Facial recognition specialist Megvii plans share sale www.bbc.com

A leading Chinese facial recognition provider has filed papers for a listing on Hong Kong's stock exchange.

Megvii - the maker of the Face++ system - is one of the country's best known artificial intelligence (AI) companies.

Earlier this year, a Western study suggested its face-checking tech was more accurate than rival systems from Amazon and IBM.

But it comes at a time when campaigners are voicing concerns about facial recognition's use for surveillance.

There have also been reports that the White House has considered adding Megvii to a trade blacklist that would prevent it making use of US-origin software and components.

Face maps
Face++ has been used in consumer-focused hardware, including:

smartphones made by Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo
laptops made by Lenovo
Didi Chuxing's ride-hailing app to let passengers check the driver's identity
"smile-to-pay" terminals tested within KFC restaurants by Alibaba
the Chinese dating website Jiayuan, which offered a way to automatically find faces a user was likely to be attracted to based on their preferences
But it says that most of its current revenue comes from "smart city" applications, which include facial recognition and other "security management" tasks at workplaces, educational institutions and major events.

It has also been reported that the Beijing-based firm's tech has been used to help make thousands of arrests in China, and has been pitched to police departments in other countries.

The technology works by first detecting human faces in an image.

Then it creates a pattern determined by where a person's eyes, lips, chin and up to 1,000 other key features are located.

It can then check whether the pattern matches that of a device's owner, or cross-reference it against a wider database containing facial maps for an "unlimited" number of people provided by the client in order to identify a subject or flag if they appear similar to someone on a watch list.

In addition to being able to carry out face searches, the firm says its technology can also be used to detect emotions, provide beauty scores, track eye-gaze and body gestures, and evaluate the health status of a person's skin.

Most recently the company announced a tie-up with an Austrian firm, Ams, to start offering 3D-depth sensing facial recognition.

In addition, it has released Hetu - an operating system for warehouse robots - which it says is already being used by Alibaba's Tmall subsidiary.

The firm has said that part of the proceeds of the stock sale would be used to fund further research.

It booked a 3.35bn yuan ($468m; £383m) loss in its last financial year, and a further 5.2bn yuan loss for the first six months of this year.

But its area of expertise makes it a flag-bearer for the Chinese government's ambition to overtake the US and become the leading AI innovator by 2030.

It was valued as being worth about $4bn in May.

Toppled lamppost
Megvii has not publicly disclosed how much it intends to raise, but the Reuters news agency reported that the flotation was aimed at raising between $500m to $1bn (£410m to £820m).

The firm's Chinese-language prospectus does, however, spell out a long list of possible risk factors including:

further US-China tariffs or even an all-out "trade war"
the possibility of the US imposing "severe restrictions" on its business partners, in a similar manner to those already faced by Huawei
the "uncertainty of the Chinese legal system", which can make it difficult to be sure of being in compliance with the country's rules
Furthermore it adds that it could be damaged by "rumours" about the abuse of its AI technology.

This has been interpreted by some to reference the fact that earlier this year, Human Rights Watch claimed to have evidence that Face++ was being used as part of efforts to repress Uighur Muslims in China. The campaign rights group subsequently retracted the allegation and issued a correction.

Megvii also faces the fact that facial recognition is becoming an increasingly controversial subject.

In Hong Kong itself, protesters have demanded the removal of so-called smart lampposts over fears they could be used to carry out facial ID checks. Last weekend, footage was shared on social media of one such structure being cut down with an electric saw.

The Financial Times has reported that the EU plans new regulations to restrict use of facial recognition and make sure citizens are notified when it has been deployed, despite the fact the topic was already addressed in the recently-introduced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

And in the US, three cities have banned federal agencies from using the tech, while politicians in the Senate and Congress are considering new laws to curtail its use by government and commercial bodies.

African footballers stranded around the world with crushed dreams www.aljazeera.com

BoM to issue mortgage loan until 2020 www.zgm.mn

The Bank of Mongolia (BoM) has been continuing to dispense mortgage funding for two years, considering the social significance of the mortgage lending program. The program will be implemented jointly with the government until 2020. According to this agreement, the BoM shall finance the fund from its bonds guaranteed by its credit until 2019.

Celebrating the Khalkhin Gol Victory – programme www.news.mn

The official programme for celebrating the 80th anniversary of Victory of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol has been announced:

The Trumps’ Mongolian adventure www.news.mn

The eldest child of President Donald Trump left Mongolia on 25 August after travelling with his son for a week. In Mongolia, Donald Trump Jr challenged himself to climb Khuiten, the highest peak of the Tavan Bogd Mountain which is located near the triple border of Mongolia, China and Russia. In addition, he spent time with his son in Mongolia fishing, hunting and riding horses. He posted his travel photos on Instagram with warm farewell words.

