China is rolling out facial recognition for all new mobile phone numbers www.cnn.com

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Facial recognition checks are about to become even more ubiquitous in China, as rules come into force requiring anyone registering a new mobile phone number to submit to facial scans.

While the government says the implementation of biometric data "effectively [protects] citizens' legitimate rights and interests in cyberspace" and helps fight fraud, the move brings with it considerable privacy and security concerns in one of the most tightly controlled online environments in the world.
The country already enforces "real-name registration" policies which require people to link online accounts with their official government ID. But the latest move, which was formally adopted Sunday, further removes any sense of anonymity in using the Chinese internet.
More than 850 million people across China — about 65% of the population — use their mobile devices to access the internet, according to the government, far more than those who use desktop services. Apps like Tencent's WeChat have largely become the internet for many Chinese people, offering everything from messaging and social networking to taxi services, food delivery and tax payment.

The new rules only apply to mobile phone numbers registered from December 1, and not to those already registered.
Facial recognition, meanwhile, is everywhere in China, from airports and office buildings to trash sorting facilities. Last week, Beijing's subway system even began trialing new facial recognition gates at security checkpoints.

Privacy concerns
While anyone registering a new phone number in China was already required to provide ID and photos, the addition of full facial scans introduces more concerns about government surveillance and the ability of the country's state-run mobile providers to protect sensitive information about their customers.
Writing in September, four Chinese researchers specializing in AI and biometrics wrote that potential breaches involving this type of information could have "severe and lasting" ramifications for the people affected.
"Facial recognition-powered surveillance systems, if improperly deployed or secured, will not only fail to effectively safeguard public safety, but also may infringe on people' freedom/privacy and provide a source for abuse," they added.
The US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that recommends opting out of the tech whenever possible, notes that it's "easy for companies and agencies to tout the convenience of this sort of massive data collection and sharing scheme."
"But as we've seen in notable privacy fiascos over the last few years ... it's the customers and passengers who will bear the burden when things go wrong, and they will go wrong."
Government control
China's latest policy also raises alarms because of how it could potentially be used by the country's vast surveillance state.
According to recent analysis from consumer site Comparitech, cities in China are among the most monitored in the world, with more than 100 CCTV cameras per thousand people in both Shanghai and Shenzhen.
In the country's far-western region of Xinjiang, where authorities have increasingly tightened security in the name of cracking down on Islamic extremism, ubiquitous surveillance cameras form part of a hyper-securitized system that tracks and monitors citizens — particularly those of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur minority. In parts of some cities in Xinjiang, there are facial surveillance cameras about every 150 feet (45 meters) that feed images back to central command centers, where people's faces and routines are monitored and cross-referenced.
Elsewhere in China, the advance of facial recognition has not been entirely smooth. Last month, Guo Bing, an associate professor of law at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, sued a safari park in Hangzhou after it required all season ticket holders to scan their faces if they wanted to visit in future.
"The purpose of the lawsuit is not to get compensation but to fight the abuse of facial recognition," Guo told local media. The park later said that it would allow people to opt out of facial scans.
And in August, anti-government protesters in Hong Kong tore down several "smart" lampposts over fears they could be used to implement facial recognition and other advanced surveillance in the semi-autonomous city.
Many countries are struggling with how to regulate the new technology, and China is no different. In September, officials said they wanted to curb its use by schools after Chinese media reported that a university in Nanjing was trialing the tech to monitor student attendance and engagement in class.
Last month, China established a national-level working group of 28 technology companies to set standards for the facial recognition, state media reported. Some of the companies involved have been linked to the surveillance of Muslims in Xinjiang, a fact noted by privacy campaigners.
-- CNN's Steven Jiang and Yong Xiong contributed reporting from Beijing.

Structure fires claim 55 lives in Mongolia by December this year www.xinhuanet.com

A total of 3,908 structure fires have been recorded across Mongolia in the first 11 months of this year, claiming 55 lives and injuring 68 others, the country's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Monday.

H.Amartuvshin: DBM is striving to reduce the volume of non-performing loans www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ MONTSAME interviewed Chief Executive Officer of the Development Bank of Mongolia (DBM) H.Amartuvshin.

Some media outlets have published articles about those who have not paid back their loans to the Development Bank of Mongolia. Are those articles credible?

