Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Honored Artists of Mongolia E.Amartuvshin will perform at La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. The baritone is to sing the part of Amonasro. King of Ethiopia, in the opera Aida.

The opera to feature Cultural Ambassador of Mongolia E.Amartuvshin will take place from October 6 to 19 at the Milan theater that was built in 1776 on the former location of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala, from which the theatre got its name.

They are called ninja miners – some 100’000 people at peak times digging for gold or other natural resources in Mongolia. “Ninja” as they often cover their faces from dust and carry green pans that resemble the shells of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Many former pastoralists have engaged in this artisanal mining, working aside industrial miners, as one of few income generating activities. The mining boom started in the 1990s when Mongolia transitioned to a free marked democracy allowing foreign investments. Since then, the sector has had an oversized influence on Mongolia’s GDP, leaving behind agriculture as the economy’s former center piece.

What are the main stages that have shaped the mining sector since the 1990s? How has the boom in mining transformed society? What answers do regulators and actors have to the toll mining has taken on the land, air, and the environment as a whole? And what role do Chinese investment and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) play?

In this webcast, the University of Zurich’s Byambabaatar Ichinkhorloo starts off by giving us an in-depth understanding of the evolution and ongoing issues around mining in Mongolia. He will then be joined by Beibei Gu of the Zoï Environment Network, who focuses on environmental issues, the Chinese perspective as importer and investor as well as the challenges and opportunities of the BRI for Mongolia’s mining sector. This webcast is moderated by the anthropologist Emilia Sulek.

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Byamba

Dr. Byambabaatar Ichinkhorloo is a senior lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, the University of Zurich and a co-investigator of "Gobi Framework" research project, the University of Oxford. As a social anthropologist, Byamba is studying how people make a living in Mongolia since 1990. His research mainly focuses on pastoralism, political ecology, and mining. Apart from his academic career, he worked as a research consultant in development agencies and interacted with different actors whose perceptions and opinions contrast sharply.

Beibei Gu

Beibei Gu is a sustainability and environmental policy specialist working for the Geneva based NGO Zoï Environment Network. Beibei contributed to the recently launched synthesis report Greening the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. She has more than ten years of professional experience across international organizations (UNEP), multinational corporations and environmental NGOs, and is experienced in the global environment agenda including the United Nations (UN) Inclusive Green Economy, sustainable infrastructure and investment, China’s clean air policy, environmental transparency and green supply chain.

Emilia Sulek

Dr. Emilia Sulek is a scholar of China, Tibet and Central Asia. She writes about contemporary Asian societies, shadow economies, development, state power, political conflict and environment, and gender politics. She is a member of ROADWORK: an anthropological research project about the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. Photo by Daniela Kienzler.

Mongolia’s Joint Programme (JP) for Integrated Social Protection focuses on extending social protection to herders and their families, and enhancing the system’s shock-responsiveness to minimize their vulnerability to extreme climate change and poverty. The JP aims to combine its investment in social protection system development with an intervention to prevent herders and their families from sliding into a poverty trap.

The JP has achieved significant progress over the first six months. A shock-responsive social protection tool (“Child Money Programme”) has been piloted in Zavkhan Province to minimize herders’ risks to shocks, and make social protection more accessible to them during the current pandemic. The Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis Tool (RIMA-II) has been introduced to analyze herder household resilience capacity to climate-related risks such as dzud and other shocks. Data has been collected from 2240 herder households in soums across Zavkhan and Khuvsgul provinces to analyze their capacity for introducing a resilience strategy to their groups and local communities.

Herders’ entrepreneurial and business skills have been strengthened through new technology,

equipment and advanced knowledge of livestock production, which may lead to increased income and participation in social and health protection schemes. Technical assistance has been provided to the Government on shock-responsive social protection policy implementation and monitoring. The team has also supported the decentralization of social protection infrastructure and designed capacity-building training programmes for Social Insurance General Office staff in order to promote effective social insurance coverage of herders. Thus, over the first six months, the Mongolia JP has made significant headway toward extending shock-responsive social protection to herder communities.

New research published in the Strategic Management Journal shows that companies working in countries where corruption is rampant are able to operate better when they make deeper, long-term commitments.

According to the lead author of the study, Charles E. Stevens, associate professor of management at Lehigh University’s College of Business, this approach means leaving behind the two dominant strategies when dealing with corruption in developing countries: “Play the game,” meaning pay bribes or engage in corrupt activities, or “leave the table” by avoiding investing in places where corruption is widespread.

To reach this conclusion, Stevens and his colleague Aloysius Newenham-Kahindi, associate professor at the University of Victoria, surveyed people that are or have been faced with corruption directly, among them 445 individuals representing industries such as mining, construction, manufacturing, energy, and telecommunications in both developed and developing country firms. They also polled 126 host country government officials and employees; 34 local private-sector employees; 44 local institutional researchers; and 142 members of the general public.

