Mongolia confirms two more COVID-19 cases, 306 in total www.akipress.com

Two COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Mongolia today, the Ministry of Health said.

Citi receives China fund custody licence www.reuters.com

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Citigroup (C.N) China unit has received a domestic fund custody licence from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the bank said on Wednesday, the latest foreign financial firm to expand its presence in mainland China.

Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee indicted over controversial merger in South Korea www.cnn.com

Seoul (CNN Business)Samsung's de facto leader Lee Jae-yong may be headed back to prison.

Lee, the billionaire Samsung vice chairman and son of ailing chairman Lee Kun-hee, was indicted on Tuesday over a controversial 2015 merger that helped him tighten control over the company.
Seoul's Central District Prosecutors' Office said at a briefing that 11 executives from Samsung, including Lee, have been indicted on charges including illegal transactions, stock manipulation and perjury. Lee and the executives were indicted without detention, which means they weren't taken into custody.
Lawyers for Samsung denied the charges, saying in a statement that they are "one-sided claims by the investigation team that are not based on evidence and law, and by no means true."
Lee, who is also known as Jay Y. Lee, was previously found guilty of bribery and other corruption charges in 2017. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but walked free after less than a year when an appeals court threw out some of the charges and suspended his sentence.

That case was dubbed the "trial of the century," and it gripped South Korea for months. It was part of a huge influence-peddling scandal that brought down the government of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Last August, South Korea's top court ordered a new trial for Lee, reigniting the bribery allegations and raising concerns that the technology scion could be sent back to prison. That case is still ongoing.
Prosecutors on Tuesday said the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was undertaken in a manner that allegedly benefited Lee and allowed him to gain a tighter grip on Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of his family's sprawling conglomerate.
During the merger, prosecutors allege that Lee and his executives illegally spread false information, conducted illegal lobbying and manipulated stock prices.
But Samsung's lawyers say that interrogations and previous related cases have confirmed that the merger was done in compliance with government regulations.
The latest investigation was conducted "with the aim of prosecuting Lee Jae-yong from the beginning, rather than seeking the actual truth according to evidence," the lawyers said.

Samsung is South Korea's biggest conglomerate. Its combined businesses are estimated to account for around 15% of the country's entire economy. Samsung Electronics, the biggest part of the group, is one of the world's leading smartphone makers and a vital supplier of memory chips and display screens.
Shares in Samsung Electronics ended the day up 0.4%.
Lee has been the de facto leader of Samsung since his father was left incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014.
Earlier this year, the billionaire said that he would not be handing the management of Samsung Group over to his children. He also apologized for shortcomings in his leadership of the company, acknowledging that Samsung has "failed, at times, to meet society's expectations."

Rare rallies in China over Mongolian language curb www.bbc.com

Ethnic Mongolians in northern China have staged rare rallies against measures to reduce teaching in the Mongolian language in favour of Chinese.

As schools began a new term on Tuesday some parents held children back in protest at the policy.

Under the rules, three core subjects in Inner Mongolia will gradually be taught in Mandarin, China's official language.

Many ethnic Mongolians view the move as a threat to their cultural identity.

Large crowds of students and parents were seen protesting against the change in demonstrations that broke out over the weekend across several cities.

"Our language is Mongolian, and our homeland is Mongolia forever! Our mother tongue is Mongolian, and we will die for our mother tongue!" shouted students at one recent protest, reported Radio Free Asia, a US government-funded broadcaster.

Why are people demonstrating?
Starting this month, according to the new policy, schools will gradually shift the language of instruction in three subjects - politics, history, and language and literature - from Mongolian to Mandarin across China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, home to an ethnic Mongol minority.

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, a New York-based activist group, described angry scenes across the region as many parents only learned about the shift in policy as schools were set to reopen.

It said there was a tense confrontation at one boarding school as hundreds of parents demanded the release of their children, who had returned early.

"Hundreds of riot police poured to the scene, preventing the parents from accessing the school dormitories. Following hours of standoff, parents finally broke through the police barricade and proceeded to pick up their children," the group said in a statement.

Authorities have warned people in Inner Mongolia against speaking out on social media. Posts on the subject on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, have been removed.

But concerns over the directive are still running high with some parents keeping students at home.

On Tuesday staff at a school in Naiman county told the BBC that only around 40 students had registered for the semester in place of the usual 1,000. Some subsequently changed their minds, and only some 10 remained.

They said teachers had been sent out for family visits to convince parents to send their children back to school. But parents, they said, were worried the language change would harm the future of their own language.

China takes action after Inner Mongolia bubonic plague case
Plan for 'first' Inner Mongolian whisky distillery
It has been an unusual display of widespread dissent in the remote grasslands region bordering Mongolia and Russia.

A 32-year-old herder from Xilingol League told AFP he was concerned children would lose fluency in their mother tongue.

"Almost every Mongolian in Inner Mongolia is opposed to the revised curriculum," said the man, who gave his surname as Hu.

Why has China brought in the new policy?
Critics say the Chinese government has been accelerating its push to assimilate minorities despite coming under widespread international criticism for its treatment of minority groups including the mostly Muslim Uighurs in western Xinjiang.

In a statement published on Friday, in an apparent response to growing discontent about the policy, the regional authority in Inner Mongolia referenced the importance of "strengthening national language education in ethnic areas".

The new directive has also seen some people protest in the capital of neighbouring Mongolia, while others expressed their fears for the region from exile.

Speaking to the BBC from Germany, Temtsiltu Shobtsood, chairman of the Inner Mongolian People's Party, an exile group, accused China of "trying to suppress" the Mongolian language.

"The whole world is talking about human rights, but we are not visible enough," he said, adding that the imposition of Mandarin and the majority Han Chinese culture on minorities in Inner Mongolia was a form of "cultural genocide".

New academic year begins across Mongolia amid COVID-19 pandemic www.xinhuanet.com

The new 2020-2021 academic year of all kindergartens and general educational schools across Mongolia started on Tuesday after months-long closure amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mongolia requests to join International Solar Alliance www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Minister of Energy N.Tavinbekh met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of India to Mongolia M.P.Singh.

40 firetrucks delivered from Belarus www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. In the framework of the General Agreement on Export Loan between the Governments of Mongolia and the Republic of Belarus, a project is being implemented on enhancing the capacity of equipment for combating disasters.

Russia ready to provide Mongolia with coronavirus vaccine if trials prove successful www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Minister of Health T.Munkhsaikhan met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Mongolia I.K.Azizov to exchange views on cooperation between the two countries in healthcare sector.

Rising export sales push China’s manufacturing activity to near 10-year highs www.rt.com

China’s manufacturing sector expanded again last month at the fastest pace since 2011 thanks to sharp increases in both output and new orders, and a boost in export sales, unseen since last year.
The Caixin/Markit manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), published one day after Beijing released its official gauge of factory activity, rose to 53.1 in August from 52.8 in July. The reading was above analysts’ forecasts, as those polled by Bloomberg and Reuters expected the index to finish the summer at 52.5 and 52.6 correspondingly. The 50-threshold separates growth from contraction.

AAFT Signed MOU With University in Mongolia www.worldfoundation.co.in

Busan: In a special event-World Education Leaders Forum during World Cultural Camp designed by International Youth Fellowship, a student educational and cultural body having its offices all over the World including India and Mongolia, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Asian Academy of Film And Television and Ulaanbaatar Erdem University from Mongolia.