Mongolia protests to Japan over vulgar manga picture mocking Genghis Khan www.newsonjapan.com

Mongolia lodged a diplomatic protest with Japan on Friday after a monthly kid’s comic magazine included a picture of national hero Genghis Khan with a crude sketch of male genitalia across his forehead.
The comic's publisher, Shogakukan Inc., apologized Friday evening in a meeting with Dambadarjaa Batjargal, the charge d'affaires at Mongolia's embassy in Tokyo.

Export opportunity opens as Russia agrees to offer www.gogo.mn

Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, issued an order last week, in which he assigned the Russian Minister of Transport to sign Agreement between the Governments of Mongolia and Russian Federation on Terms for Railway Transit Transportation, permitting to amend without changing the fundamental character on behalf of the Russian Government.

Construction work of 11 power plants to start this year www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Ministry of Energy has planned to build and expand 11 power plants this year and it was included in the Socio-Economic Development Guidelines of Mongolia in 2018. Most of the project investments have been resolved.

Apple Inc to establish data center in Inner Mongolia www.innermongolia.chinadaily.com.cn

The Ulaanqab municipal government and Apple Inc recently negotiated the construction of a data center in the city, the first iCloud computing base headed for North China.

Mongolia's Hunnu Air eyes TVS-2DTS props www.ch-aviation.com

Hunnu Air (MR, Ulaanbaatar) has expressed an interest in acquiring the TVS-2DTS, a Russian-built single turboprop aircraft designed to replace the An-2 on commercial passenger flights in Siberia and Russia's Far East.

Cabinet decides to ban raw coal consumption in 2019 www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Cabinet has resolved to ban consumption of raw coal in Ulaanbaatar starting from May 15, 2019, in an effort to reduce air pollution.

Mongolia's Paris agreement goals www.news.mn

The decision that adopted the Paris agreement agreed to convene the Facilitate Dialogue in 2018, which has to evaluate collective progress towards meeting the Paris agreement goals, providing guidance to governments as they update their national determined contributions (NDC’s) before 2020, and prepare low carbon development strategies. The global stock take in 2023 under the Paris agreement will examine similar issues to those envisaged for the 2018 Facilitate Dialogue in relation to collective progress on meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

With this as framing, it is clear that action on the NDC is not just about implementing them as written. It’s about working out how to increase their level of ambition, while at the same time increasing the level of policy action undertaken by governments to reflect each country’s fair share of efforts to meet the Paris agreement.

Proposed policies and measures for Mongolia’s 'intended' national determined contributions (INDC) are as follows:

Energy (power and heat): Increase renewable electricity capacity from 7.62% in 2014 to 20% by 2020 and to 30% by 2030 as a share of total electricity generation capacity.

Reduce electricity transmission losses from 13.7% in 2014 to 10.8% by 2020 and to 7.8% by 2030.

Reduce building heat loss by 20% by 2020 and by 40% by 2030, compared to 2014 levels.

Reduce internal energy use of Combined Heat and Power Plants (improved plant efficiency) from 14.4% in 2014 to 11.2% by 2020 and 9.14% by 2030.

Implement advanced technology in energy production such as super critical pressure coal combustion technology by 2030.

-State policy on energy production (Parliament resolution No. 63, 2015), Green development policy, 2014

Energy (transport):

Improve national paved road network.

Upgrading /Paving 8000 km by 2016, 11000 km by 2021.

Improve Ulaanbaatar city road network to decrease all traffic by 30-40% by 2023.

Increase the share of private hybrid road vehicles from approximately 6.5% in 2014 to approximately 13% by 2030.

Shift from liquid fuel to LPG for vehicles in Ulaanbaatar and provinces by improving taxation and environmental fee system.

Improve enforcement mechanism of standards for road vehicles and non-road based transport.

-Urban public transport investment program 2015; Mid-term new Development Program, 2010

Industrial sector Reduce emissions in the cement industry through upgrading the processing technology from wet to dry processing and through the construction of a new cement plant with dry processing up to 2030.

-NAMA’s, 2010; NAPCC, 2012: Building materials program

Agriculture:

Maintain livestock population at appropriate levels according to the pasture carrying capacity.

Mongolian National Livestock program, 2010

Gaps and Barriers:

High priority of external barriers: Financial lack is the most important obstacle, Challenges to introduce advanced and new technology and equipment machinery.

Weak management of disaster risks still exists especially of local level and early warning system for prevention of danger.

