They have obtained asylum-seeker certificates that show that they are under UN protection until Dec. 31, 2019.

Yet they remain worried about their future as an alleged Turkish intelligence operation to take a school director back to Turkey in July 2018 was blocked by the Mongolian government at the last minute after it drew outrage from the public.

The group, consisting mainly of educators and their families, has been denied consular services; their passports have been cancelled; and their legal residence in Mongolia ends on June 30. They are not able to renew their residence permits as their passports were canceled.

İshak İlik, an English teacher who is part of the group, gave an interview to Medya Bold and talked about the difficulties they are faced with.

“Mongolia has a rule whereby one needs an ‘exit visa’ to leave the country. You cannot just buy a plane ticket and take off like elsewhere,” he said, adding that the cancelation of their passports also made them unable to apply for the exit visa.

He claimed that by denying them consular services and thus stranding them in the country with an unpredictable future, the Turkish government is trying to take revenge for last year’s thwarted attempt.

After a failed coup in July 2016, the Turkish government pinned the blame on the faith-based Gülen movement and launched an all-out crackdown targeting its real and alleged members in Turkey and abroad, including its network of schools.

Foreign-based educators and people from other walks of life were recently abducted by Turkish intelligence and taken to Turkey from countries like Malaysia, Kosovo and Kazakhstan.

Jointly signed by Macau’s Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, and Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs of Mongolia, Tsendiin Nyamdorj, the agreement furthers cooperation in regards to the transfer of judicial documents, investigation findings and evidence.

It will also allow the two jurisdictions to cooperate over the search for and seizure of objects and documents, as well as the confiscation of the tools and proceeds of crime.

A delegation from the local government paid a five-day visit to Mongolia, from June 24 to 28. Its members met with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Mongolia, Xing Haiming, as well as with officials from the General Prosecutor’s Office of Mongolia.

While Macau officials were in Mongolia, the two sides held meetings to discuss further technical issues regarding an anticipated agreement on legal and judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters. A draft version was signed following a consensus achieved as a result of the meetings.

Macau and Mongolia started to discuss mutual assistance in matters of criminal law in 2014, according to a statement issued yesterday by the SAR government. A draft agreement was signed in May 2017.

Under the Basic Law of Macau, with the assistance and authorization of the Central People’s Government in Beijing, the SAR may make appropriate arrangements with foreign states for reciprocal judicial assistance.

The project will be carried out by ‘Airport at Khushgyn Valley’ state-owned profit oriented enterprise from Mongolian side and ‘Consortium SPV’ or ‘Japan Airport Management’ LLC from Japanese side.

Concession term is 15 years and owners of the concession plan to commence works ensuring their preparations with their funds within 10 months since the agreement has entered into force.

The renewable energy law was passed over 10 years ago and has become obsolete. It was in a way, an easy means to profit off of Mongolia. Accordingly, the Mongolian Government has recently revised its policy. In the past few years, there was no renewal of licenses for wind and solar power plants.

Currently, there are eight solar and wind farms in Mongolia. However, as the number of new plants and clean energy increases, the people who charge the price are increasing as well. Mongolians paid MNT 110 billion for the use of green energy price differentials to new sources. Nevertheless, this money is mainly paid to foreign investors. “Excluding two plants, foreign investors currently hold more than 50 percent of six renewable energy sources,” said Tleikhan Almalik, head of the Energy Regulatory Commission.

Furthermore, over 1,000 companies operating in renewable energy have been established. Also, the license granted to this sector reached 1528.8 MWh, exceeding the total energy consumption of Mongolia.

In Mongolia, it is important to step up the renewable energy sector under a pure business principle. As of 2018, 18 percent of Mongolia's energy or 240.4 MWh consisted of renewable energy. By the end of this year, the country can achieve its purpose to get 20 percent of its total energy reserves from renewable sources. In this view, the country is likely to be dependent on wind and solar power in the coming years and it is essential to implement a cautious policy

The increased price of meat and fuel affected Ulaanbaatar inflation, accounting for 45 percent of inflation or four units of three kinds of products. As mentioned in the new inflation status report in June, several factors have hit the reduction of vision. For example, consumer loan lending has slowed down and the decrease in loan balance from the beginning of the year reduces the depreciation burden and increases the impact of wage growth-inflation.

Also, public investment expenditures have been delayed and the appreciation of the MNT has risen against the CNY. The increase in budget expenditures and its implications will further increase inflation in 2020. However, the effects of supply factors will slow and overall inflation is expected to be around the target level over the anticipated period.

If the budget outlook exceeds the expectation of the election year, there is a risk of inflationary pressures on demand. In addition, the trade war might trigger commodity prices to fall, boosting the burden of MNT, and increasing the price of imported goods, reported the BoM.

The Biodiversity and Adaptation to Climate Change-III project will be implemented with a non-refundable aid worth EUR 8 million from Germany and the latter - a soft loan of EUR 7 million.

The funding will be disbursed through the German state-owned development bank, KfW, and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports of Mongolia will implement the project.

A 3,500 m2 training and research facility consisting of seven types of laboratories and 800 m2 fully equipped library are planned to be built with the soft loan.

The third phase of the project will carry out activities aimed at strengthening the management of buffer zones and ecological corridors in Mongolia's special protected areas, conserving biodiversity, and supporting sustainable livelihoods of locals in the buffer zones.

The two countries have been working together in priority areas such as ensuring sustainable growth of economy, advancing energy efficiency, and conserving endangered animals and plants, and have implemented projects totaling over EUR 400 million since 1992. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and Germany.

A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report shows the total available installed generating capacity of coal stood at 257.5 gigawatts (slightly less than renewable energy sources for the first time US history). According to BloombergNEF another 41GW are slated for retirement and a further 105GW of capacity is deemed at risk of closure.

US president Donald Trump has done his utmost to make good on promises to ease restrictions on coal power since taking office and earlier this month the Environmental Protection Agency gave the industry another boost with a new set of rules that make it easy and cheap to comply with what’s left of Obama-era regulations.

But a new report suggest the rewritten Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rules will do little to stem the decline of the industry.

Moody’s Investors Service says while the rules are credit positive for merchant coal generators because the “investments required to comply are minimal,” coal-fired plants will continue to be less economical than natural gas powered generators:

We project natural gas prices to remain within a band of $2.50 per one
million British Thermal Units (MMBtu) to $3.50/MMBtu and more likely on the lower end because of the abundant US supplies of natural gas from shale, along with rapidly increasing associated gas from shale oil production.

Additionally, coal-fired generation faces substitution risk from renewables such as wind, solar and battery storage as technology improvements have dramatically increased their cost competitiveness.

The ACE rule does not mitigate any of these overarching market trends that are creating strong headwinds for merchant coal generators nor does it address the impact of changing consumer preferences which appears to be supportive of using sustainable, lower carbon-emitting generating resources.

Finally, says Moody’s, just like Clean Power Plan (CPP) passed by the Obama administration, the ACE provisions could be legally challenged and eventually repealed.