- I saw the newspaper article. I do not know if you have noticed, but it was an audit report made on DBM’s operation by the Government in 2016. There was also data on the bank’s loan portfolio of that time. Three years have passed since then. So, there are companies that have completely settled their debts during that period of time. A lot of changes have been made to DBM’s balance sheet and loan portfolio and relating laws and regulations since 2016. For instance, the bank’s loan portfolio amounted to MNT 6 trillion in 2016, of which MNT 3.3 trillion was invested in over 350 projects and programs with a stipulation to be repaid from the state budget, MNT 1.2 trillion was loaned to more than 1,600 companies through commercial banks, and MNT 1.6 trillion was loaned for 17 projects and programs directly from the Development Bank. DBM transferred all of the projects and programs associated with the state budget to the Ministry of Finance at the end of 2016. Some of the loans directly taken out from DBM have been fully paid off by the companies and some are being repaid as scheduled. In particular, Erdenes Tavantolgoi JSC settled its loan of USD 200 million one year ahead of schedule in October, 2018. Also, the Central Geological Laboratory of Mongolia, PIMM LLC, and Baganuur JSC fully settled their loans. However, the newspaper article mistakenly reported that the companies have not paid off their loans yet.

Moreover, with a decision of the Mongolian Parliament and Government to amend loan agreements in order to make them loans to be repaid from its revenues, Mongolian Railway state-owned shareholding company’s loan of MNT 506.2 billion and Amgalan Thermal Power Plant LLC’s loan of MNT 191.9 billion were transferred to the Government.

There are enterprises that have been repaying their loans as per or ahead of schedule. Specifically, Moncement plant have paid back USD 33.4 million out of USD 65 million it received from DBM and now owes USD 31.6 million. Foreign currency loans expose companies to exchange rate risks. In other words, for some major enterprises, the amount of their remaining debt in MNT does not decrease even when they make their repayments as scheduled due to the growth in currency rate. For instance, State Housing Corporation state owned company faces this issue as a part of its loan has been granted in a foreign currency.

Could you elaborate on the loan repayment progress?

- As of today, debts of over MNT 380 billion are due to be settled from the loans of MNT 1.2 trillion provided to over 1,600 companies granted through commercial banks. The loan agreements’ term comes to an end in late 2020.

Has the portfolio of non-performing and overdue loans decreased? How is the progress so far?

- In 2016, the bank’s active assets reached MNT 6.8 trillion with loan portfolio of MNT 6 trillion and the volume of overdue and non-performing loans were quite high. Thanks to a series of actions, the Development Bank that had a loss of over MNT 190 billion have seen profits over the past two years. As might be expected, some actions such as the increase of the risk funds adversely affected the bank’s profitability.

As of today, DBM’s active assets amount to MNT 4.2 trillion with loan portfolio of MNT 2.7 trillion.And non-performing loans make up 11.9 percent of the loans as of the first half of the year. We are striving to diminish this percentage in short and mid-terms.

What would you say about the financial misconduct valued at MNT 13 trillion mentioned in the newspaper article?

- It is not MNT 13 trillion. At the time, misconduct costing MNT 1.3 trillion was found during the investigation in 2016. With regard to this, the Government of Mongolia gave DBM authorities directives on eradication of the malpractice and referral of the case to legal authorities. Thus, the relevant documents have been handed over.

How are the repayments of the problem loans detected during this year’s government investigation going?

- The Cabinet Secretariat transferred the projects that are not making repayments on the due date to the prosecutor’s office. Some are failing to make repayments on time due to exchange rate risks, failures in their activities, and misuse of their loans and this harms the bank’s operation. As it could be required to increase the risk funds at the end of the year, we are working hard with support of the government and in collaboration with legal authorities to see concrete results.

Nigerian fraudster jailed 10 years in Mongolia www.news.mn

A Nigerian man and three Mongolians have been sentenced to 6-10 years in prison for multi-million tugrik fraud. Earlier today (2 December) Chingeltei District Court sentenced Nigerian citizen Ejikem Chimezi John to 10 years in prison, Mongolian citizen B.Khulan to nine years, D.Ganbold to eight years and T.Ankhbayar to 6 years. In addition, the defendants have each been fined MNT 355,619,494.

ADB, Mongolia's Milko Sign Deal to Expand Dairy Operations and Improve Rural Livelihoods www.adb.org

ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA (2 December 2019) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a local currency loan equivalent to $7.5 million with Milko LLC (Milko), a member of the Teso group (Teso) and a leading dairy company in Mongolia, to support the company’s plans to expand its dairy operations, while empowering women and men throughout its supply chain. This is ADB’s first private sector loan in Mongolia denominated in local currency.

