Showing posts with label Uzbeks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uzbeks. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

A Little Asian in All of Us

Well not quite, but you get the picture.

Taking a cue from the A Little Black in All of Us post, I am going to write a post about Asian genes in non-Asians. Mostly or fully-Asian groups obviously occupy most of Asia. Even if we subtract Australoids from Asians, many Melanesians have some Asian in them, especially those in the east end of Indonesia and along the coast of New Guinea. In this case, the Asian is Austronesian from Taiwan.

Papuans and Aborigines have little to no Asian mix. Polynesians are a highly controversial people who have usually been thought of as being 50% Melanesian and 50% Austronesian from Taiwan. However, there is a new paper out suggesting that they are a mostly-Austronesian people.

Micronesians are said to be the same. Previously, they were thought to be Polynesians mixed with Melanesians. Polynesia is thought to have been populated from Eastern Indonesia. Micronesia is thought to have been populated from around Fiji. Fijians are Melanesians with considerable Polynesian genes.

Obviously, mainland Asia is all Asian. Siberians are mostly Asian. The Yakut, for instance, are mostly Asian, but they do have 6% Caucasian in them.


A beautiful Yakut woman from the Sakha Republic competing for the Miss Russia 2007 contest. That's basically the Yakut Republic. She should have only 6% Caucasian genes, but it seems like she has more than that.


The Caucasian comes from a group called the Sakas who conquered Siberia 1,500 years ago. The Mongolians are 86% Asian and 14% Caucasian.


A beautiful Buryat woman competing in the Miss Russia 2007 contest. Buryats are said to be quite close to Mongolians genetically, so she probably has about 14% Caucasian genes. Note the classic high Mongolian cheekbones. Korean women have this same feature, and they are recent immigrants from Mongolia in the past 4-5,000 years.


The Hui are in interesting group inside China, south of Mongolia, who are 93% Asian and 7% Caucasian. The Han have no Caucasian in them, though NE Chinese are quite close to Caucasians genetically.

Going west of Burma, we run into trouble. In NE India, the people are mostly Asian. Going north to Nepal, you get an odd mix of all sorts of people, some mostly Asian but others more of an East Indian type.


A very interesting, yet unclassifiable, type in Nepal. Clearly there is an Asian component to this phenotype. There are some phenotypes that look something like this in SE Asia, especially hill tribes in Burma and Thailand. Come to think of it, doesn't she look a bit like the Naga below?


Nagas of Northeast India. They cluster genetically with Tibetans. Some think that they are the leftovers of the original people of the region.


The mother of this Nepalese family looks pretty Caucasian, but I have a hard time classifying that phenotype. Something resembling that phenotype can be seen in some of the Kalash. There is also some of a North Indian-Punjabi component. The two daughters clearly have a strong Asian element, thought it does not much resemble other Asian types. The girl on the right looks a bit like a Filipina.


A very Asian type in, believe it or not, Nepal. Yes. This phenotype looks very Chinese and could be related to Tibetans. Nepalese are very difficult to classify genetically due to the divergence of types. Further, the peopling of Nepal is very poorly understood.


All East Indians are considered to be on the border between Caucasians and Asians (though they are Caucasians), yet most East Indians do not have Asian genes. An exception is in the northwest around Punjab.


North Indians, possibly Punjabis. Many Punjabis look something like this. They have 10% Asian genes and it is often apparent, especially in the eyes.


Punjabis have about 10% Asian genes. You can sometimes see it in their eyes.


These beautiful young women are from Ladakh, on the border of China and India. As you can see, the Indians here are heavily Asian. The girl on the right looks very Korean. The other two are very difficult to classify, but the girl on the right left could almost be Mediterranean - Italian or Iberian, other than the eyes. Genetically probably close to Tibetans.


Heading into Pakistan, some Pakistanis appear somewhat Asian. The Kalash, whom we discussed in a previous post, often appear somewhat Asian.

