The Artist's Choice Award was another Team Mongolia with a piece entitled, "Time" at the annual event in Breckenridge, the U.S. state of Colorado.

Alongside 14 other teams, Mongolia worked a total of 65 hours across five days until Jan. 27 without the use of power tools, internal support structures or colorants.

This is the sixth year of Mongolian artists participating in the competition. In 2017, Artists' Choice was split between the Mongolian teams. Also, the first place winner of both the Artist's and People's Choice Awards of the 23rd Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships Awards was Team Mongolia, whose "Mongolian Warriors" sculpture depicted life-like 13th-century warriors and their horses striding out of a solid 20-ton block base of snow.

This year's Silver was awarded to Team China for their homage to "The Thinker" piece. Team USA won Bronze with their piece titled "Dance Divine."

Last year's winner of the Snow Sculpture Championships was Team China with a piece entitled, "Mermaid."

The two sides discussed ways to strengthen the relationship by setting up a joint working group to explore:

whether funding costs can be reduced to improve benefits from the Oyu Tolgoi project for all shareholders
an accelerated path of development for a power solution in Mongolia
an acceleration of Oyu Tolgoi’s strategy to enable private and public investments towards sustainable community development in Khanbogd, the town proximate to the mine
Rio Tinto chief executive J-S Jacques said: “Rio Tinto remains fully committed to Oyu Tolgoi and Mongolia. Our nearly 14,000 employees and the people of Mongolia should be proud that Oyu Tolgoi is one of Rio Tinto’s safest and most productive mining businesses in the world. We remain committed to creating opportunities for talented Mongolians to build their careers on a global stage.

“We want to work with the Government of Mongolia to create long-term sustainable solutions that benefit all stakeholders and the country while staying true to the established investment frameworks.

“We will continue to work together to solve outstanding issues as the joint working group progresses win-win solutions on matters such as power and community development.”

SOURCE: Rio Tinto

The finance minister reported that the Mongolian economy and Tugrik rate has stabilised, foreign reserve and investment has increased and the budget deficit has decreased; since the IMF programme began Mongolia’s credit rating has been upgraded.

The IMF team will stay for 14 days in Mongolia.

Also, children under the age 12 are prohibited to participate in all horse races held between the 3rd day of the first month of spring in the lunar calendar and May 1.

The decisions were made by the Government of Mongolia in connection with the health and safety of child jockeys and preventing possible risks during horse races.

According to the Rules of the National Naadam Horse Racing, the minimum age of child jockeys is seven years of age. However, this rule does not apply to all horse races in the country organized throughout the year.

Child jockeys are at greatest risk of being hurt when horses race in the extremely cold weather and at their highest speed.

Using child jockeys during winter and spring should be viewed as a dangerous form of child labor, critics say.

According to statistics, over 1,500 child jockeys were injured during training and races in the last five years, many children became disabled for life as a result of these races, and more than 10 lost their lives during a race.

The funds will be used to construct a new production facility for fresh noodles and for the purchase of equipment by the subsidiary Agi LLC. In addition, Icemark LLC – another subsidiary of the Teso Group – will receive a portion of the loan to acquire equipment for ice cream production expansion.

Teso Group is one of the largest local food and beverage companies in Mongolia. Initially founded as a small ice cream family business, the company is today a medium-sized enterprise producing ice cream, snacks, noodles, margarine, dairy products and beverages, as well as importing other foodstuffs.

The cooperation between Teso Group and the EBRD began in 2014 when the Bank provided Mongolia’s first local currency loan equivalent to US$ 5.5 million. Local currency funding reduces the exchange rate risk for Mongolian producers but access to these funds remains scarce.

Irina Kravchenko, the EBRD’s Head of Office in Mongolia, said: “We are proud to sign the agreement with Teso Group today as it will support the expansion and growth of a strong and competitive local producer. Having been a partner of the company for more than three years now, we are impressed with the vision, drive and determination of its owners and employees to make it one of the market leaders in Mongolia. The combination of high quality and reasonable prices is a guarantee that consumers will benefit from Teso Group’s success.”