Construction of railway from Tavantolgoi deposits and Gashuusukhait port to resume www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Last July, the Government of Mongolia made a decision to resume the construction work of the railway Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait, which has been stopped due to issues concerning railway gauge, connection point and funding. The government will finance the construction, which is planned to complete by December 2020. During a presentation meeting “”Development and investment of Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait railway” held on August 25, officials gave an update on the railway construction.

The construction of the 240 km long railroad with 2 stations and 5 passing loops will restart next month to continue for 28 months. During this period, a railroad with a load capacity of 25 tons, 16 bridges, 126 tunnels and 8 wildlife crossings will be built. It is deemed that the railway will transport annually around 30 tons of thermal and coking coal for exports, which further result in a two-to threefold growth of mining exploitation of the Tavantolgoi deposit, a decrease of coal transportation cost within the territory of Mongolia by USD 8 per ton and creating some 1900 jobs. Furthermore, the government will receive dividends amounting to USD 1 billion within the period of 25 years.

As of today, Tavantolgoi coal is sold at USD 70 per ton at the mine. Thanks to the railroad, the coal would be delivered to the country’s border and traded at a higher price of USD 120-150 per ton. Freight train travel time between Tavantolgoi station to Gashuunsukhait border crossing will be around 4 hours. What’s more, if the coal is transported to the China’s ports of Huanghua and Tianjin on the assumption that agreements are made with corresponding Chinese railway companies, the price per ton would go up to USD 200-250.

In 2013-2015, around 51 percent of the lower structure of the road, 86.6 percent of the planned earthworks and 52 percent of tunnels and bridges were completed, totaling about USD 280 million, The total cost of the railway construction is USD 1.07 billion and some USD 790-830 million is required to complete the construction project.

Now, Erdenes Tavantolgoi JSC and Mongolian Railway state-owned company each own 66 and 34 percent of the Tavantolgoi Railway LLC, a company that was responsible for the construction, respectively to fund the construction. For that reason, the Erdenes Tavantolgoi JSC established a subsidiary company and working to open IPO with a view to raise capital of more than USD 1.2 billion.

According to CEO of Erdenes TavanTolgoi JSC B.Gankhuyag, the company is carrying out three large-scale projects, as the Government of Mongolia, in 2018, assigned Erdenes TavanTolgoi JSC to raise capital from international stock market and finance the constructions. The first project of Tavantolgoi-Zuunbayan railway construction is currently ongoing with the help of military and professional organizations. The second project is the Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait, which holds significant economic value. As the current transportation cost of a ton of coal is around USD 32, the railway will provide chances to decrease the cost down to USD 8. The third project is an auto road Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait. The single-track road presently transports around 17 million tons of coal a year. Building another paralel road is an effort to ensure safety of drivers. Within the framework of the projects by the Erdenes-Tavantolgoi JSC, more than ten companies were newly founded, such as coke plant, power plant, IPO company and railway company, creating more than six thousand job places at the company and and 21 thousand outside the company.

Speaking of the which, the Erdenes-Tavantolgoi JSC has extracted 8.4 million tons of coal and sold them for exports in the first quarter of 2019. To date, the company’s sales volume reached MNT 1 billion and net income was recorded at MNT 677 billion, exceeding its initial plan by 20-50 percent.

Mongolia eyes business opportunities at China-Mongolia expo www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia will explore ways of expanding trade and investment cooperation with China at the upcoming China-Mongolia expo.

The third edition of the biennial China-Mongolia expo is scheduled for Sept. 6-10 in Hohhot, the capital of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and in the cities of Tongliao and Ulanqab in the region.

"Mongolian companies have already been ready to participate in the expo. The expo is a great chance for our country to further boost trade ties with China, which is the world's second-largest economy," Banzai Batkhuu, head of the Light Industry Policy Implementation and Coordination Department at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry, told Xinhua in a recent interview, noting that Mongolia attaches great importance to the expo.

About 400 companies are expected to attend this year's expo, which will be organized under core programs of the exhibition, covering cultural exchanges, conferences and investment, said Batkhuu.

"At a meeting on investment, the two sides will seriously discuss opportunities for cooperation in the cashmere industry. I am confident that, thanks to the meeting, Mongolian cashmere manufacturers will attract a huge investment and seize great business opportunities," he said.

The official said that as contributors of more than 90 percent of the world's cashmere output, there is great potential for Mongolia and China to cooperate in the industry.