A very interesting Kalash woman. The Kalash are so divergent that they form one of two splits in the Caucasian Race - Kalash and non-Kalash. No one quite knows much about them, but they seem to have come from the Caucasus. Their genes are radically divergent. Either they have experienced tremendous genetic drift or they are some of the most ancient Caucasians of all.

The very early proto-Caucasians may have looked something like this - they had heavy Asian admixture. This mixing of Black and Asian was taking place in the Caucasus region.


More Kalash. There are some very interesting types in this fascinating group. Both the woman and her daughter look Asian, the daughter more so. The woman seems to have an East Indian component.


Some Pashtuns look a little Asian, but many others just look pure Caucasian.

When we head north from this area, we start running into some heavy Asian-Caucasian mixes. This is the zone where these two great major races have seriously mixed. Heading East to Western China, we find the Uighurs, a group that is 61% Asian and 39% White. This Muslim group is heavily repressed by China and some have taken up arms against the state. I do support this secessionist movement.


Uighurs. A most interesting group of people from West China. This area has clearly seen a tremendous amount of Caucasian-Asian mixing for a long time now. It is in this region that burial tombs have been unearthed that revealed Caucasian mummies, some with red hair.

Of course, this drove White nationalist insane people even more insane. China was an ancient White homeland! Except the "Whites" were probably some Iranian or Caucasus types that these idiots have excised from their precious White race. At any rate, a few Caucasian bodies here and there does not a homeland make. There were and are plenty of Asians running around this region too. Truth is that Iranian types from the steppes have been invading this region for ages.

Tocharian, perhaps one of the earliest forms of Indo-European, may have been spoken on these windy steppes 8,000 years ago. The Uighurs are 61% Asian and 39% Caucasian. Their movement for liberation has been heavily repressed by the Chinese. Some have been radicalized and have moved down into Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas to work with the local Taliban, but in general, Islam in this region is quite moderate and reasonable.

It's questionable whether or not China even has much of a claim to this land. The girl on the right has a very interesting phenotype. She looks quite Caucasian, but that Caucasian look is actually specific to the Caucasus. I look at her and think "Dagestani". White-Chinese hapas in the US often look something like this also.


Heading West, Uzbeks in Uzbekistan are clearly a very mixed race people - they are 59% Asian and 41% Caucasian.

An Uzbek man with a turban. A syncretic form of Islam was popular here, but due to religious repression, some Uzbeks have turned to radical Islam. The group is called the IMU. They were defeated in Uzbekistan and the remnants moved to Afghanistan to link up with the Taliban. After the Taliban were defeated, many moved into the tribal areas where many IMU fighters married local women. They form a significant component of the Pakistani Taliban who are fighting in the tribal areas right now.


A young Uzbek man. This man looks very Caucasian, other than the slight Asian eyes. The outfit would not be out of place in Afghanistan.


An Uzbek woman. As you can see, at 41%, the Caucasian element is very high in Uzbeks. The phenotype is difficult to place, but the Caucasian element could resemble a Greek, a Georgian or possibly an Iranian.


Heading further West, the Kazakhs are strangely even more Asian: they are 70% Asian and 30% Caucasian.

Heading back towards China, we come to the Altai, a region where Mongolia, China and Russia all come together. This is thought to be the region from which the Amerindians came from. These people are best categorized as Northern Turkics and they all speak a Turkic language.

Some people here are very mixed (figures here): The Shor are 51% Caucasian and 49% Asian, the Altai themselves are 53% Asian and 47% Caucasian, the Khakass are 72% Asian and 28% Caucasian, the Sojots are 81% Asian and 19% Caucasian and the famous throat-singers, the Tuvans, are 89% Asian and 11% Caucasian.

These people are best thought of as members of a subrace known as the Uralic Race, even though they speak Turkic tongues. The Uralics generally speak languages related to Finnish.

