It was a hot summer day, five weeks into my training to become a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia. I was living with my host family in a small northern village. Around us the hills were covered in yellow wildflowers. A few dozen trees dotted the horizon.

My Mongolian language skills were slowly improving, but my vocabulary was still limited. As I walked home from morning language classes, my host mom spotted me and called me towards the family truck. “Ashley! Naasha, naasha!” (come here) was among the first phrases I learned in Mongolia. As I neared, she continued to speak. I managed to catch a few words: “over there,” “fire,” and “learn.”

I still wasn't sure what we were up to as I climbed into the truck with my host mom, brother and sister. We headed toward the hills surrounding town, and the village grew smaller and smaller in the background. I took in the vast deep blue skies and seemingly endless sprawl of uninhabited land. The grazing goats and sheep looked peaceful as we drove by.

We reached the base of a large hill. Nearby, I noticed a fenced-in area with uneven, flattish brown clods, of all shapes and sizes, stacked in the middle. My host mom smiled at me and said, “garl” (fire). I still didn't understand what we were going to do. She pointed at the goats and sheep grazing in the distant fields and then handed me a burlap sack, motioning for me to follow her. To my surprise I watched as she and my little brother and sister started collecting the dried animal droppings from the ground.

It finally clicked. I realized that the brown clods I’d been looking at were stacks of dried animal dung collected to use as fuel. At home in the U.S., I used wood as fuel for camping or fireplaces, but during training in Mongolia, I learned that locals used many types of fuel, and animal dung was very popular in regions without forests.

The four of us fanned out across the field to collect dung in our bags. We stacked chunks on top of the storage piles and loaded pieces of the valuable fuel in the back of the truck to take home. The earthy smell of dried dung filled my nostrils, but it didn’t bother me much. I admired my family’s ingenuity in using the available resources to survive.

Back home, my host mom gave me a lesson in fire-making. I would need this crucial skill to survive Mongolian winters. While I had my share of campfires and bonfires in the U.S., fire starter, logs and lighter fluid were always on hand to get the fire going. In Mongolia wood, coal, dung, and matches are used to make fires for cooking and heating. With no forests nearby, logs were imported from other regions and then villagers cut them into smaller pieces to use as fuel.

My host mom showed me how to place small pieces of wood, paper, bits of trash and dung together in a pile. I lit a match and placed it close to the kindling. The paper around the edges of the pile lit up, but soon died out. Puzzled, I watched my host mom rearrange the kindling. She made a small hollow opening in the pile and told me to try again. I struck another match, and with more oxygen, the blaze was soon crackling. She smiled at me with satisfaction, knowing I would make it through the winter.

Throughout service, I made a fire every day inside my ger (yurt) during the cold months. My wood stove provided warmth and comfort throughout the long, frigid Mongolian winters. Every time I chopped wood, collected dung, or sat next to the warmth of the fire, I was grateful for my fire-starting skill, taught to me by my host mom. To this day, whenever I use my gas stove at home, I’m brought back to the time when I learned to make a fire by hand. Now more than ever, I appreciate the warmth, light and sociability that fire holds for me.

Japan's government will start shipping coronavirus vaccines this week to municipalities and medical facilities, for use by children aged between five and 11.

Vaccinations for that age group will be officially included in the public inoculation program on Monday.

The government plans to deliver a total of about 12 million doses of coronavirus vaccine nationwide through May. Inoculations are expected to begin in some areas as early as this month.

For children in this age group the vaccine will contain one-third of the dose for those aged 12 or above. Children will receive two jabs with a period of three weeks in between.

Unlike people aged 12 or older, children aged five to 11 are not required to try to receive a coronavirus vaccine as there is not yet enough data to verify its effectiveness against the Omicron variant.

Parental consent will also be required for children in the age group to be inoculated. The health ministry is calling on parents to have a thorough discussion with their children, as well as to consult with their home doctors before making a decision.