The researchers found that within the last decade, a number of developing country firms, many of them from China, were taking an unexpected engagement strategy that tended to involve greater commitment and greater investment to countries where there was more corruption.

“Many of these firms were following rather interesting and complex strategies – many that involved multiple actors – that were designed at minimizing the ability of host-country actors to request bribes by maximizing their bargaining power or by minimizing the motivation of host-country actors to request bribes by increasing their legitimacy,” Stevens said in a media statement.

According to the scholar, this paper fills an important gap in corruption literature by increasing the understanding of the options and strategies that firms have at their disposal when they invest in countries where corruption is a greater problem.

“We hope that this research allows firms, governments, and the general public to achieve economic prosperity, reduce corruption, and create mutually-beneficial solutions through investment and growth,” Stevens said. “Firms shouldn’t automatically be afraid to invest in countries where risks like corruption are present. Such countries present many challenges, but for firms that go in with a comprehensive plan, are prepared to make a long-term commitment, and find ways to leverage partnerships with governments and other firms, the rewards can be worth the risks.”

Mongolia confirms its 314th case of coronavirus on Oct 5, Director of the National Center for Communicable Diseases Dulmaa Nyamkhuu said.

1,823 people have undergone the laboratory tests for Covid-19 on October 2-4, and one tested positive.

A 19-year old woman who arrived from Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan tested positive.

As of today, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Mongolia has reached 314 (all imported) and total recoveries reached 307.

Seven patients are receiving the treatment.

Plans to build the U.K.’s first new deep coal mine in three decades were approved on Friday, in a move that threatens to undermine the government’s pledge to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century.

West Cumbria Mining’s Woodhouse Colliery project, in north-west England, has faced steep opposition from environment groups urging the government to intervene and block it. They claim the new coal mine would emit 8 million tonnes of carbon annually.

The planned mine is expected to produce as much as 3.1 million tonnes of metallurgical coal a year, mainly from under the seabed. Processed coal would then be transferred by underground conveyor to trains using a new loading facility and sidings.

Woodhouse Colliery is scheduled to begin production in the second half of 2021, creating 500 jobs. It had originally been slated to run for 70 years, but West Cumbria Mining had to resubmit plans following a judicial review last year.

Under the approved plans, it will close in 2049, one year before the country must have net zero emissions.

“Net-zero” goal questioned

Most in the UK are skeptical about achieving the net zero target, according to a survey by the centre-right think tank Bright Blue published Friday.

The report found that 58% of the public believe that it is unlikely that the target will be achieved even by 2050.

The UK is set to host the COP26 round of UN global climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021. The event is considered the most important climate negotiations since the Paris agreement in 2015.

England’s last operating deep coal mine, Kellingley, closed in 2015 and the country’s last coal mine stopped operating this year.

Massive ore handling chutes produced for the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia's South Gobi region have opened a new expansion window for Murray Mining Services in the country. Previously, it was believed that these huge chutes could not be manufactured locally in Mongolia.

"About 50-60% of the equipment and other products used in large mines such as Oyu Tolgoi is made abroad and imported into Mongolia," says MMS CEO, Batkhuu Dorj. "However, we have become a leader in Mongolia's steel fabrication sector because we have produced the world's largest and most heavy-duty underground ore unloading chutes. Inspection and evaluations by international third-party companies have confirmed the chutes meet world standards and requirements."

The four 60-70-tonne chutes have been delivered to Oyu Tolgoi in record time.

Batkhuu told a Mongolian newspaper the project was creating new opportunities for skilled local workers. Nearly all of MMS' eighty personnel are Mongolian. The company's 2,700sq.m Ulaanbaatar facility hosts modern, automated equipment such as high-capacity steel cutters, rollers and drills, and can produce 100,000kg of fabricated product a month.

"We mainly engage in steel fabrication, repair, maintenance, lifting devices and steel mining structures," Batkhuu told Today News Mongolia.

"To produce high-quality products that meet international standards, we have been in contact with similar foreign and domestic companies since 2016, and have partnered with Murray Engineering to ensure we meet or exceed these standards."

Batkhuu advised that training and upskilling young Mongolian workers as high-grade welders and manufacturers, and building local industry support capacity, has strategic advantages for the country's economy and mining sector. "Adding value through skilled labour and production at home boosts Mongolia's foreign exchange balance."

Local customers also benefit from cost savings and more timely delivery and support.

