How the US can help Mongolia get to grips with corruption www.transparency.com

The US Secretary of Defense is in Mongolia today, building on a trip to Washington D.C. last week by Mongolia's President, Battulga Khaltmaa, who met with President Trump at the White House.

The meetings are being touted as an effort to increase and deepen ties between the US and a strategically located ally. Among the topics being discussed are a bi-partisan bill in US Congress known as the ‘Third Neighbour Trade Act’ that aims to allow Mongolia to export cashmere to the US duty-free, bypassing neighbouring China.

In a briefing before President Battulga's Washington visit, one US official told reporters that Mongolia, a democracy bordering China to the South and Russia to be North, is like a “pearl between two oyster shells”.

That pearl, however, is beginning to show signs of wear.

In March, the Mongolian Parliament held an unprecedented one-day emergency session to pass an amendment that lets the National Security Council dismiss judges, prosecutors and the heads of the anti-corruption agency.

Almost immediately, the head of the Supreme Court and the chief prosecutor and his deputy were sacked or themselves resigned. Not long after, the director and deputy director of the anti-corruption agency were also removed from their posts. In June, a further 17 judges were sacked.

This political interference in the judiciary would be worrying at any time, but it is all the more alarming set against a backdrop of corruption allegations against parliamentarians themselves.

In 2018, a new law requiring businesses to disclose their real owners allowed investigative journalists to show that dozens of politicians had benefited from millions of dollars’ worth of low-interest government development loans.

Last winter, thousands of Mongolians took to the freezing streets of the capital Ulaanbaatar to protest what they saw as widespread corruption and impunity.

Parliament is now proposing legislation that would make it harder for civil society to operate, further weakening essential safeguards against corruption.

Two United Nations Special Rapporteurs have given specific recommendations for Mongolia to restore the independence of the judiciary and anti-corruption agency.

With President Battulga’s visit, the US had an opportunity to use its considerable influence to promote rule of law and an independent judiciary - to make sure Mongolian democracy remains a pearl, rather than an oyster gone bad.

During the visit, we voiced our concern that a business-as-usual approach would amount to tacit approval to the weakening of Mongolia’s anti-corruption mechanisms.

Transparency Int'l
✔
@anticorruption
We're extremely concerned by threats to the rule of law and judicial independence in #Mongolia. When @realDonaldTrump meets @BattulgaKh today, he should make independent anti-#corruption mechanisms a condition for a new trade deal. http://bit.ly/30dAAm1

In Washington, the two countries signed a ‘Declaration of Strategic Partnership’ which includes a commitment to “Intensify cooperation as strong democracies based on the rule of law through safeguarding and promoting democratic values and human rights, including the freedoms of…assembly, and association; anti-corruption and fiscal transparency.”

Those are encouraging words, but we need to see action.

The same is true of President Battulga’s response to us on Twitter:

Battulga Khaltmaa
✔
@BattulgaKh
.@anticorruption I am concerned too. That is why I spent my last day in Washington having lengthy discussions with @TheJusticeDept https://twitter.com/anticorrupti…/status/1156587771101962241 …

@anticorruption
We're extremely concerned by threats to the rule of law and judicial independence in #Mongolia. When @realDonaldTrump meets @BattulgaKh today, he should make independent anti-#corruption mechanisms a condition for a new trade deal. http://bit.ly/30dAAm1

What is your response to UN Special Rapporteurs’ report?
How will the Mongolian government restore the independence of the judiciary?
Apart from the extradition of a single corrupt judge from the US, what else did you discuss with the Justice Department?
In the latest alarming development, the Mongolian parliament is attempting to amend the country’s constitution. Despite claims that this will improve judicial independence, it will actually bring the judiciary even closer under the control of the office of the president.

As the US continues to court Mongolia as a strategic ally in the region, it has a clear window of opportunity to go beyond words and declarations, and make a real difference to the lives of the Mongolian people by supporting their struggle against corruption. The Third Neighbour Trade Act in particular should be made contingent on concrete steps to restore the independence of Mongolia’s judiciary from political interference.

Esper given horse in Mongolia as US looks for new inroads against China www.msn.com

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia - Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday found himself in possession of a gift horse while visiting Mongolia.

a man standing next to a horse: Esper given horse in Mongolia as US looks for new inroads against China
© Getty Images Esper given horse in Mongolia as US looks for new inroads against China
Esper - who was in the country to meet with senior Mongolian officials while on his first international trip as Pentagon chief - named the horse Marshall, after the former Defense secretary, secretary of State and World War II Gen. George Marshall.