The ministry urges children with respiratory and other underlying health problems to be vaccinated as they have a higher risk of developing severe COVID symptoms.

The ministry does not recommend mass vaccinations at school. Children will be inoculated at vaccination sites in their municipalities, or at clinics on an individual basis.

There are concerns that some municipalities may find it difficult to secure doctors and staff to support vaccinations for children. The challenge is how to secure a system for children and their parents who wish to receive shots.

Cheese factories will be established in 18 soums of Khuvsgul aimag, one of the aimags having the most livestock.

MNT 4 billion was earmarked in the state budget for 2021 to open cheese factories in eight soums, Galt, Jargalant, Tsagaan-Uul, Renchinlkhumbe, Tsagaan-Uur, Ikh-Uul, Rashaant, and Tosontsengel and Khan Attribute LLC that won the project bid is working to open the factories this year.

In this year’s state budget, MNT 5 billion has been earmarked to build more cheese factories in 10 soums, Alag-Erdene, Arbulag, Burentogtokh, Tumurbulag, Tunel, Tarialan, Ulaan-Uul, Tsetserleg, Shine-Ider, and Erdenebulgan.

The establishment of cheese factories in rural areas will help herders process their milk locally and export the products abroad for increased income, said Ya.Erkhembayar, head of the aimag’s department for food and agriculture.

Minister of Labour and Social Protection, head of the programme steering committee A.Ariunzaya took part in the opening ceremony of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)’s Women in Business Programme (WiB) in Central Asia.

In her opening remarks, the Minister emphasized that the government of Mongolia is working towards an objective to move from welfare to work, announcing that the National Council for Employment is implementing the ‘Women's employment support program’ in 2022.

Minister A.Ariunzaya stressed the significance of implementing WiB that provides effective and equal opportunities to women through funding, consulting, and policy discussions in Mongolia with support from donors.

The programme launch took place during a meeting under the topic "How EBRD can support women-owned businesses". Co-funded by Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative and EBRD, WiB aims to support capacity building of women through increased economic opportunities.

EBRD is successfully implementing the programme in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan since 2015 and deems it significant to other Central Asian countries and Mongolia.

The Women in Business Programme in Central Asia plans to reach around 7,000 women-owned small and medium enterprises in Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that all face gender- and policy-related issues in finding funding, knowhow and business opportunities.

The programme opening ceremony was attended by U.S. and British Ambassadors, EBRD Managing Director for Central Asia Zsuzsanna Hargitai, Head of EBRD in Mongolia Hannes Takacz, EBRD Managing Director for Financial Institutions Francis Malige, Head of Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative Secretariat, and representatives of Mongolia government and non-government organizations, non-bank financial institutions, and companies.

Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia registered 309 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the lowest since Jan. 3, bringing the national tally to 462,406, the country's health ministry said Monday.

Meanwhile, no more COVID-19 related deaths were recorded in the past day, and the country's death toll remains at 2,087, it said.

So far, 66.8 percent of the country's 3.4 million people have received two COVID-19 vaccine doses, while more than 1 million people over 18 received one booster.

The country started to administer a voluntary fourth shot in January, and over 96,100 people have received it.

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's new social media venture, Truth Social, launched late on Sunday in Apple's App Store, potentially marking the former president's return to social media after he was banned from several platforms last year.

The app was available to download shortly before midnight ET and was automatically downloaded to Apple Inc (AAPL.O) devices belonging to users who had pre-ordered the app.

Some users reported either having trouble registering for an account or were added to a waitlist with a message: "Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist."

The app has been available for people invited to use it during its test phase, Reuters previously reported.

Trump was banned from Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), Facebook (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, after he was accused of posting messages inciting violence.

Led by former Republican U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the venture behind Truth Social, joins a growing portfolio of technology companies that are positioning themselves as champions of free speech and hope to draw users who feel their views are suppressed on more established platforms.

So far none of the newer companies, which include Twitter competitors Gettr and Parler and video site Rumble, have come close to matching the popularity of their mainstream counterparts.

