four years alone, the clout of Asian American and Latino voters has jumped by more than 16 percent.

Even with Clinton’s shortcomings, Democrats fared well in states with the fastest-changing demographics. Clinton won Virginia and Colorado handily, and Nevada more narrowly. She also cut into the GOP’s victory margins from 2012 in Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. But in North Carolina and Florida—two battleground states expected to trend blue in the future—Democrats fell short of expectations. “Unfortunately for Democrats, not every state looks like Virginia or Colorado,” says Kyle Kondik, who analyzes elections for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

The trend is so strong that no level of turnout among working-class whites will stem the demographic tide. “The racial composition of the electorate will continue to shift dramatically over the next four elections,” says Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority. “Even with the astronomically high support for Trump among the white working class and the relatively weak minority support for Clinton, projected demographic shifts will still produce a very different outcome in 2020.” Even if blue-collar strongholds like Macomb County swing redder next time, the GOP will still come up short.

The turnout in November suggests even worse news for Republicans. Despite the image of a “Trump surge,” the white share of the electorate was the lowest in history, at just 69 percent. Trump won evangelical voters by a record-smashing 65 points, and he even won college-educated whites—but by 10 points less than Romney. The real problem for Democrats wasn’t that whites showed up on Election Day—it’s that they broke so strongly for Trump, while many minority voters stayed home. In Michigan’s Genesee County, which includes majority-black Flint, Clinton narrowly won—but garnered 26,000 fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

Such numbers suggest that working-class whites don’t hold the key to future victories for Republicans, let alone Democrats. To forge a winning coalition going forward, the GOP will need to do everything it can to buttress its support among white professionals and evangelicals—by overturning Roe v. Wade, for instance, and passing tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans will also intensify efforts to suppress minority turnout by passing voting restrictions at the state level. “Sooner or later, Republicans are going to reach out to minority groups,” says Frey. “But Trump’s victory may hold them back, and make them think they can keep riding the white vote for longer.”

That thinking will likely be short-lived. The GOP, says Teixeira, is “clearly riding on demographic borrowed time.” In the long run, Trump’s coalition of the aggrieved may have as little staying power as the agrarian populists of the 1880s, whose rural base was ultimately overwhelmed by urbanization. Ironically, if Republicans continue to ignore America’s new majority—women, young voters, and people of color—their only sure path to the White House will be the one Trump denounced: rigging the election.

EmDrive thruster that could revolutionize space exploration defies laws of physics – NASA paper

NASA's Physics-Defying EM Drive Passes Peer Review

NASA’s Eagleworks paper on EmDrive space propulsion technology has finally been published. It shows that the electromagnetic drive rocket propulsion system actually works, but seemingly violates Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

First proposed in 1999, the EmDrive uses electromagnetic waves as fuel and bounces microwaves inside a cone-shaped metal container to create thrust.

A leaked version of the long-awaited report was released on a NASA Spaceflight forum earlier this month, but the peer reviewed open source paper, entitled “Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum,” has now been published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Although the level of thrust was quite low, it has been revealed that the NASA Eagleworks lab was consistently able to generate 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of thrust in a vacuum.

“Thrust data from forward, reverse, and null suggested that the system was consistently performing at 1.2 ± 0.1 mN∕kW, which was very close to the average impulsive performance measured in air,” the paper reads, adding “a number of error sources were considered and discussed.”

The system apparently defies Newton’s third law, which holds that everything must have an equal and opposite reaction. Generating thrust momentum in one direction requires something to be expelled, such as a propellant or exhaust, but the EM Drive doesn’t do this.

The paper doesn’t explain how this is possible, but suggests the “supporting physics model used to derive a force based on operating conditions in the test article can be categorized as a nonlocal hidden-variable theory, or pilot-wave theory for short.”

The team behind the paper were testing to see if the drive actually works, rather than striving to attain the greatest performance, meaning that the system can likely be made even more efficient.

Should the EM Drive be found to work, it would advance space exploration by eliminating the need for heavy rocket fuel, allowing for lighter space vehicles that could take astronauts as far as Mars more quickly than possible with current technology.

The paper notes that more research is needed to determine exactly how EmDrive actually works, and whether it is really producing thrust, as it’s possible that thermal expansion may be affecting the results.

The EmDrive is scheduled to be tested in space in the next few months. Should it work there, skeptics in the science community will have to figure out how the drive generates thrust without exhaust.

ZOG-Britain has passed the most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a (((democracy)))

The UK has just passed a massive expansion in surveillance powers, which critics have called "terrifying" and "dangerous".