Mongolian wool, cashmere and leather products are most in demand among Chinese consumers at the expo.

"Our company will participate in the expo for the third time. Finding its stable position in the vast Chinese market is our company's main goal," Tuguldur Enkhtur, CEO of Only One, a manufacturer of genuine leather bags and accessories, told Xinhua.

Enkhtur expressed the hope that the forthcoming expo will help the company achieve its goal and find business partners.

"Chinese consumers are very interested in organic Mongolian cashmere and wool products. We have participated in various exhibitions in China and have a number of loyal customers there," Tserennorov Anudari, designer of the Goyol Cashmere company, told Xinhua.

"We will showcase two new collections at the expo, with the aim to increase the number of our loyal customers and study opportunities to open our own shop in Inner Mongolia," said Anudari.

Traditional Mongolian clothes are one of the best-selling items at the expo.

Shilmel Zagvar fashion center, the oldest fashion house in Mongolia, is going to attend the expo for the first time to showcase traditional Mongolian clothes with a perfect combination of design and style, Tumenbayar Bolor, designer of the center, told Xinhua.

"The expo is a great chance (for us) to explore ways to expand our business and find new business partners from China," she added.

Mongolia and China have set a 10-billion-U.S.-dollar target for bilateral trade by 2020. It is said that the expo will play a major role in achieving the target.

More than 380 Mongolian businesses participated in the second China-Mongolia expo held in Hohhot in 2017, exhibiting products in around 400 categories, according to data from the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation at the Mongolian Foreign Ministry.

Amid doubt over China’s air pollution solutions, Mongolia tries another tactic www.earth.com

When it comes to sources of air pollution, we often tend to think in terms of big factories or power plants. It’s true that industry creates a large amount of air pollution, but so do individuals and families. In most of the US, besides consumption of electricity that may be produced by coal, the most common individual contribution to air pollution is by driving a car.

The American Lung Association reports that in the northern reaches of the US, this changes. According to air quality reports from earlier this year, Alaska has some of the worst air quality in the US. Much of the particulate matter found in the air in some parts of Alaska come mainly from wood burning stoves. With this detail from the US in mind, we can reframe how we think about air pollution in the rest of the world, especially air pollution that harms lungs.

Alaska is an odd example of a place with high air pollution, due to it’s small human population density. According to an Air Visual report, 22 of the 30 cities with the most air pollution are located in India. India is a subcontinent nation with a population of over 1.3 billion, meaning that one of every six people on Earth lives in India.

Similarly to the air pollution of Alaska, much of India’s poor air quality comes from cooking, heating, and even kerosene lamps for lighting. Business World reported that on average, over 1 million people die annually in India from indoor air pollution alone. But India is part of a much broader growth in poor air quality due to pollution in Asia as a whole.

According to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, 92% of people living in Asia and the Pacific region are exposed to levels of air pollution levels that represent a significant risk to health. This equates to 4 billion people, more than half of the global population living with unsafe levels of air pollution. China is one of the Asian countries long known for its air pollution, especially in large urban areas.

China has made moves to improve air quality in their cities, but as Grist reports, efforts have highlighted the complicated nature of quickly reducing air pollution. Particulate air pollution in Beijing was reduced by 25%, but research showed that reducing air pollution in China’s large cities meant outsourcing coal power plants to more poor, rural areas. The end result was a reduction of air pollution in some areas but overall pollution for China as a whole.

But China and India aren’t the only countries with air pollution problems. Mongolia’s air pollution problem is on the rise and it’s worth hoping that the country can learn from China, India and others before it reaches the pollution levels of these more populated nations.

Trading Economics reports that Mongolia’s population density in 2016 was only 1.9487 people per square kilometer. Mongolia is a large country of wide plateaus that have traditionally been the home of primarily nomadic people. Due to a shift in lifestyle and economic realities, 46% of Mongolia’s population is centered in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city.

Along with the move to the capital, Mongolia’s human population is on the rise, yet realities for those in the city are very different from those in rural areas. 95.81% of urban Mongolians have access to electricity but only 44.17% of rural populations have that same access. Along with the realities of heating and cooking with flame as well as industrial pollution, the air quality of Mongolia continues to decline creating an environmental as well as health travesty.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that in 2016, of an estimated population of 3 million people, 1,800 Mongolians died of diseases from household air pollution and 1,500 died of diseases from outdoor air pollution. The main cause of this disease causing pollution is similar to the air pollution in Alaska and India: cooking and heating stoves using coal as fuel.