"This week we will begin to roll out on the Apple App Store. That's going to be awesome, because we're going to get so many more people that are going to be on the platform," Nunes said in a Sunday appearance on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo".

"Our goal is, I think we're going to hit it, I think by the by the end of March we're going to be fully operational at least within the United States," he added.

Truth Social's app store page detailing its version history showed the first public version of the app, or version 1.0 was available a day ago, confirming a Reuters report. The current version 1.0.1 includes "bug fixes," according to the page.

DRUMMING SUPPORT

On Friday, Nunes was on the app urging users to follow more accounts, share photos and videos and participate in conversations, in an apparent attempt to drum up activity, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Among Nunes' posts, he welcomed a new user who appeared to be a Catholic priest and encouraged him to invite more priests to join, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.

Even as details of the app begin trickling out, TMTG remains mostly shrouded in secrecy and is regarded with skepticism by some in tech and media circles. It is unclear, for example, how the company is funding its current growth.

TMTG is planning to list in New York through a merger with blank-check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O) (DWAC) and stands to receive $293 million in cash that DWAC holds in a trust, assuming no DWAC shareholder redeems their shares, TMTG said in an Oct. 21 press release.

Additionally, in December TMTG raised $1 billion committed financing from private investors; that money also will not be available until the DWAC deal closes. read more

Digital World's activities have come under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to a regulatory filing, and the deal is likely months away from closing.

Reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco and Helen Coster in New York; Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Lincoln Feast

Mongolia’s government has announced a ‘comprehensive’ plan to help its economy rebound from the shock of the pandemic, but it contains no policies designed specifically to reduce poverty, Ariun-Erdene Bayarjargal writes.

Though pandemics do not ‘die’, COVID-19 is likely to fade away from central focus in 2022. As the world transitions into post-pandemic life and into a new normal, policymakers are now looking at recovery options for economies hit hard by the pandemic. Mongolia is no exception.

Mongolia’s economy contracted by 5.3 per cent in 2020, the largest decline in last two decades, but a strong return on exports helped the economy to rebound in the first half of 2021.

High commodity prices, particularly of mining products, in the world market led to a positive balance of trade despite raw volume of exports decreasing. The International Monetary Fund’s Mongolia outlook indicates growth is expected to be 7.5 per cent in 2022.

Alongside this expectation of strong growth, though, is inflation. Supply-chain disruption induced by border closures caused annual inflation to reach 13.4 per cent as of December last year, and hikes in food and fuel prices have also contributed to inflation.

Consequently, the Bank of Mongolia has shifted to a tighter monetary policy, raising its policy rate by 0.5 points from its historic low level of six per cent at the end of January and increasing reserve requirements.

In terms of vaccines, the government of Mongolia managed to secure vaccines for its population by taking an advantage of its proximity to two large vaccine-producing countries in China and Russia.

By the end of January 2022, over 60 per cent of the adult population had received at least one dose of a vaccine. However this vaccination rate, which is among the highest for lower-middle income countries, has not translated into socio-economic normality, and difficult economic conditions continue to affect the livelihoods of many Mongolians.

Like many other countries, in 2020 the government adopted a generous set of fiscal measures to ease the impact of the pandemic on households. These steps included quintupling child allowance money, doubling food stamp allowance, and substantially raising social welfare payments for the vulnerable.

The total size of the package including tax exemptions and support to small and medium businesses reached 7.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in total by August 2020.

Further lockdowns caused income losses to households and firms in 2021, and the government continued the relief package by distributing a cash handout of 300 thousand Mongolian Tögrög (US$104) to every citizen, costing the budget equivalent to 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Overall, 2.4 million people received social assistance, with child allowance money making up 49.6 per cent of assistance received. Of households affected by economic shocks related to COVID-19 pandemic, those employed in low-skilled and/or informal sectors, those with limited economic security, and those living just above the national poverty line were disproportionately impacted and remain at a high risk of falling into poverty.