Anthropologically, the Uralics are mysterious. We do not really know much about them or where they came from, but they are the subject of endless speculation, especially by Finnish researchers, who are fascinated by the question. For instance, the proto-Uralics were said to be neither Asians nor Caucasians. Ok, fine, so what were they?

Moving into Europe, we continue to encounter Asian genes. The Turks have a very large component of Asian genes, such that it is difficult to characterize them as Asian or Caucasian. I put them into Caucasian more on appearance than on anything else.


A Turkish Cypriot woman who seems to have a bit of an Asian phenotype. She also looks somewhat Slavic. Slavic phenotypes are very common in Turkey but most Turks do not wish to admit it due to age-old hostility between the Muslim Ottomans and the Christian Slavic regions around it.


Heading north into Russia, it has long been known that Russians are part Asian. One can often note an Asiatic component in Russians. I had a Russian girlfriend once named Natasha who lived in the Bay Area. She had some slight Asiatic phenotypical traits.


A beautiful Russian woman. Unless I am hallucinating, I think I see some Asian eyes on her. She may also have the sparse and straighter body hair that some Russian women have. This is a classic Russian Slavic phenotype.


In the part of Russia called Novgorod Oblast, the Russians are 3% Asian and 7% Finn. The Oblast is in the western part of Russia near Latvia, Estonia, St Petersburg and Leningrad. Heading into Europe now, we are surprised to find that Czechs are 3% Asian.


Although Yugoslavians are Slavs just like Czechs, I am not aware of the amount of Asian genes in them, if any. Some say that Yugoslavs, especially Serbs, look very Mediterranean, but I am not so sure. I am not sure which part of Yugoslavia these young women are from, but they are wearing traditional costumes.

What amazed me was how similar these women looked in phenotype. Granted, they've all curled up their hair the same way and they are wearing the same costumes, but if you look closely at the first five women from the left, tell me I'm hallucinating when I see a common phenotype in their facial appearance. Anyone else see it?


That the Hungarians are part-Asian has long been noted. I am not sure about the exact numbers though.


Hungarians dressed in traditional costumes. Their Asian component is not large, but may be on the order of 7% or so. The Asian element comes from the Magyars, a Mongol group that raided into Europe long ago and settled in the region of Hungary.


Both the Finns and Estonians are thought to have Asian genes and the Lapps surely do, but I believe they only have 7% Asian genes.

It often doesn't take much Asian genes to affect the phenotype. One of the first things you notice is a sparseness of body hair and tendency of body hair to be more straight than kinky. Also, even at low gene levels, you often start seeing a bit of an epicathal fold in the eyes.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006

War Continues in Afghanistan

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.

Updated January 28, 2008:

Afghanistan

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Unfortunately, things are continuing to unravel in Afghanistan. Canadian and British troops are rotating into Southern Afghanistan and both are finding the area to be quite hostile. Canadian troops in particular have met with serious resistance in just the past week alone, causing the Canadian population to question the deployment. There are 2,200 Canadian forces in Kandahar.

The Canadians have accepted the command of Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul Provinces, having taken over from the US. All of these majority-Pashtun provinces are seriously unstable and are hotbeds of support for the Taliban. The insurgency has been growing in all of these provinces since last year. The first deployment of 150 British forces arrived in Helmand in mid-February.

A much larger contingent of British forces - over 2,000 - is due to replace the small US contingent in Helmand shortly. Among the attacks in the past week, we have seen particularly ominous attacks in Kapisa, Badakhshan and central Farah Provinces.

These attacks are unusual because all of these areas have been quite calm since 2001. Attacks in these areas may indicate that the guerrilla war is spreading to new areas.
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Saturday, February 25

Kandahar, 10:30 PM:
Guerrillas fired RPG's at a Canadian patrol on the road between two Canadian camps on the southern outskirts of Kandahar city. There were no serious injuries in the attack. Kandahar is quite hostile.