Russia Opening Giant Gas Link to China as Putin Pivots East www.bloomberg.com

The world’s biggest natural gas exporter and one of the globe’s top consumers of the fuel cement their energy cooperation on Monday with the launch of Russia’s giant Power of Siberia pipeline to northern China.

MBD (B2B) Business offers # 21 www.mongolianbusinessdatabase.com

www.mongolianbusinessdatabase.com is the number 1 ranking B2B portal site on Google's "Mongolia business or/and Business Mongolia" search according to the business visitors access from appx 90 countries as of today (Google analytics report).

Former senior official of Inner Mongolia expelled from CPC, office www.chinadily.com.cn

BEIJING -- Yun Guangzhong, former secretary of the Hohhot Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has been expelled from the CPC over serious violations of disciplines and laws, China's top anti-graft body announced Sunday.

Solar, wind and hydro power could soon surpass coal www.cnn.com

New York (CNN Business)Coal, long the king of America's electric grid, will soon get toppled by renewable energy.

Solar and wind power are growing so rapidly that for the first time ever, the United States will likely get more power in 2021 from renewable energy than from coal, according to projections from the Institute for Energy Economic and Financial Analysis.
This milestone is being driven by the gangbusters growth for solar and wind as well as the stunning collapse of coal. And it comes as the United Nations warned on Tuesday that countries are not doing enough to keep the planet's temperature from rising to near-catastrophic levels.

"The next piece of the energy transition is very close at hand," said PJ Deschenes, partner at Greentech Capital Advisors, a boutique investment bank focused on clean energy. "Coal is coming offline as fast or faster than we anticipated."
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For decades, coal was the cornerstone of the power industry. But a combination of environmental concerns, aging plants and competition have caused a sharp decline in coal usage in the United States.
Coal provided about half of America's power generation between 2000 and 2010. However, coal usage started to fall sharply late in the last decade because of the abundance of cheap natural gas. Coal was dethroned by natural gas in 2016, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

'Negative feedback loop'
Despite President Donald Trump's promise to save coal, the industry's decline has only continued. This was underlined by last month's bankruptcy of Murray Energy, America's largest private coal mining company.
US power companies are rapidly retiring old coal plants and replacing them with wind and solar farms. Utility companies like PSEG (PEG) and Xcel Energy (XEL), which long relied on coal, are now pledging to deliver carbon-free electricity.
'Nervous and scared.' Coal workers fear for pensions after Murray Energy bankruptcy
'Nervous and scared.' Coal workers fear for pensions after Murray Energy bankruptcy
Navajo Generation Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, permanently closed last week. The shutdown means that South Nevada's electricity is now coal-free.
US power plants are expected to consume less coal next year than at any point since 1978, according to the EIA. That will cause coal's market share to drop below 22%, compared with 28% in 2018. That shrinking market share makes existing coal plants even less profitable.
"It's a negative feedback loop," said Greentech's Deschenes.
This trend is playing out overseas as well. Global electricity production from coal is on track to fall by a record 3% in 2019, according to CarbonBrief. That drop is being driven by record declines from Germany and South Korea as well as the first dip in India in at least three decades.
2021 is a 'crossover year'
Dennis Wamsted, editor and analyst at IEEFA, is predicting that 2021 will be the "crossover year" in the United States, where coal is supplanted by renewables, which include solar, wind, hydropower, biomass and geothermal.
"Coal and renewables are rapidly heading in opposite directions," Wamsted said in a report."If the crossover doesn't occur in 2021, it will without a doubt do so by 2022."
This transition has already played out in Texas, which was long a coal-first state. During the first half of this year, wind power surpassed coal for the first time in Texas history. Wind made up just 0.8% of the Lone Star State's power as of 2003. That figure has climbed to 22%, compared with 21% for coal.
Critics of renewable energy correctly note that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.
That's why Deschenes said he hopes these milestones draw greater attention to the importance of energy storage systems that hold renewable energy for when it's needed.

Saeid Mollaei gets Mongolian passport www.judoinside.com

Saeid Mollaei is going to fight for Mongolia at the Masters in Qingdao. Mollaei visited the President of Mongolia, the former Judo Association President Khaltmaagiin Battulga who handed out the passport to the 2018 World Champion who fled from Iran and was promised a German citizenship recently. In Qingdao Mollaei was supposed to fight under the International Refugee Team. However at the website of the IJF you already see him in the team of Mongolia to confirm the transfer of the year.