"He's happy, he likes his name," Esper said while standing beside the horse outside the Mongolian Ministry of Defense.

Horses are often given to high-level officials who visit the landlocked country. It is wedged between China and Russia - the top two U.S threats named in the Trump administration's National Defense Strategy.

With an escalating trade war between the United States and China and last week's cancelation of a Cold War-era arms pact between Washington and Moscow, the Trump administration appears eager to make further inroads with Mongolia due to its location.

President Trump last month hosted the Mongolian president at the White House - the first time such a leader has visited since 2011 - and national security adviser John Bolton was in the nation in early July.

Esper's trip, meanwhile, was described to reporters as "an introductory visit" and "seeking alignment" on each country's strategy.

"Mongolia, situated where it is, understands our perspective on Russia and China, uniquely so," a senior defense official traveling with Esper said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon head reflected that thinking on Thursday.

"It is my deep privilege to be here, to be with you and have the opportunity to look at different ways we can further strengthen the ties between our two countries," Esper said when sitting down to meet with his Mongolian counterpart in the nation's capital.

Mongolia is already a partner nation to the United States, which it calls its "third neighbor," and has aided the U.S. military in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About 233 Mongolian troops are currently in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission.

In addition, Ulaanbaatar provides Washington access to cold weather and peacekeeping training in the country.

Mongolia also hopes to invite U.S. investment to gain stronger economic independence from China. The nation is largely dependent on Beijing to move its main exports of cashmere and rare earth minerals out to the larger world.

"I would see the trajectory [in relationship] being consistently upwards since we reestablished relations and our first military to military agreement was signed in 1996," the official said last week ahead of the trip.

"I do think, particularly given where we see the strategic landscape, that they are important and we'll treat them as such."

Esper told reporters traveling with him that, given the nation's location, "given its interest in working more with us, their third neighbor policy - all those things is the reason why I want to go there and engage."

The visit kicked off Wednesday evening as Esper touched down at Chinggis Khaan International Airport, where he and his wife, greeted with a line of Mongolian troops in ceremonial military dress, were offered the customary snack of dried horse milk curd.

He then met with Mongolia's president and defense minister on Thursday.

The most anticipated moment of the trip came when Esper was presented with a 7-year-old, caramel-colored horse, and he revealed its name, complete with a monologue on the origins of the choice.

Marshall, who had served in China between 1924 and 1927 while an Army officer, came to Mongolia to procure horses for his infantry regiment, as the "best horses" were from the region, according to Esper.

As the story goes, a young lieutenant under Marshall's command disciplined a stubborn horse by striking it. Marshall punished the lieutenant "because he had such high regard for Mongolian horses."

"This Army officer was not only a great warrior but a great peacemaker. So I'd like to name this fine looking horse Marshall after Gen. George Marshall."

Esper also noted that he and Marshall share the hometown of Uniontown, Pa., outside of Pittsburgh.

He then gave the horse's handler and caretaker a saddle blanket that had the U.S. Army Old Guard emblem embroidered on it. The Guard uses the same blanket on its own horses, which traditionally carried presidents in ceremonies.

Marshall will not come with Esper back to the states and will instead stay in Mongolia, to be cared for by his herders. Esper was, however, given a framed photo of the horse.

Esper's excursion marks the first time a U.S. Defense secretary has visited the country since Chuck Hagel stopped in in 2014 for only several hours while serving in the Obama administration. Hagel was also given a horse, which he named Shamrock after the mascot of his high school.

Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Pentagon chief under President George W. Bush, named his horse Montana, after the state his wife was originally from.

The horses are always left in Mongolia.

Oyu Tolgoi announces performance for second quarter of 2019 www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On August 8, Oyu Tolgoi announced an update on its performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2019. Oyu Tolgoi and seven other mining companies joined a voluntary code of practice for responsible mining initiated by the Mongolian National Mining Association. Together the signatories will work to increase public understanding of responsible mining operations, improve the transparency, safety, environment protection and community development policies across the mining sector.

Mongolia and Belarus plan science & technology contest www.news.mn

The Belarus’ State Science and Technology Committee and Mongolia’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Sports are to announce a joint contest of science and technology projects in September.

US immigration: ICE releases 300 people after Mississippi raids www.bbc.com

US immigration officials have said they have released some 300 people who were arrested in a massive raid in Mississippi on Wednesday.