One micro-simulation analysis by the World Bank indicates the poverty rate could have increased between 5.4 and 7.9 percentage points compared to the pre-COVID-19 projections in the absence of the government’s mitigation policy.

Although these relief programs helped many households retain their income, their rapid withdrawal could create significant difficulties in the wake of increasing inflation. The challenge Mongolia faces now is that it has limited fiscal capacity but must continue supporting its people as the economy recovers. On top of this, further expansionary fiscal policy could lead to currency pressures, exacerbating inflation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the structure and conditions of Mongolia’s labour market. The country’s labour force participation rate is more than two percentage points below 2019 levels as of the third quarter of 2021.

More on this:India’s road to recovery

The service sector, which employs the largest share of workers on casual basis of any industry, was hit hard by the pandemic and the recovery has been slow due to mobility restrictions. Job losses were inevitable in a sector where workers were mostly ineligible for social security payments and other benefits, like paid leave.

This has made marginal income losses even larger among the poor. Women were affected disproportionately too, as they make up the majority of workforce in the service sector, and many were forced out of the labour force to care for children during lockdowns.

Studies have shown that the poor are more vulnerable to unemployment and inflation shocks than the rich, and Mongolia’s situation is no different. There is no doubt the pandemic has exacerbated the vulnerability of certain groups and widening inequality in the country.

Mongolia, like other countries, is shifting from policies focused on short-term economic relief towards accelerating recovery and building resilience. The parliament of Mongolia announced its plan, dubbed the ‘New Revival Policy’, at the end of December 2021, in addition to a four-year plan approved by the government in February 2021.

It focuses on medium-term development issues and outlines improving labour force participation, but it contains a glaring omission – a concrete plan for reducing poverty.

The ‘comprehensive plan’ will cost roughly $3.4 billion, or approximately a quarter of the country’s 2020 GDP in current prices.

The New Revival Policy is on top of this plan and extends this amount to more than $30 billion in the long run. With the government’s yearly revenue in 2021 reaching only $5 billion, it is not at all certain where the fiscal space to finance these programs is coming from in the long term.

While the plan does address issues related to improving youth employment and skills development, along with supporting small and medium businesses, it isn’t acceptable for there to be no specific action outlined for tackling poverty and inequality.

Of course, the government must adopt an integrated and fiscally viable approach to boost medium-term economic prospects and job creation, but it also needs to take specific action to tackle the socio-economic issues facing the Mongolian people, and poverty and inequality are the biggest of these problems.

The onset of humid conditions around 1200 BCE in the area of modern-day Mongolia appears to have been a key driver in the expansion of the great equestrian empires of the Eastern Steppes, researchers report.

The repeated expansion of East Asian steppe cultures has been a key driver of Eurasian history.

The rise of transcontinental, pastoral empires linking eastern and western Eurasia across the steppes had a tremendous transformative effect on human societies, facilitating the spread of people, goods, and ideas — as well as domestic animals, plants, and catastrophic disease.

The Mongolian steppe was first occupied by pastoral people around 3000 BCE, when early herders appear to have migrated to the region from western Asia.

Around 1200 BCE, domestic horses were used first for transport by mobile herders and other Bronze Age culture groups.

The emergence of a horse culture changed mobility for the steppe cultures, leading to the rise of important nomadic societies such as the Xiongnu, from around 200 BCE to 100 CE, and the Great Mongol Empire, which rose to global dominance under Genghis Khan in the early 13th century CE.

For these pastoral empires, extensive and productive grasslands provided the engine for both economic and political power.

However, in the dry and harsh steppes of eastern Eurasia, minor climate variations can have large impacts on the water balance, biomass production, and ecosystem carrying capacity.

The close coupling between precipitation, temperature and domestic animal productivity gave rise to the hypothesis that climate changes may have played an important role in the way human history unfolded in Central Asia.

