The company, based in Mogoin Gol coal mine in Khuvsgul aimag, expanded its operation last year and started exporting coal to China.

While the southern neighbor of Mongolia received 18 thousand tons of coal from the company, Zavkhan aimag purchased 20 thousand tons and the rest was supplied to meet the local coal demand.

Founded in 1971, Mogoin Gol JSC has 70 regular employees today. In order to increase its revenue, the company needs to renovate about 70 percent of its equipment, according to CEO B.Khashbat.

The reserve of Mogoin Gol coal mine is estimated to be 12 million tons, and about 2 million tons of coal have been extracted as of today.
Kh.Aminaa

According to Perry, the US’ power grid would become vulnerable if more coal-fired power plants were to close down, a common occurrence in past years as the rise of natural gas and renewable energies has pushed many coal-reliant companies towards bankruptcy. In the Department of Energy’s view, such cleaner power sources are unreliable and, thus, put the power grid in jeopardy when events such as the 2014 polar vortex in the Arctic hike electricity demand.

To counteract the effects of such situations, the Secretary’s office suggested to strengthen power plants with fuel on site, that is coal and nuclear plants. To do so, the department issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which requested that FERC require utility companies to pay not just for the electricity they buy from power plant companies and supply to consumers, but also for the fixed costs associated with power plants that keep 90 days of fuel on site.

However, the Regulatory Commission said that Perry’s arguments were unfounded. “There is no evidence in the record to suggest that temporarily delaying the retirement of uncompetitive coal and nuclear generators would meaningfully improve the resilience of the grid. Rather, the record demonstrates that, if a threat to grid resilience exists, the threat lies mostly with the transmission and distribution systems, where virtually all significant disruptions occur. It is, after all, those systems that have faced the most significant challenges during extreme weather events,” today's decision reads.

Nevertheless, the five-member bureau said it will review the resilience of the nation’s electric grid by assessing information that should be provided within 60 days by each regional market operator and other entities that oversee the grid. Once that documentation is processed, the panel will decide whether it’ll implement new measures.

According to AP, Perry thanked the federal agency for addressing his proposal. “What is not debatable is that a diverse fuel supply, especially with onsite fuel capability, plays an essential role in providing Americans with reliable, resilient and affordable electricity, particularly in times of weather-related stress like we are seeing now,” AP quotes him as saying.

Environmental advocates, business groups, some public utility companies, as well as natural gas suppliers such as Koch Industries had previously criticized the Secretary’s proposal saying it would raise prices and disrupt electricity markets by subsidizing coal and nuclear plants with billions of dollars.

BoD Chairman of MCC M.Munkhbaatar expressed the company's stance, saying, “Government’s statement sounds like we have mutually reached to agreement and established an agreement, which is not true. No such agreement was conducted and we think we have become a victim of politics. We are deplored by the Government’s action that overrode Supreme Court’s decision. MCC competed with companies from China, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan to bring back 49 percent of EMC to Mongolia. This fact has been distorted from many sides, with suspicions circulating that have no basis in reality.”

MCC’s purchase of EMC shares brought many positive outcomes, he stressed. Specifically, 500 tenders were announced in 2017, while in 2016 just one was conducted and as a result of it, MNT 15 billion was saved, and each worker was rewarded MNT 500 thousand during New Year celebrations. Additionally, tax paid by EMC last year was 4 times more than previous year.

“We do not understand how Government can act outside the Constitution and annul the decision made by Supreme Court. We have not even received an official notice on the Government decision yet,” said Mr.Munkhbaatar.

MCC’s lawyer Batbayar mentioned that there was no deal between the Government and MCC and rights of a private organization has been seriously violated and therefore MCC has every right to protect its interests.

MCC Executive director Ts.Purevtuvshin expressed the company's intention to file a complaint to international arbitration.

“China and Russia have both been aggressively accumulating their official gold reserves over the last 10 - 15 years,” he said, adding that only a decade ago each of them held around or less than 400 tons. “But now both these nations hold a combined 3670 tons of gold.”