Coal seems like an obvious solution to an immediate problem, as Mongolia is a cold place. Temperatures at night in Ulaanbaatar can drop to 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. With not a lot of infrastructure to provide for clean ways to stay warm, the reality is that many people burn raw coal just to survive. Those living in the Ger (a ger is a traditional nomadic tent many Mongolians live in) district of Ulaanbaatar, where 80% of air pollution comes from are especially dependent on coal. Unsurprisingly, air quality is at its worst in winter months. Ulaanbaatar is also situated in a valley, where cold weather inversions trap not just household coal emissions but those of cars and power plants as well. But NPR reports that now, the government of Mongolia has come up with a solution.

The government of Mongolia announced a ban on raw coal in Ulaanbaatar, issuing fines to households and businesses that continue to burn the substance. In the place of coal, the government is offering a more expensive but more efficient briquette made from semicoke, a coal byproduct. Besides being more efficient, the briquettes burn cleaner as well. The government plans to distribute 600,000 tons of briquettes at selling points throughout the city. Some doubt whether many will actually purchase this alternative fuel source with its added financial cost. It takes a certain leap of faith that in the long run burning the briquettes will lead to better air. Another solution the government is working on is extending infrastructure to the Ger district of Ulaanbaatar which has little access to electricity.

Mongolia has traditionally been known as the ‘land of the blue sky’ and home of Tengriism, an ancient religion promoting harmony between humans and nature. Tengri, the main god of the religion, is personified by the blue sky. It remains to be seen whether the government of Ulaanbaatar can maintain enough of a balance to offer their people not only clean air to breathe but a place to live beneath a sacred blue sky.

By Zach Fitzner, Earth.com Contributing Writer

Mongolian team wins second place at international robot contest www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Under the auspices of Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh, the 18th ABU Robocon 2019 Mongolia, the international robot contest was jointly held on August 25 in Ulaanbaatar, organized by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and the Mongolian National Public Radio and Television. As the host country, two national teams of Mongolia got rights to partake in the competition.

Hong Kong situation a risk for Aussie lawyers www.afr.com

Legal groups across Asia have called for a peaceful resolution to anti-government protests in Hong Kong and warned a controversial extradition bill could affect Australian citizens.

Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses, SC, used a conference of law association presidents in China to push for a statement calling out violence against peaceful protesters in the Asian financial hub, after more than three months of demonstrations.

The resolution says the sovereignty of all nations must remain a fundamental pillar of international law, but “as a guiding principle, there can never be any excuse for violence by, or against, peaceful protesters”.

“The concerns of citizens should be dealt with in a constructive and peaceful manner.”

Signatories to the resolution, released on Monday, include peak legal bodies from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Mongolia, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka.

The Hong Kong Law Society signed the resolution but so far groups including the All China Lawyers Association, the Vietnamese Lawyers Association and Associacao dos Advogados de Macau have not signed.

Mr Moses met with China’s vice minister of justice and again raised the case of Chinese-Australian writer, Yang Hengjun, detained in China on suspicion of “endangering national security”.

“Detainees like Dr Yang must be treated in a fair and transparent manner,” Mr Moses said.

He said the lack of an independent judiciary in China and its failure to adhere to the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, had resulted in lawyers being detained while acting for unpopular clients or causes and remained a risk for Australians.

“Being a true friend of any nation including China, means that when there are issues in a foreign justice system which raise concerns in relation to the rule of law, then the legal profession is obliged to speak up.”

Hong Kong police said on Sunday they had arrested about 30 people after clashes involving petrol bombs and bricks. Protesters attacked “smart lamp posts” equipped with surveillance cameras, after more than a week of mostly peaceful protests.

The now-suspended extradition bill sparked the growing protest movement which has evolved into demands for greater democracy and calls for an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality.

Demonstrators fear the erosion of the territory's “one country, two systems” governance, which has protected autonomy for Hong Kong since it was returned from British to Chinese control in 1997.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne on Sunday said Australia remained very concerned about violence on the streets of Hong Kong.

“We’ve encouraged the authorities to respect peaceful protest and we would continue to do that,” she told ABC TV.

“We’re obviously speaking regularly with our consul general in Hong Kong, and she is in direct contact with leading Australian Hong Kong organisations.

“For Australia, this is a very important part of the world. It’s one of our largest international diaspora. About 100,000 Australian Hong Kong people are there, a huge financial centre, of course, but most importantly, we see the success of one country-two systems that’s given Hong Kong the autonomy [and] ability to operate so well and to be such a rich and vibrant community as very, very important in our region.”

Senator Payne said violence against Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators in Australia, including on university campuses, would not go unchallenged.

“That violence against pro-Hong Kong protesters is completely unacceptable. It's unacceptable in Australia and it’s not something which we will tolerate.”