Researchers, writing in the journal Scientific Reports, noted that while climate is proposed as an important driver of these poorly understood cultural expansions, paleoclimate records from the Mongolian Plateau can be difficult to interpret.

The study team used a combination of geochemical analyses and comprehensive radiocarbon dating to establish what they describe as the first robust and detailed record of paleohydrological conditions for the Lake Telmen region of Mongolia, covering the past 4000 or so years.

Analysis by Julian Struck and his fellow researchers showed that humid conditions coincided with solar minima – the part of the 11-year solar cycle when sunspot and solar flare activity is at a minimum.

Careful comparisons with archaeological and historical records suggest that solar minima led to reduced temperatures, less evaporation, and higher biomass production across the vast semi-arid grasslands of eastern Eurasia, expanding the power base for pastoral economies and horse cavalry.

The sustained humid conditions that arose likely enabled the expansion of fertile grasslands, allowing people to raise larger numbers of livestock and horses for both meat and dairy production.

While smaller herds are more vulnerable to loss from disease, predation, or weather, larger herds often prove more resilient.

The researchers said periods of environmental productivity appear to have encouraged the formation of larger steppe social networks.

As the key engine of pre-industrial transport and warfare in Eurasia, horses directly impacted the military and transport capacity of steppe societies, while long military campaigns also often required grazing areas for other livestock.

“Together, these and other factors likely helped create an uncommonly close causal link between environmental dynamics and sociopolitical developments in the Mongolian grasslands,” they said.

The onset of humid conditions around 1200 BCE coincided with drastic social changes across central Mongolia, including the first emergence of a horse culture and evidence of widespread social integration across the eastern steppe.

In contrast to earlier pastoralists, who were apparently constrained largely to mountain margins, the late Bronze Age herders in the area made use of the open grasslands and desert regions.

At some sites, hundreds or even thousands of horse burials testify to the expanded ecological and social significance of horses.

“The epicenter of this dramatic emergence of horse culture appears to have been central Mongolia,” they said, “with large funerary and monument complexes emerging in the Khangai Mountain Range.

“Our results suggest that the expansion of the region’s first culture, which spread as far as Trans Baikal, Tuva, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, and China, was supported by wet conditions driven by a solar minimum.”

While the grand solar minimum from 800 to 600 BCE, coupled with a known weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation – a weather phenomenon over the North Atlantic – was associated with a general climate and environmental crisis triggering human migrations and the collapse of cultures in parts of northern Europe, the study found the opposite in Mongolia.

Instead, there was an increase in effective ecosystem moisture and positive socio-environmental impacts because of better growing conditions, and an expansion of fertile grasslands.

It was during the grand solar minimum that key social changes and the emergence of the first integrated pastoral empires took place during a prolonged period of humid conditions.

Mongolia witnessed an expansion of the Slab Burial culture that yielded the first direct evidence of riding tack, and royal equestrian burials. The earliest evidence for horsemanship appears in the archaeological record at Arzhan, in Tuva, and early mounted Scythian groups spread westward out of interior Asia.

From this first expansion of horse culture, the prolonged humid conditions in central Mongolia supported the convergence of Mongolia’s first united pastoral polities (organized societies).

“The Xiongnu Empire thrived particularly between 200 BCE and 100 CE, when climate conditions were also predominantly humid at Lake Telmen and Lake Khar Nuur.

“Extensive fertile grasslands favored pastoralism, while this period also saw the adoption of agriculture, the establishment of village-like settlements, increased gene flow with East and Central Asia, and extensive trade relations were established as far as the Mediterranean.”

Complemented by new military and organizational techniques, climatic and environmental conditions favorable for animal pastoralism enabled the Xiongnu to form a large and powerful politically structured empire.

“This prolonged period of favorable climate-human interaction seems to have persisted across the early first millennium CE.”

The authors noted that humid conditions were no guarantee of persistent political stability, as some important groups rose and fell in the Mongolian steppe.