Nearly 700 workers from seven agricultural processing plants were arrested for allegedly not having proper documentation to be in the US.

The raids sparked condemnation from Democrats as stories emerged of children separated from their parents.

Officials say they took steps to ensure any children were properly cared for.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said "approximately 680 removable aliens" had been detained during the operation, which saw agents arriving in buses to question and arrest workers at the plants.

President Donald Trump had announced an immigration crackdown in June, saying "millions of illegal aliens who [had] found their way into the US" would be removed.

What did ICE say?
ICE spokesman Bryan Cox told the BBC on Thursday that those who were not released will be moved to an ICE detention facility and held there.

"The 300 released are released from custody," he said in an emailed statement. "They were placed into proceedings before the federal immigration courts and will have their day in court at a later date."

Mr Cox said those arrested were asked if they had any dependents needing care or if they had any children at school who needed to be picked up.

They were given access to phones at the processing site to make arrangements to care for their children. He said those with child care issues are "expeditiously processed and returned".

What's the state of illegal immigration in US?
Six surprising statistics about immigrants in the US
In response to critics who called the raids cruel and harmful to the workers' children, Mr Cox said the agency had directed two Homeland Security Investigations employees to notify schools of the operation and provide contact details for any children whose parents did not pick them up.

"This agency took extensive steps in planning for this operation to take special care of situations involving adults who may have childcare situations or children at school at the time of their arrest."

ICE did not share about the nationality of those detained, but the Mexican government has reportedly sent consular staff to the area to help any of their nationals who may be involved.

What happened at the plants?
The raids took place just hours before Mr Trump arrived in the majority Latino city of El Paso to mark a mass shooting which left 22 people dead.

About 600 ICE agents arrived at the chicken processing plants, owned by five different companies, in the towns of Bay Springs, Canton, Carthage, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastopol.

Friends and family looked on as officers surrounded plants and began to arrest the workers.

Nora Preciado, a supervising attorney at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), told the BBC that in many workplace raids, "ICE often singles out people in a discriminatory fashion by focusing only on the Latino workers, and there are many incidents of excessive force during the detention and arrests".

"These raids are rife with constitutional rights' violations, including agents having no legal authority to detain or arrest workers based solely on immigration status without probable cause," she said.

"Generally, regardless of whether released or not, anyone unauthorised will be put into deportation proceedings."

In the Mississippi raids, officials said they executed federal criminal and administrative search warrants for the arrested individuals.

What happened to the children?
Some children were taken to a local gym after they came home to find their parents gone.

In one video posted on Facebook from the Koch Foods plant in Morton, a young girl can be heard weeping uncontrollably as bystanders watch people being loaded onto a bus.

An officer allows her to see her mother, who is the girl's only legal guardian, before the buses leave. Because the young girl is a US citizen, her mother will not be deported, the officer says.

According to the Washington Post, the girl's mother was not released as of Wednesday night.

The effects of a US migrant raid on one tiny town
Ms Preciado of the NILC said research shows raids like this have a "harmful impact on safety, educational success, social and behavioural well-being and overall health of children in immigrant families".

Scott County schools superintendent Tony McGee told the Clarion Ledger newspaper that one child had started kindergarten on Tuesday, only to have their parent arrested on Wednesday.

Mr McGee said at least six families had a parent detained in the raids, with children ranging in age from kindergarten to high school.

"We'll worry about the school part of it after we get all this sorted out," he added. "You can't expect a child to stay focused on the schoolwork when he's trying to focus on where Mom and Dad are."

What's been the reaction?
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba condemned the raids as "dehumanising and ineffective".

But Mike Hurst, US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said ICE agents were executing warrants to arrest the "illegal aliens".

"They have to follow our laws, they have to abide by our rules, they have to come here legally or they shouldn't come here at all," he told a press conference.

Some Trump supporters on Twitter also backed the agency, saying the law must be enforced.

Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris said in a tweet: "These ICE raids are designed to tear families apart, spread fear, and terrorise communities. These children went to daycare and are now returning home without their parents because Trump wants to play politics with their lives."

Fellow 2020 contender Cory Booker echoed the same sentiment.

"The moral vandalism of this administration has no end - how is traumatsing these kids, abandoning them, making anyone any safer?"

Rio Tinto CEO defends miner as ‘cash machine’ amid stock retreat www.bloomberg.com

As plummeting iron ore prices weighed on Rio Tinto Group’s stock for a seventh-straight trading day, CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques defended the miner as a “cash machine” that will keep rewarding shareholders.