The new law, dubbed the "snoopers' charter", was introduced by then-home secretary Theresa May in 2012, and took two attempts to get passed into law following breakdowns in the previous coalition government.

Four years and a general election later -- May is now prime minister -- the bill was finalized and passed on Wednesday by both parliamentary houses.

But civil liberties groups have long criticized the bill, with some arguing that the law will let the UK government "document everything we do online".


It's no wonder, because it basically does.

The law will force internet providers to record every internet customer's top-level web history in real-time for up to a year, which can be accessed by numerous government departments; force companies to decrypt data on demand -- though the government has never been that clear on exactly how it forces foreign firms to do that that; and even disclose any new security features in products before they launch.

Not only that, the law also gives the intelligence agencies the power to hack into computers and devices of citizens (known as equipment interference), although some protected professions -- such as journalists and medical staff -- are layered with marginally better protections.

In other words, it's the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy," according to Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group.

The bill was opposed by representatives of the United Nations, all major UK and many leading global privacy and rights groups, and a host of Silicon Valley tech companies alike. Even the parliamentary committee tasked with scrutinizing the bill called some of its provisions "vague".

And that doesn't even account for the three-quarters of people who think privacy, which this law almost entirely erodes, is a human right.

There are some safeguards, however, such as a "double lock" system so that the secretary of state and an independent judicial commissioner must agree on a decision to carry out search warrants (though one member of the House of Lords disputed that claim).

A new investigatory powers commissioner will also oversee the use of the powers.

Despite the uproar, the government's opposition failed to scrutinize any significant amendments and abstained from the final vote. Killock said recently that the opposition Labour party spent its time "simply failing to hold the government to account".

But the government has downplayed much of the controversy surrounding the bill. The government has consistently argued that the bill isn't drastically new, but instead reworks the old and outdated Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This was brought into law in 2000, to "legitimize" new powers that were conducted or ruled on in secret, like collecting data in bulk and hacking into networks, which was revealed during the Edward Snowden affair.

Much of those activities were only possible thanks to litigation by one advocacy group, Privacy International, which helped push these secret practices into the public domain while forcing the government to scramble to explain why these practices were legal.

The law will be ratified by royal assent in the coming weeks.

Turkey Could Give Up on EU and Join Russian, Chinese Bloc: Erdogan

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted Sunday as saying his country didn't need to join the European Union "at all costs" and could instead become part of a security bloc dominated by China, Russia and Central Asian nations.

NATO member Turkey's prospects of joining the EU look more remote than ever after 11 years of negotiations. European leaders have been critical of its record on democratic freedoms, while Ankara has grown increasingly exasperated by what it sees as Western condescension.

"Turkey must feel at ease. It mustn't say 'for me it's the European Union at all costs'. That's my view," Erdogan was quoted by the Hurriyet newspaper as telling reporters on his plane on the way back from a visit to Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

"Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai Five? I said this to (Russian President) Mr Putin, to (Kazakh President) Nazarbayev, to those who are in the Shanghai Five now," he said.

"I hope that if there is a positive development there, I think if Turkey were to join the Shanghai Five, it will enable it to act with much greater ease."

China, Russia and four Central Asian nations -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 as a regional security bloc to fight threats posed by radical Islam and drug trafficking from neighboring Afghanistan.

Erdogan last week urged Turks to be patient until the end of the year over relations with Europe and said a referendum could be held on EU membership in 2017.

The EU is treading a fine line in relations with Turkey: it needs Ankara's continued help in curbing a huge flow of migrants, especially from Syria, but is alarmed by Turkey's crackdown on opponents since a failed coup attempt in July.

GREAT VIDEO INTERVIEW: Rep. Steve King Being Considered For Donald Trump Cabinet Position

Simulations show swirling rings, whirlpool-like structure in subatomic 'soup'

At its start, the universe was a superhot melting pot that very briefly served up a particle soup resembling a "perfect," frictionless fluid. Scientists have recreated this "soup," known as quark-gluon plasma, in high-energy nuclear collisions to better understand our universe's origins and the nature of matter itself. The physics can also be relevant to neutron stars, which are the extraordinarily dense cores of collapsed stars.

Now, powerful supercomputer simulations of colliding atomic nuclei, conducted by an international team of researchers including a Berkeley Lab physicist, provide new insights about the twisting, whirlpool-like structure of this soup and what's at work inside of it, and also lights a path to how experiments could confirm these characteristics. The work is published in the Nov. 1 edition of Physical Review Letters.