However, after the Xiongnu state failed around 100 CE, both the Rouran Khaganate (around 400 CE) and the first Turkic Khaganate (around 550 CE) formed during periods of favorable grassland conditions in central Mongolia.

This run ended with the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age – a long-lasting northern hemisphere cooling period around 600 CE.

The record shows a distinct decline in the evaporation index during this period, likely indicating cooler conditions at Lake Telmen, indicating dryer conditions and the development of a cold steppe during this period.

“Just as solar minima appear to have been crucial to the first formation of pastoral empires, solar maxima may have had a disruptive effect on social integration in ancient Mongolia,” they said.

“Very harsh and long winters seem to have caused high livestock mortality, an increase in warfare activity, famines, and cultural re-organization during the Late Antique Little Ice Age.”

Based on the records, dry climate conditions prevailed in central Mongolia during the warmer Medieval Climate Anomaly. Conditions remained unfavorable until the end of this period around 1300 CE.

Under these conditions, failing grassland biomass may have undercut the economic and social power base of the first Turkic Khaganate, and contributed to its disintegration around 603 CE, they said.

During subsequent centuries, Mongolia cycled through a comparatively tumultuous period of political instability, they said, interspersed with periods of domination by external powers like the Tang and Khitan states.

“Our record supports previous arguments that moisture balance also played an important role in the emergence and success of the largest pastoral empire — the Great Mongol Empire of Genghis and Khubilai Khan,” they wrote.

Their research showed a shift to humid conditions since 1100 CE and a positive effective moisture balance around 1300 CE.

“This likely favored the union of nomadic tribes under Genghis Khan and the formation of the Mongol Empire, which began during the early 13th century and reached its greatest spatial extent during the late 13th through the mid-14th century.”

Changes in solar radiation ultimately played an important role in controlling the regional climate around Lake Telmen over the past 4000 years, they concluded.

“We have shown that even small changes in temperature and precipitation have a huge impact on the effective ecosystem moisture balance and thus, biomass production and the expansion of fertile grasslands.

“This apparent causal link between favorable climate conditions and positive socio-environmental impacts for herding cultures in the Mongolian steppe likely had tremendous impact on the broader trajectory of human history in Eurasia, as the cyclical emergence of pastoral cultural networks and empires helped to forge some of the first pan Eurasian trade networks, spreading goods, plants, and animals, people, ideas, and even catastrophic pandemic disease.”

Given the findings, the researchers voiced the view that the near-future consequences of global warming will put the ecosystems and livelihood of the pastoral population in Central Asia at great risk.

Mongolia has already experienced a 2°C temperature increase since 1963. Previous studies have shown a rapid loss of lakes, melting mountain ice, persistent soil moisture deficits, more droughts and heavy rainstorms.

“Increased rainfall may not counteract the impact of rising temperatures. Instead, rainfall may exacerbate ongoing land degradation as these short-term heavy rainstorms exceed the soil’s infiltration capacity and cause surface runoff, soil erosion, and even floods.”

It is uncertain whether and how modern pastoralists will adapt to the future climate, they said.

The study team comprised Struck, Marcel Bliedtner, Paul Strobel, William Taylor, Sophie Biskop, Birgit Plessen, Björn Klaes, Lucas Bittner, Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, Gary Salazar, Sönke Szidat, Alexander Brenning, Enkhtuya Bazarradnaa, Bruno Glaser, Michael Zech and Roland Zech, variously affiliated with the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany; the German Research Centre for Geosciences; the University of Trier in Germany; the Dresden University of Technology and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, both in Germany; the University of Bern in Switzerland; the Mongolian University of Life Sciences; the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany; and the University of Colorado-Boulder Museum of Natural History.

Struck, J., Bliedtner, M., Strobel, P. et al. Central Mongolian lake sediments reveal new insights on climate change and equestrian empires in the Eastern Steppes. Sci Rep 12, 2829 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06659-w