Sunday, February 26

Khost Province:
Taliban Islamofascist idiots bombed a just-completed girls' high school in Khost. Police found and defused another bomb inside the school. Khost is very hostile, with some sort of fighting about every other day in the province. Guerrillas move back and forth across the border between Khost and the North Waziristan Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.


Monday, February 27

Between Khost Province and Kabul:
2 Afghan policemen and 1 civilian were wounded when an attempt to defuse a roadside bomb on the highway between Kabul and Khost Province went awry when the bomb went off.


Tuesday, February 28

Tarin Kot:
Taliban guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb under a US Humvee in Tarin Kot in southern Uruzgan Province, killing 1 US Special Forces soldier, Master Sgt. Emigdio E. Elizarraras, and wounding 2 others. 7 Taliban were arrested by US forces in the attack. Tarin Kot has been very hostile for a long time now.


Wednesday, March 1

*****
Helmand Province: Fighting between Afghan government troops and guerrillas in Helmand killed 1 Afghan soldier and wounded 2 more. Guerrillas also suffered unknown casualties. Helmand is extremely unstable - it is more unstable now than at any time since the US invasion in 2001. There is a great deal of opium production here - it grows more opium than any other Afghan province.

There are not many government or Coalition troops in Helmand. Instead, security is left to Afghan police, who are poorly armed, often have no uniforms and have often received either no training or only a few weeks of training. In combat, Afghan police are often outgunned by the Taliban. In Helmand, the Taliban have formed a marriage of convenience with drug traffickers.

Drug traffickers pay the Taliban to fight government forces to keep security forces so tied up fighting guerrillas that they won't have time to fight the drug trade. In return, the Taliban guard heroin factories and provide armed guards for drug convoys heading south into Baluchistan in Pakistan. This alliance has left the Taliban in Helmand flush with cash and arms.

A few years ago, it was widely suggested that Mullah Omar, former leader of the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan and on the run since the US invasion, might be hiding out in Helmand, where he has family and tribal ties.
*****

Zabul Province: Afghan troops battled guerrillas in Zabul. 3 guerrillas were arrested in the course of the fighting.


Thursday, March 2

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Outside Kandahar, 9:50 AM: 2 Canadian soldiers were killed and 5 more were wounded when their LAV III armored vehicle overturned 4 miles from the city of Kandahar. It was the second death of a Canadian soldier in a week in hostile Kandahar Province. Corporal Paul Davis was killed immediately.

2 soldiers, Master Corporal Timothy Wilson and Private Miguel Chavez, were seriously wounded. Wilson died on Sunday of his wounds. 4 more soldiers, Private Nathan Justice, Private Mark Taylor, Private Thomas Wong and Sergeant Darren Haggerty, were wounded and in stable condition.
*****

Kapisa Province: Guerrillas attacked a vehicle carrying the Afghan intelligence chief for Tagab District in Kapisa, 37 miles northwest of Kabul. The chief was killed in the attack. There has been little or no violence against Afghan or Coalition forces in Kapisa Province. This is not a good sign.


Friday, March 3

Kandahar Province:
A guerrilla suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked a Canadian LAV III armored vehicle in Kandahar, wounding 5 Canadian soldiers. The attacker was an Afghan from Kandahar who had the name of a Pakistani Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, written on his chest.

Sangin District, Helmand Province: There was heavy fighting between Afghan government forces and Taliban guerrillas in Sangin District in Helmand Province 47 miles northwest of the capital of Helmand. 11 Taliban were killed and 4 policemen were wounded in the fighting. 10 more Taliban were arrested by government forces. The Taliban assassinated also the head of Sangin District.


Saturday, March 4

*****
Gumbad, Kandahar Province, Afternoon: 1 Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Trevor Greene, was critically wounded and is currently in a coma after an ax attack by an armed villager in the northern Kandahar village of Gumbad, near Kawndalan in Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar Province, 50 miles north of Kandahar.