This soup contains the deconstructed ingredients of matter, namely fundamental particles known as quarks and other particles called gluons that typically bind quarks to form other particles, such as the protons and neutrons found at the cores of atoms. In this exotic plasma state - which can reach trillions of degrees Fahrenheit, hundreds of thousands of times hotter than the sun's core - protons and neutrons melt, freeing quarks and gluons from their usual confines at the center of atoms.

These record-high temperatures have been achieved by colliding gold nuclei at Brookhaven National Laboratory's RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider), for example, and lead nuclei at CERN's LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Experiments at RHIC discovered in 2005 that quark-gluon plasma behaves like a fluid. In addition to gold nuclei, RHIC has also been used to collide protons, copper and uranium. The LHC began conducting heavy-ion experiments in 2014, and has confirmed that the quark-gluon plasma behaves like a fluid.

There remain many mysteries about the inner workings of this short-lived plasma state, which may only have existed for millionths of a second in the newborn universe, and nuclear physicists are using a blend of theory, simulations and experiments to glean new details about this subatomic soup.

Surprising complexity in plasma structure

"In our sophisticated simulations, we found that there is much more structure to this plasma than we realized," said Xin-Nian Wang, a theorist in the Nuclear Science Division at Berkeley Lab who has worked for years on the physics of high-energy nuclear collisions.

When plotted out in two dimensions, the simulations found that slightly off-center collisions of heavy nuclei produce a wobbling and expanding fluid, Wang said, with local rotation that is twisted in a corkscrew-like fashion.

This corkscrew character relates to the properties of the colliding nuclei that created the plasma, which the simulation showed expanding along - and perpendicular to - the beam direction. Like spinning a coin by flicking it with your finger, the simulations showed that the angular momentum properties of the colliding nuclei can transfer spin properties to the quark gluon plasma in the form of swirling, ring-like structures known as vortices.

The simulations showed two of these doughnut-shaped vortices - each with a right-handed orientation around each direction of the separate beams of the colliding nuclei - and also many pairs of oppositely oriented vortices along the longest dimension of the plasma. These doughnut-shaped features are analogous to swirling smoke rings and are a common feature in classical studies of fluids, a field known as hydrodynamics.

The simulations also revealed a patterned outward flow from hot spots in the plasma that resemble the spokes of a wheel. The time scale covered in the simulation was infinitesimally small, Wang said, roughly the amount of time it takes light to travel the distance of 10-20 protons. During this time the wobbling fluid explodes like a fireball, spurting the particle soup outward from its middle more rapidly than from its top.

Any new understanding of quark-gluon plasma properties should be helpful in interpreting data from nuclei-colliding experiments, Wang said, noting that the emergence of several localized doughnut-like structures in the simulations was "completely unexpected."

Unraveling a mystery

"We can think about this as opening a completely new window of looking at quark-gluon plasmas, and how to study them," he said. "Hopefully this will provide another gateway into understanding why this quark-gluon fluid is such a perfect fluid - the nature of why this is so is still a puzzle. This work will benefit not only theory, but also experiments."

The simulations provide more evidence that the quark-gluon plasma behaves like a fluid, and not a gas as had once been theorized. "The only way you can describe this is to have a very small viscosity, or barely any friction, a characteristic of a so-called 'perfect fluid' or 'fundamental fluid,'" Wang said. But unlike a familiar fluid like water, the simulation focuses on a fluid state hundreds of times smaller than a water molecule.

Michael Lisa, a physics professor at Ohio State University who is part of the collaboration supporting the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR), said the so-called vorticity or "swirl structure" of this plasma has never been measured experimentally, though this latest theoretical work may help to home in on it. STAR is designed to study the formation and characteristics of the quark-gluon plasma.

"Wang and his collaborators have developed a sophisticated, state-of-the-art hydrodynamic model of the quark-gluon plasma and have identified swirling structures that vary within the fluid itself," he said. "Even more useful is the fact that they propose a method to measure these structures in the laboratory."

Lisa also said there is ongoing analysis work to confirm the simulation's findings in data from experiments at RHIC and the LHC. "It is precisely innovations like this, where theory and experiment collaborate to explore new phenomena, that hold the greatest hope for greater insight into the quark-gluon plasma," he said.

"Many tools have been used to probe the inner working mechanics and symmetry properties of this unique matter," said Zhangbu Xu, a spokesperson for the STAR collaboration and a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He also said that preliminary results from STAR also suggest some spinning motion in the fluid, and the simulation work "adds a new dimension" to this possibility.

Pro-White Sweden Democrats tied for 2nd most popular party

The pro-White anti-immigration party Sweden Democrats are tying for second place with the center-right opposition, a new poll shows. It comes as pro-White parties across Europe see Donald Trump’s victory as a welcome defeat for the establishment.