Murray forms one-half of the MMS joint venture, and is a leading Australia wide mechanical, electrical engineering and manufacturing company, which was established 15 years ago. Murray saw an opportunity to work with South Gobi Development Corp to manufacture international-standard products and services on the doorstep of Mongolia's South Gobi mega-mines, and other emerging projects in the resource-rich country. MMS now follows in Murray's footsteps, offering world-class, fully certified manufacturing to the mining and energy industries.

MMS has also had the capacity to hire and train more local people as demand for the company's services grows.

They include women such as welder T. Zoljargal, who said the company was providing new opportunities in Mongolia and she wanted to "show that women can work in any field with no less skill than men".

As well as the long-life, complex chutes used in high-wearing applications deep underground at Oyu Tolgoi, MMS is producing 5-6m tall insulation and ventilation doors for the mine - replacing Chinese imports - and has manufactured and supplied anchors, excavator buckets and sledges, and assembled 30 trays for Komatsu 930E surface dump trucks each with carrying capacity of 300 tons.

Under the guidance of Murray Engineering, the company follows the strict Australian/New Zealand 1554.1 international steel fabrication standard to manufacture and supply high-quality "Mongolian Made" products to the world, with Manufacturers Data Records kept to ensure traceability through the manufacturing process.

Senior QA inspector S. Munkhjargal said standardisation of process and multi-level skilling of workers allowed MMS to guarantee that its products meet international standards and would stand the test of time even in the harshest mining conditions.

"Each day we perform visual inspections on all ongoing projects in the workshop and after the product has passed all visual inspections and hold points we employ a third party non-destructive testing company to test to the appropriate method and standard."

The local newspaper quoted an Oyu Tolgoi quality inspector saying that it was very encouraging "to see such high-quality performance work made in Mongolia".

A passenger plane chartered by the Mongolian government to return its nationals from Kazakhstan arrived here on Sunday, according to Mongolia's State Emergency Commission (SEC).

The chartered flight from Nur-Sultan to Ulan Bator landed at the Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport on Sunday morning, with 160 passengers onboard, the SEC said in a statement.

The returnees include children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with health and other problems, the commission said, adding that they will be isolated at designated facilities for 21 days.

Following the suspension of international commercial flights, more than 23,000 Mongolian nationals came back on chartered flights, trains or buses from different parts of the world, according to the commission.

The Asian country planned to send at least 11 chartered flights this month to bring back more stranded nationals from abroad.

Mongolia has reported a total of 313 COVID-19 cases, all of which were imported.

No local transmissions or deaths have been reported in the country so far. Enditem

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will depart for Japan on Sunday but will not go to Mongolia and South Korea as originally planned, the State Department said on Saturday, after President Donald Trump was diagnosed and hospitalised due to the coronavirus.

Initially, Pompeo planned to visit all three countries between October 4 and October 8. He is still set to leave for Tokyo on Sunday but will be returning to Washington on October 6 after consultations with his Japanese counterparts and attending a wider meeting with foreign ministers of India and Australia.

Trump announced his illness in the early hours of Friday and was flown from the White House to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington. In a video from the hospital on Saturday, he said he felt “much better” but the next few days will be “the real test” of his treatment for Covid-19.

World leaders wish Trump and Melania speedy recovery from Covid-19

In a speech delivered virtually earlier to the Florida Family Policy Council, Pompeo said he was in good health but that he cancelled his in-person appearance at the event “out of an abundance of caution”. He said he still planned to go to Asia.

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“You should know that I’m feeling fine, I’m doing great. I’ve been tested twice in two days. I’m as healthy as I’ve been. And I intend still – I have a trip that I’m planning to take to Asia tomorrow,” he said.

In a statement, the State Department said Pompeo was expecting to travel to Asia again in October and will work to reschedule the visits in his original itinerary.

Pompeo’s visit to East Asia, his first to the region in over a year, comes at a time when US ties with Beijing are at their worst in decades.

Pompeo is meeting with the foreign ministers of Japan, Australia and India - so called the Quad group that is seen as a counter to China’s influence in the region. Beijing has made clear its opposition to the US “Indo-Pacific strategy”, which was conceived to elevate India as a potential regional counterweight to China.

Pompeo urges US states to beware of China’s ‘sinister’ attempts at engagement

24 Sep 2020

The meeting is also one of the highest-profile diplomatic gatherings for the Trump administration before the US presidential election, where policy toward Beijing has become a major campaign issue. It also comes as China and India try to defuse tensions on their disputed Himalayan border, after a military standoff led to gunshots being fired over the frontier for the first time since 1975.

The Quad gathering will “focus on pressing issues of the Indo-Pacific region,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

The US president’s campaign launched “Operation MAGA” to send out surrogates who would attest to his vitality and keep his voter base motivated until Trump recovers enough to resume campaigning in person.

Both Pompeo and his wife have tested negative for the virus.