“Interestingly, both Russia and China publicize and promote their accumulations of gold and publicly refer to gold as a strategic monetary asset. They make no secret of this. But on the flipside, the US does the opposite, and constantly downplays the strategic role of gold.”

According to Manly, for Russia and China gold is the only strategic monetary asset that could provide independence from the US dollar.

Manly said the sides could conceivably be holding a lot more gold than they declare in their official reserves due to many channels through which they could buy the precious metal.

“If China and Russia combined showed that they held more gold on a combined basis than the US, this would, even symbolically, be a blow to the US dollar and to the position of the US in the global economy,” the expert concluded.

The 22 defendants include the ex-head of PetroVietnam Construction, Trinh Xuan Thanh, and a senior Communist Party official.

Germany says Mr Thanh was abducted from a park in Berlin last July, but Hanoi insists he returned home voluntarily.

He is accused of corruption and could face the death penalty if found guilty.

The German government described Mr Thanh's suspected abduction by Vietnamese spies as a "scandalous violation" of its sovereignty. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it evoked "thriller movies about the Cold War".

Also on trial is Dinh La Thang, a former Politburo member and one of the most senior Communist Party officials to go on trial in decades. He is accused of economic mismanagement and faces up to 20 years in jail.

Some of the former executives, who are alleged to have caused massive losses at PetroVietnam, could face the death penalty if convicted of the most serious offences.

Dinh La Thang is one of the most senior Communist Party officials to go on trial in decades
The government's official news website posted about the trial which is due to last until 21 January.

It said that 12 defendants are accused of "violation of state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences" and eight are accused of embezzlement. Some are accused of both.

The case comes amid a massive anti-corruption crackdown in Vietnam, one of Asia's most corrupt nations. It is ranked 113th out of 176 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index.

The government has vowed to tackle the issue in order to boost economic growth. In September, the former head of a major Vietnamese bank was sentenced to death for fraud.

But analysts say the crackdown, while tackling corruption, has also mainly targeted opponents of Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.

“The ancient Silk Roads were never only Chinese,” Macron told an audience of academics, students and businessmen in Xian, an eastern departure point of the ancient Silk Road.

“By definition, these roads can only be shared. If they are roads, they cannot be one-way,” he said.

Unveiled in 2013, the Belt and Road project is aimed at connecting China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Pakistan and Central Asia, and beyond to the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Xi pledged $124 billion for the plan at a summit in May but it has faced suspicion in Western capitals that it is intended more to assert Chinese influence than Beijing’s professed desire to spread prosperity.

With national central banks pursuing active policies pegged to the whole range of internal and external drivers, the geopolitical environment is continually changing with one concern being replaced by others.

Domestic policies carried out by governments across the world commonly have a significant impact on the whole planet, and new phenomena such as a crash in the crypto-market might bring down real companies.

That’s why the number of risks worth worrying about is growing, even when the Volatility Index VIX is steadily falling. Deutsche Bank's chief international economist Torsten Slok has circulated a list of 30 risks for markets in 2018.

“They are in random order and are both upside risks and downside risks,” the analyst writes in a note. “Think of them not only as potential VIX-boosters but also as potential sources of faster or slower growth than what we have in our baseline forecast.

The changes to the law include a 30 percent tax for the primary shareholder of a mineral license if ownership of the license is transferred. Land available for license tenders will be determined by state agencies and then decided on by the Ministry of Mining and discussed by Cabinet.

The Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority will accept outside suggestions when preparing a tender. An assessment committee will open, assess, and report on the tender process.

The Ministry of Finance expects that 36 billion MNT will be generated from issuing mineral resource permits and that the newly amended law will end special permit controversies.

Renovating of the Altanbulag border checkpoint will make three entrance lanes into eight and four exit lanes into 15.

Currently, 900 passengers, 100 passenger vehicles and seven freight vehicles cross the Zamyn-Uud border check point an hour while as a result of the expansion, it will have capacity to cross 2700 passengers, 500 passenger vehicles and 35 freight vehicles an hour.

B.Batchimeg