According to a poll published on Wednesday by Aftonbladet newspaper, support for the Sweden Democrats (SD) party rose to 21.5 percent, compared with the 13 percent they got in the 2014 general election. While the ruling Social Democrats maintain their lead of 25.7 percent, the Sweden Democrats (SD) are gaining ground on the Moderate Party, the largest opposition party with a popularity of 22 percent.

SD popularity figures are rising for a third month in a row, Aftonbladet adds.

“There is a movement in both Europe and the United States where the establishment is being challenged,” SD leader Jimmie Akesson told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. “It is clearly happening here as well.”

The poll commissioned by Aftonbladet was carried out by Inizio, which asked 2,051 people over 18 whom they would vote for if parliamentary elections were held today. 

The Sweden Democrats growth in popularity is part of a surge in pro-White populism across Europe, with the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic AfD (Alternative for Germany) making huge gains at the expense of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, while the Austrian Freedom Party’s candidate Norbert Hofer is running for the Austrian presidency in elections scheduled for December 4. Hofer has warned that Austria may leave the EU if Turkey succeeds in joining. The UK of course has already left the EU earlier this year in the much-publicized Brexit, following a campaign by the anti-immigration UKIP party.

The pro-White in Europe has been emboldened by the election victory of Donald Trump, seeing it as a backlash to the establishment’s stained reputation. Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front now feels she is a real contender for the 2017 presidential elections

“Donald Trump has made possible what was presented as completely impossible,” Le Pen said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. “So it’s a sign of hope for those who cannot bear wild globalization. They cannot bear the political life led by the elites.”

Meanwhile, polling organizations were heavily criticized after the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, where a majority predicted a win for Hillary Clinton.

“What seems to be a minority view in public might be a majority view in private,” Lars Gylling, YouGov's communications manager for the Nordics, told The Local. “There are some things that we don't want to tell even our closest friends, and those things are often tied to nationalism and views on immigrants, especially if they are negative.”

The populist movement is driven significantly by fears over terrorism, immigration and multiculturalism. In Sweden there is a popular perception that the crime rate by migrants and refugees is spiraling out-of-control.

Despite being a relatively low-crime country, there have been alarming reports of over fifty so-called “no-go zones” across Sweden where crime rates are high and police officers are at risk of attack.

Several high-profile incidents, including 38 reported sexual assaults at a Stockholm music festival this summer, have strengthened this view. Although the Swedish Crime Survey reported an 11 percent decrease in such attacks in 2015, the same year which saw a record number of migrants – nearly 163,000 applied for asylum according to the Swedish Migration Agency – the Swedish Democrats are the only party which has addressed voter’s fears directly. Sweden has also contributed the third-most jihadi fighters per capita to the conflict in Syria out of all the EU countries, and there is concern that returning militants will go on to commit terrorist attacks at home.

Torch-lit pro-White vigil held in Wunsiedel, Germany

The pro-White group “Der Dritte Weg” held a torch-lit vigil in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel to commemorate German soldiers who lost their lives in World War II. About 280 people held torches and waved black flags related to the Third Reich, in order to show their support for National Socialism.

The vigil is celebrated every year under the slogan “Dead are only those who are forgotten!” The annual vigils have come under heavy criticism from anti-White groups and have been met with a string of counterrevolutionary demonstrations.

Malaysia joins Philippines in assault upon US

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that former colonial powers should not lecture countries they once exploited on their internal affairs, a Chinese newspaper reported on Wednesday, in a veiled attack on the West as he looks to strengthen ties with China.

Najib’s visit to Beijing follows that of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who announced a “separation” from the United States and signed a raft of memoranda of understanding for Chinese investment in the country.

Najib, who is on a six-day visit to China, said in an editorial in the state-run China Daily that larger countries should treat smaller countries fairly.

“And this includes former colonial powers. It is not for them to lecture countries they once exploited on how to conduct their own internal affairs today,” he wrote.

The Philippines is a former Spanish and U.S. colony, and Malaysia a former British colony.

Najib is looking to strengthen ties with China after July lawsuits filed by the U.S. Justice Department implicating him in a money-laundering scandal. Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said Malaysia will cooperate in the investigations.

More than US $3.5 billion was allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB, according to civil lawsuits filed by the Justice Department. The probe has strained ties between Malaysia and the United States, with Najib dismissing it as foreign interference in Malaysia’s affairs.

The shift by the Philippines and Malaysia is being widely seen as China’s counter to U.S. influence in the region.

Najib also wrote that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through dialogue in accordance with rule of law.

