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.

400 exhibitors from Mongolia to attend China-Mongolia expo www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- A total of 400 Mongolian companies will participate in the third China-Mongolia expo, a Mongolian official said Wednesday.

US and Russian Defence Ministers to visit Mongolia same day www.news.mn

Mongolia will host two high-level visits of US Defence Secretary Mark Esper and Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Alexander Fomin tomorrow.