Internal barriers: Lack of legal enabling environment, Weak coordination of integration between sectors , Weak natural resources management for pasture, forest and water, Insufficient human resources capacity and lack of trainings and courses about Climate change in curriculums of Universities, Institutes and college, In effective monitoring system for natural resources and incapable tracking and monitoring system.

Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi mine to lift force majeure www.mining.com

The Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia’s southern Gobi Desert will lift force majeure effective March 1 and majority owner Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd said on Wednesday that it expected to make up any sales-related effect over the next few quarters.

Apple is under fire for moving iCloud data to China www.cnn.com

Apple's latest move in China has privacy advocates and human rights groups worried.
The U.S. company is moving iCloud accounts registered in mainland China to state-run Chinese servers on Wednesday along with the digital keys needed to unlock them.

"The changes being made to iCloud are the latest indication that China's repressive legal environment is making it difficult for Apple to uphold its commitments to user privacy and security," Amnesty International warned in a statement Tuesday.

The criticism highlights the tradeoffs major international companies are making in order to do business in China, which is a huge market and vital manufacturing base for Apple (AAPL).

In the past, if Chinese authorities wanted to access Apple's user data, they had to go through an international legal process and comply with U.S. laws on user rights, according to Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which studies the intersection of digital policy and human rights.

"They will no longer have to do so if iCloud and cryptographic keys are located in China's jurisdiction," he told CNNMoney.

The company taking over Apple's Chinese iCloud operations is Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), which is owned by the government of Guizhou province. GCBD did not respond to requests for comment.

The change only affects iCloud accounts that are registered in mainland China.

Apple (AAPL) made the move to comply with China's latest regulations on cloud services. A controversial cybersecurity law, which went into effect last June, requires companies to keep all data in the country. Beijing has said the measures are necessary to help prevent crime and terrorism, and protect Chinese citizens' privacy.

The problem with Chinese cybersecurity laws, Deibert said, is that they also require companies operating in China "to turn over user data to state authorities on demand -- Apple now included."

Other big U.S. tech companies have had to take similar steps -- Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) also struck partnerships with Chinese companies to operate their cloud services in the country.

Apple says that it did advocate against iCloud being subject to the new law, but was unsuccessful.

"Our choice was to offer iCloud under the new laws or discontinue offering the service," an Apple spokesman told CNN. The company decided to keep iCloud in China, because cutting it off "would result in a bad user experience and less data security and privacy for our Chinese customers," he said.

Apple users typically use iCloud to store data such as music, photos and contacts.

That information can be extremely sensitive. Earlier this month, Reporters Without Borders urged China-based journalists to change the country associated with their iCloud accounts -- which is an option for non-Chinese citizens, according to Apple -- or to close them down entirely.

Human rights groups also highlighted the difficult ethical positions Apple could find itself in under the new iCloud arrangement in China.

The company has fought for privacy rights in the Unites States. It publicly opposed a judge's order to break into the iPhone of one of the terrorists who carried out the deadly attack in San Bernardino in December 2016, calling the directive "an overreach by the US government."

At the time, CEO Tim Cook said complying with the order would have required Apple to build "a backdoor to the iPhone ... something we consider too dangerous to create."

Human Rights Watch questioned whether the company would take similar steps to try to protect users' iCloud information in China, where similar privacy rights don't exist.

"Will Apple challenge laws adopted by the Chinese government that give authorities vast access to that data, especially with respect to encrypted keys that authorities will likely demand?" asked Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch.

Apple declined to answer that question directly, but it pushed back on concerns that Chinese authorities will have easy access to iCloud users' data.

"Apple has not created nor were we requested to create any backdoors and Apple will continue to retain control over the encryption keys to iCloud data," the Apple spokesman said.

"As with other countries, we will respond to legal requests for data that we have in our possession for individual users, never bulk data," he added.

Rights groups and privacy advocates are not convinced.

"China is an authoritarian country with a long track record of problematic human rights abuses, and extensive censorship and surveillance practices," Deibert said.

Apple users in China should take "extra and possibly inconvenient precautions not to store sensitive data on Apple's iCloud," he advised.

Most of those users have already accepted the new status quo, according to Apple. So far, more than 99.9% of iCloud users in China have chosen to continue using the service, the Apple spokesman said.

Advocacy campaign to tackle teen drinking and smoking www.theubpost.mn

The Youth Development Agency has inked a cooperation agreement with the National Center for Mental Health to launch an advocacy campaign for preventing alcoholism among students and young people.