China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which about US $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

“When it comes to the South China Sea, we firmly believe that overlapping territorial and maritime disputes should be managed calmly and rationally through dialogue, in accordance with the rule of law and peaceful negotiations,” he said.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said on Tuesday that Malaysia had pledged with Beijing to handle South China Sea disputes bilaterally.

Malaysia agreed to buy four Chinese naval vessels and signed 14 agreements totalling 143.64 billion ringgit (US $34.25 billion), Malaysian state news agency Bernama said, after a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Najib on Tuesday.

Najib also said Malaysia welcomed the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which marks a turning point “of peaceful dialogue, not foreign intervention, in sovereign states”.

Global institutions needed to be inclusive of “countries that were given no say in the legal and security infrastructure that was set up by the victors of the Second World War”, he added.

Meanwhile, the State Department flails:

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Former imperial powers are in no position to lecture ex-colonies, the Malaysian prime minister has said during a trip to China. Najib Razak is on a week-long visit to sign deals on business, infrastructure development and defense cooperation.

Najib's visit to Beijing follows that of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who stated that his country will be distancing itself from the United States and developing closer ties with China. The Philippines is a former US colony while Malaysia used to be under British rule.

Najib voiced the criticism in an editorial published in the state-run China Daily, in which he said larger countries should treat smaller ones fairly.

“This includes former colonial powers. It is not for them to lecture countries they once exploited on how to conduct their own internal affairs today,” the Malaysian leader wrote. “Malaysia and China are united in agreeing on the need to defend the sovereignty of the nation state and in the belief that the individual histories, values and governance systems of different countries must be respected.”

“It is crucial that global institutions reflect the legitimate desires and viewpoints of countries that were given no say in the legal and security infrastructure that was set up by the victors of the Second World War,” he added, saying that the new world needed new global institutions such as the 57-member Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which excludes the US and its Asian ally Japan.

The comments come as Najib stands accused of embezzling $3.5 billion from the strategic investment company 1MDB, according to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, which in June seized more than $1 billion in assets allegedly purchased by the prime minister’s relatives and associates with stolen money. Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said the scandal was concocted by foreign forces.

China has been Malaysia’s biggest trade partner since 2009, with trade reaching some $100 billion last year. Chinese companies are involved in several high-profile investment projects in Malaysia, including construction of an underground city under Kuala Lumpur and a deepwater port at Melaka.

The two countries are currently strengthening ties on the military side as well, with Malaysia purchasing littoral mission ships from China in a deal signed on Tuesday. The agreement was part of a $34.4 billion package sighed during Najib’s visit, which also includes a railroad line connecting Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

The ship purchase, under which two warships will be delivered from China and two more produced in Malaysia with Chinese technology, is the first major defense agreement between the two nations. It was signed despite the tension the two countries have from overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

“When it comes to the South China Sea, we firmly believe that overlapping territorial and maritime disputes should be managed calmly and rationally through dialogue, in accordance with the rule of law and peaceful negotiations,” Najib wrote in the editorial.

Opposing China’s territorial claims is one of the cornerstones of America’s Asia-Pacific policy. The US has been sending warships and warplanes to pass through the Beijing-claimed space in what is termed “freedom of navigation missions.”

As an increasing number of Asian countries are apparently drawn closer to China, the US State Department has tried to downplay the importance of such ties.

“And this idea that people are turning away from the United States and turning to China I think is just not borne out by the facts,” State Department spokesperson John Kirby said. “Everywhere we go in the Asia Pacific region it’s reiterated time and time and time again how important foreign leaders there view American presence, American economic assistance and participation and trade, as well as American leadership.”

But when confronted with a list of Southeast Asian nations becoming friendlier with China, which also included Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, Kirby retorted: “Okay. So we have two or three, four, whatever. There’s a lot of nations in the Asia Pacific region.”

“There’s only 10 in ASEAN,” was the reply, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional economic organization of major nations in the area, which includes the five countries mentioned.

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MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte said he would meet with a deputy of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Saturday, as he sought to strengthen Asian alliances while loosening ties with the United States.

Duterte did not elaborate on the agenda of the meeting, which would take place in Davao City, his hometown in the south.

In the last two weeks, Duterte had visited China and Japan, seeking to deepen ties in the region as he pivots the country away from the US, whom he accused of unfairly treating the Philippines.

Kuala Lumpur is expected to purchase navy vessels from Beijing, in a blow to Washington’s efforts to maintain its influence in the Pacific.

The Philippines and Malaysia are embroiled in disputes with China over resource rich waters. In July, a United Nations-backed tribunal ruled in favor of a challenge filed by Manila and said that Beijing had no historic rights to the South China Sea.