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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 20-Oct-2010
20-Oct-10 News -- 'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building

Web Log - October, 2010

20-Oct-10 News -- 'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building

China halting 'rare earth mineral' exports

'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building

Russians were shocked on Tuesday morning by the news of a successful large-scale terrorist attack on Chechnya's very well protected Parliament building in Grozny.

The attack began when vehicles containing rebel militants made their way into parliamentary grounds by following cars taking lawmakers to work, according to Ria Novosti. A suicide bomber then blew himself up, and in the confusion the other militants reached the main building. There were several deaths, but no casualties among lawmakers.

It was just a year ago that Russians had been assured by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the Chechen insurgency had been quelled for good. Since that time, there have almost daily terrorist attacks in the Northern Caucasus, which refers to Russian southern provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan. Several attacks in recent months have been spectacular.

The brazenness of Tuesday's attack has reignited fears among the Russian people that the Caucasus provinces are becoming lawless again, as they were during two wars of independence, one in the 1990s, and one in the early 2000s.

However, the nature of the rebel movement has changed since the earlier wars. The two Chechen wars were along ethnic fault lines, with Chechnya's clans and warlords versus the Russian people and leaders.

However, in 2007, the Chechen rebel leader, Doku Umarov, created the "North Caucasus Emirate" and made himself the "Emir," with the objective of uniting the three North Caucasus provinces into a single jihadist conflict with Moscow.

However, the rebel movement is still split along ethnic and clan lines, according to the Eurasia Daily Monitor. On October 7, three rebel field commanders announced that they were renouncing their oaths of allegiance to Umarov. They said that they would still be part of the North Caucasus Emirate, but that they would form their own legislative bodies.

Historically, the Caucasus region is one of the most violent on earth, because of the interethnic wars, and because it's one of the major regions (along with the Crimea and the Balkans) where fault line wars have been fought between the Muslim civilization and the Orthodox Christian civilization. Thus, a small regional war in the Caucasus could spiral into a much larger war very quickly.

That's one of the major reasons -- often overlooked by Western journalists and politicians -- for Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008. At that time, Georgia and South Ossetia were beginning a conflict that could have spread quickly from Georgia into Russia's southern provinces. Undoubtedly one of Vladimir Putin's major reasons for intervening was to prevent a larger war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the violence in the Caucasus is following a familiar pattern. Low-level violence occurs for years or decades, often punctuated by peace agreements or temporary ceasefires. Each time the violence flares up again, it's more lethal and more genocidal, until finally it crosses the line into a full-fledged generational crisis war. Generational Dynamics predicts that the Caucasus region is headed in that direction, but this should hardly be news to anyone, since it's happened so many times over the centuries.

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In the last four days, 79 people have been killed in gun violence in Karachi, Pakistan. On Tuesday alone, 28 people were killed. Since the Pakistan floods, and resulting flood of refugees to Karachi, many people are saying that the city is ungovernable. As a result, some people are calling for the army to come in and control the violence. Pak Observer

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy continues to stand firm with plans for pension reform that will raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, despite massive public opposition and massive public strikes that have all but shut down the country. Plans are still going on for the French Senate to vote on the pension reform plan on Wednesday, and it's hoped that the strikes will end when the pension reform law becomes a fait accompli. However, Sarkozy's opponents are attempting to stall the vote, to force him to back down. Bloomberg

Pregnant women taking fish oil supplements do not make babies smart, or the mothers less depressed, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. NY Times

An H1N1 swine flu pandemic is not expected in the coming flu season, but researchers are still recommending people over 50 to be immunized. Bloomberg

China has quietly halted "rare earth minerals" to Western countries, following the recent step taken in retaliation for the Japanese arrest of a fishing boat captain. These minerals are used in high-tech products, and China controls more than 95% of the global market, and the embargo has spread to the European Union and the United States. Germany plans to ask the World Trade Organization and the European Commission to intervene. NY Times

The European Commission is lifting its threat to take legal action against France over concerns about its expulsions of the Roma Gypsies, after France committed to make changes to its laws. BBC

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 20-Oct-10 News -- 'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (20-Oct-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 20-Oct-2010 20-Oct-10 News -- 'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building

'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 20-Oct-2010
20-Oct-10 News -- 'North Caucasus Emirate' attacks Chechnya's parliament building