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.”

Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait railway project to proceed www.zgm.mn

The project of the Tavantolgoi-Gashuunsukhait railway, which was stopped since 2015, to continue from this year as the basic conditions have been made. Feasibility study on transportation and border railway are currently undergoing.

Lavish traditional hearses grow popular overseas amid falling use in Japan www.mainichi.jp

TOKYO -- Japanese "miyagata" hearses, lavishly decorated to resemble Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, are undergoing something of a boom overseas even as they become increasingly rare sights in their home country.

Japanese funeral cars originate from "nobe-okuri," or a parade to carry a coffin on a litter to a crematorium or burial place. According to Shoichi Inoue, a professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, trucks were increasingly used to convey coffins as more crematoriums were built in the suburbs, among other reasons.

Around 1910, hearses made in the United States were introduced to Japan, and eventually domestically made models became popular across the country.

However, according to Inoue, "People at the time still had lingering affection for the liveliness of nobe-okuri and felt uncomfortable about modernization." For this reason, he assumes that funeral cars were lavishly decorated in the way of traditional funeral processions.

According to Tokyo-based Japan Hearse Association (JHA) and other bodies, there was a growing trend toward large funerals after World War II. Remodeling hearses with elaborate temple and shrine features, including carvings of Buddhist paradise and lotus flowers, began around 1980.

The use of miyagata expanded overseas after Yoshimitsu Araki, president of funeral home Araki based in the Chiba Prefecture city of Yachimata, east of Tokyo, visited Mongolia in 2003 as part of a trip of the Nihon Soso Bunka Gakkai, an academic society studying funeral customs. A local high priest asked Araki, "I heard that in Japan, people use (funeral) cars that look like a palace. We would really appreciate it if we could have one."

The high priest explained that a Mongolian sumo wrestler who competed in Japan told him that "there are mobile temples in Japan." Moved by the priest's ambition, Araki spent some 10 million yen to prepare one of his eight miyagata hearses for use, and gave it to a funeral home run by the Mongolian government. It was a big hit with locals, who are apparently having difficulty booking it due to the high demand.

Araki thinks the Japanese hearse "resonated with the custom in Mongolia to give a splendid funeral for the deceased."

Araki donated another miyagata to Mongolia in 2006 as the country marked the 800th anniversary of the Mongol Empire, and even one to Laos in 2015 at the request of an acquaintance. Professor Inoue says these hearses are sometimes used as mobile temples during community festivals in both countries.

Meanwhile in Japan, the number of miyagata owned by JHA member companies -- more than 2,000 at its peak in the year 2000 -- has fallen to about 400. Small, family funerals have become more common in recent years, and the majority of these use vans not covered in brassy decorations.

The declining number of traditional funeral cars is also a result of some local bodies restricting their use to convey coffins to crematoriums and funeral homes. The restriction is in response to complaints from local residents, including that the sight of miyagata coming and going creates a negative image of the community.

Funeral home Araki had operated a total of about 150 miyagata a month at one point, but only runs about five to 10 of the vehicles now. Araki stated, "If we cannot preserve the funeral custom of using miyagata in Japan, then finding ways to use them overseas is another option."

Araki says he hopes for "many Japanese to understand the purpose of miyagata, which were created based on the feeling of paying respects to the deceased."

(Japanese original by Tomotatsu Yamaguchi, Integrated Digital News Center)

Putin orders review of Russian coal mining tax www.reuters.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the government to review a mineral extraction tax for the Russian coal industry by Oct. 31, instructions published by the Kremlin showed on Saturday.

Russian Knights to perform aerobatics in Ulaanbaatar www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Within the framework of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Khalkhiin Gol, many events are planned in the coming few weeks. Among them, the Russian Knights, aerobatic demonstration team of the Russian Air Force will perform a demonstration flight at the Khui Doloon Khudag, Ulaanbaatar on August 28. The Russian Knight team of Su-27UB fighter will display complicated maneuvers and stunts in their aerial show. In addition, the Alexandrow-Ensemble, an official army choir of the Russian Armed Force will perform at the central square in Ulaanbaatar on August 28.

Mongolian Olympic athletes to wear Michel&Amazonka brand www.news.mn

A total of 160 Mongolian athletes with 150 support teams including coaches are preparing to compete in the 16 sports categories of Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This year, Mongolian athletes will wear special clothes made by Michel&Amazonka. The luxury pret-a-couture fashion brand has been chosen to dress the athletes. In addition, Team-Mongolia will wear casuals bought from Mizuno.

Mongolian and Chinese agricultural ministries hold consultative meeting www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. In the framework of the Memorandum of Cooperation established between the agricultural ministries of Mongolia and China in 2002, the executives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China did a working visit in Mongolia on August 18-22, holding a regular meeting of the Consultative working group between agricultural ministries. Acting State Secretary and Head of the Department of Public Administration and Management of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry T.Jambaltseren gave opening remarks at the 7th consultative meeting.

Countries required to partner in prevention of pandemic www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. The 13th Biregional Meeting of National Influenza Centres and Influenza Surveillance in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia Region jointly organized by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization kicked off on August 21.

Over 140 representatives of 28 countries such as the U.S, Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, People’s Republic of China and Indonesia, specialists of the central and regional offices of WHO, and scholars of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S, and the national reference laboratories for infectious diseases of Australia to discuss global pandemic influenza preparedness and countermeasures.

Minister D.Sarangerel: We must not forget that influenza caused the deaths of 50 million people worldwide

Opening the conference, Minister of Health D.Sarangerel said, “It has been over 100 years since the global spread of influenza that happened in 1918. We must not forget that the virus caused the deaths of 50 million people worldwide due to three breakouts. During this time of globalization where there is a high risk of a breakout with one virus is transmitted from one species to another, creating a new virus, it is required for countries to be always prepared, quickly exchanging information and work in partnership.

And it is for this reason that distinctive characteristic of influenza, cases of influenza in countries, surveillance, countermeasures of countries, laboratory diagnosis, immunization, pandemic preparedness, assessment of countermeasures and further measures of the two regions of WHO will be discussed at the conference.”

Dr. Chin-Kei Lee: Countries must work in partnership for pandemic influenza preparedness

Acting Director for Emergency at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific Dr. Chin-Kei Lee said, “Countries must work in partnership for pandemic influenza preparedness.

Thus, the international conference on this issue is held annually, with the 13th meeting being successfully held in Mongolia. When the healthcare system is kept at a good level and it is capable of protecting its citizens from infections and diseases, it will not be a big issue even when the issue at hand is quite serious. On the other hand, as infectious diseases are not kept within the border, partnership between countries must be prioritized.”

Deputy Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza Ian Barr said, “Australia’s climate is very similar to the climate of Mongolia. There were a large number of cases for seasonal influenza in 2019. We use our laboratory-based surveillance system for countermeasures against influenza. If there is a case where a person’s death was caused by influenza, we closely monitor our surveillance system to find its cause. This year, the influenza season is starting quite early. In our country, if a person over the age of 75 is contracted with the virus, they are immediately brought to the hospital.”

Dr. and Prof. P.Nyamdavaa said, “The last global flu pandemic was ten years ago in 2009. It was for this reason that the countries of the world began to discuss what they should focus and partner for pandemic influenza preparedness. During this time of climate change, globalization, urbanization and increase in migration, influenza has begun to spread in various countries despite their borders. For instance, when the influenza A (H1N1) was registered as a new virus in 2009, it reached the level of a pandemic within just 3 months, covering over 100 countries.”

At the end of the three-day conference, a guidance book will also be published on ways to prevent cases of influenza, immunization, distinctive characteristics of influenza, and surveillance.