U.S. immigration agents arrest 680 workers at Mississippi plants www.cnn.com

(Reuters) - U.S. immigration authorities arrested nearly 700 people at seven agricultural processing plants across Mississippi on Wednesday in what federal officials said could be the largest worksite enforcement operation in a single state.

China has a $1 trillion trade war weapon. Will it ever use it? www.cnn.com

London (CNN Business)In the US-China trade war, it's been a week of rapid escalation. Beijing devalued the yuan after the Trump administration threatened to slap tariffs on just about every Chinese export. The United States then labeled China a "currency manipulator," deepening the rift.

The exchanges have rocked global markets and threaten the global economy. What happens next is anyone's guess.
China has said it is prepared to fight, if necessary. And it has one hugely powerful weapon up its sleeve: it's the American government's biggest creditor.
In theory, Beijing could trigger a panic in bond markets by dumping some of the $1.1 trillion in US Treasuries that it owns.
By releasing a flood of US Treasuries, the price would collapse, sending yields (or interest rates) soaring and causing American borrowing costs to rocket.
But there are very good reasons why China is unlikely ever to pull the trigger. First, it may not have the desired effect. Second, it could backfire badly on its own economy.
"It's likely not the most effective tool available," said Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former US Treasury economist.
The nuclear option
China has taken steps in recent days to prop up the yuan, signaling that the depreciation was intended as a warning sign. But President Donald Trump could still hit back, even as the administration sticks to its plan for more trade talks in September.
Trump's trade war with China is starting to get out of hand
Trump's trade war with China is starting to get out of hand
It's a combustible situation that's ripe for further escalation. That's where concern about China's holdings of US bonds comes in.
If China really wants to rattle the United States, the thinking goes, it could trash the value of US Treasuries by pushing them into the market.
That would cause yields to spike. And since Treasury yields serve as a benchmark for business and consumer credit, the price of corporate debt, mortgages and auto loans would then rise, putting the brakes on US economic growth. The dollar could also suffer as alarm spreads.
Beijing's conundrum
In reality, such a move carries big risks, and doesn't align with China's current strategy, according to Michael Hirson, the China practice head at consultancy Eurasia Group. He previously served as the US Treasury's chief representative in Beijing.
"We're clearly in an escalatory cycle," Hirson said. "But I think Beijing's primary motivation right now in the trade war is to be able to withstand pressure from Trump. You can think of it as 'resilience comes first.' "

"If China weaponizes Treasury holdings, that sends a very alarming message to global investors."
MICHAEL HIRSON, CHINA PRACTICE HEAD AT EURASIA GROUP

In that respect, ditching US Treasuries could be counterproductive. If Beijing kicks off a fire sale for US bonds, it would gut the value of its remaining holdings.
It needs that stash to defend its currency. Experts think China will try to engineer a controlled fall in the yuan in coming months, allowing it to soak up some of the pressure on the economy without sparking an exodus of capital from the country.
Another deterrent: a sell-off of US Treasuries would undermine China's push to attract foreign investment to its equity and bond markets.
"It needs that foreign inflow to cushion its currency during the trade war," Hirson said. "If China weaponizes Treasury holdings, that sends a very alarming message to global investors."
Questionable impact
There's also the question of whether abandoning US Treasuries would hit the United States in a real way. Setser said he's skeptical.
"The moment it starts to have a big negative impact on the US, the Fed would likely react," he said.
In a 2012 report to Congress, the Defense Department pointed out that the Federal Reserve is "fully capable" of purchasing US Treasuries that China pumps into the market to rein in the economic consequences.
Furthermore, China has few alternative places to park its $3.1 trillion in foreign reserves.
German and Japanese bonds would typically be an option, but they offer zero return at best. A 1.63% yield on 10-year US government debt looks much better than the 0.59% negative return on the equivalent German bonds, which hit another record low on Wednesday. That means effectively paying the German government for the privilege of lending to it.
The threat of dumping US Treasuries remains on the table. But for China, it still isn't very appealing.
Matt Egan contributed to this report.

Cabinet meeting news in brief www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ At its regular meeting on August 7, the Cabinet made the following decisions:

Centerra Gold, Kyrgyz Republic close to leaving differences behind www.mining.com

Canada’s Centerra Gold (TSX:CG) and the Kyrgyz Republic have finally completed all conditions included in a deal signed in Sept. 2017 ending long-dragged out environmental and economic disputes over the company’s Kumtor gold mine, the country’s largest.