Soldiers had come to the village to discuss reconstruction needs with village elders. Troops had removed their helmets as a sign of respect when one of them was attacked from behind with an ax by a man in his 20's.

After the attack, the attacker was immediately killed by Canadian troops. A melee ensued afterwards as villagers ran in all directions and armed men opened fire on Canadian troops with automatic weapons and RPG's from across a river. The village appeared to be in on the attack. This part of Northern Kandahar Province near the Uruzgan border is very unstable.
*****

Nawai Barazkay, Helmand Province: The Taliban detonated a roadside bomb on a vehicle carrying the head of Intelligence for Nad Ali District in Helmand Province 12 miles south of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, killing the intelligence officer and 3 other intelligence officers. The attack occurred near the town of Nawai Barazkay.

Zairkoa, Farah Province: Taliban terrorists shot and killed a UN engineer near Zairkoa in Bala Buluk District on the border of Farah Province and Herat Province, where he was doing rehabilitation work. The terrorists dragged him from a car and shot him dead. That area would not seem to be an unstable place and I am not aware of any recent reports of anti-Coalition forces in that area.

Shah Wali Kot District, Kandahar Province: 1 French soldier was killed in firefight with guerrillas in very hostile Shah Wali Kot District in northwestern Kandahar Province. 2 guerrillas were also killed in the fighting.


Sunday, March 5

*****
Farah, Farah Province: 2 Afghans and a Pakistani were arrested after their car filled with explosives was pulled over 20 yards from the provincial governor's office in the city of Farah in Farah Province. Provincial officials were meeting with US reconstruction officers in the building at the time.

This incident, along with the previous killing of a UN worker in this province, are not a good sign because Farah has not seen a lot of fighting since the US invasion, other than in the far eastern region, which is majority Pashtun. But the area around Bala Buluk and Farah city have been quite stable. I do not know the ethnic makeup of the rest of Farah province.
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Faizabad, Badakhshan Province: A motorcycle bomb placed outside a hospital in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province, went off as a Provincial Reconstruction Team drove by. 2 civilians were wounded in the blast. This attack is definitely bad news.

There have been very few guerrilla attacks on Coalition or Afghan government forces in far northeastern Badakhshan Province, which is populated with Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, Pamirs and Pashtuns. Tajik and Uzbek Muslims mostly migrated to Badakhshan after the Soviet takeover of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the 1920's. These Muslims were alienated by the atheist Soviet Communist regime and have strong anti-Soviet leanings.

The Kirghiz and Pamiris are in a beautiful place in the heart of the Himalayas called the Wakhan Corridor. The nomadic pastoralists in this area are desperately poor nowadays, with widespread malnutrition, infant mortality (and mortality in general) and lately, opium addiction.

The Pashtuns are nomadic pastoralists, government officials and wealthy landowners. Most of them are from around Jalalabad and were moved here by the Afghan government in the late 1800's after the conquest of the northern areas.

The Afghan government moved these Nangarhar Pashtuns to Badakhshan and other northern areas to divide this powerful rival group. Burhanuddin Rabbani's Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami, a huge force in the Afghan civil war that wasted the country from 1992-1996, originated in Badakhshan.

The Tajiks and Uzbeks became alienated from the Pashtun-dominated Communist regime as early as 1979, when one of the first anti-Communist uprisings arose in this province. Khalq, the ruling (mostly Pashtun) Communist faction at the time, purged Sitami Mill (Maoists) and Parchami (the other Pashtun Communist faction) from the ruling regime around this time.

In response, Sitami Mill guerrillas attacked and overran a government outpost in Badakhshan. The government responded by appointing a ferocious official to the province who proceeded to crack down viciously on all opposition, but focusing on Islamist groups. It was this Communist reign of terror that alienated the Uzbeks and Tajiks in Badakhshan and led to the formation of Jamaat-e-Islami.
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