Damjin Odon, Chairman of Teso Group’s Board of Directors, said: “Teso Group started cooperating with the EBRD in 2012 on an international advisory project in preparation for our first financing from the Bank. As a result, our first project together is being implemented successfully. Today we are signing a second loan agreement to support our business expansion, which is taking our cooperation to the next level of development. I am sure that we will work with the Bank on future projects, bringing significant benefits to the Mongolian economy.”

The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Mongolia, with over €1.6 billion invested in 93 projects in the country to date. The Bank’s investments aim to make the local economy more competitive, integrated and resilient.

Arrivals from Russia in 2017 surged 36.3 per cent from 2016 to 25.3 million tonnes, data from the General Administration of Customs showed, with December figures at 2.14 million tonnes, up 16.2 per cent from a year ago and 11.5 per cent from November.

Imports from Mongolia rose to 33.58 million tonnes in 2017, up 27.6 per cent from 2016, while December’s imports came in at 2.83 million tonnes, down 18.6 per cent from a year ago but up 2.5 per cent from November.

What will China say to US ‘blunt’ call to expel North Koreans?

China issued a ban on coal imports from North Korea in late February, about a week after the country tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile. For the rest of the year, China only reported North Korean coal imports in August and September.

In 2016, China brought in more than 20 million tonnes of North Korean coal, making it Beijing’s fourth-largest supplier after Australia, Indonesia and Mongolia.

“The majority of market share left by North Korea was grabbed by Russia, as mining costs in Russia are cheaper than in China’s northeastern region,” said Cheng Gong, an analyst at the China National Coal Association.

China’s imports from North Korea plummet to lowest level in four years

In 2017, Australia was China’s largest coal supplier for a sixth year in a row, bolstered by increasing demand for high-grade supplies due to Beijing’s crackdown on air pollution.

Coal imports from Australia rose 13.4 per cent from 2016 to 79.91 million tonnes. In December, China bought 8.07 million tonnes of Australian coal, up 19.4 per cent from a year ago.

Australian coal, with lower pollutants such as sulphides and ash and a higher energy value, is considered a high-grade fuel compared to Mongolian and Indian supply.

Arrivals from Indonesia in 2017 fell 9.7 per cent from 2016 to 35.28 million tonnes. December imports of 1.71 million tonnes were down 63.1 per cent from the same period in 2016.

China gas imports soar amid pollution crackdown on use of coal

In late November, Beijing eased some restrictions on coal imports to ensure stable coal supplies during the peak winter heating season.

Data released earlier this month showed China’s total December coal imports rose 3 per cent from November to 22.74 million tonnes.

Vessel-tracking and port data compiled by Thomson Reuters Supply Chain and Commodity Forecasts suggest China in January will import around 20.9 million tonnes of seaborne coal, both thermal and coking, up from 17.2 million in December and 19.1 million in November.

At his annual dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Soros warned that social media platforms were "obstacles to innovation".

He raised concerns about their power to shape people's attentions.

However, he predicted their days were numbered because tax policy and regulation would catch up with them.

Mr Soros also called the Trump administration a "danger to the world", adding that he believed the president would be gone by 2020 "or sooner".

'Lost freedom'
But the outspoken financier reserved his strongest criticism for what he called the "unprecedented and transformative" effects of large internet firms.

"The power to shape people's attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies," Mr Soros told assembled guests.

Referencing Google and Facebook several times during his speech, he said: "It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called 'the freedom of mind'.

"There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it."

He cautioned that this would have "far-reaching political consequences", and had already played a large role in the election of Donald Trump.

Facebook declined to comment, while Google did not immediately return a request for comment.

The 87-year-old repeatedly praised EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, whom he said would be the social media companies' "nemesis".

Ms Vestager has become best known for going after US tech giants, slapping charges on Google, Amazon and Apple.

Mr Soros said the EU, which has no internet giants of its own, was best placed to "protect society against them", whereas US regulators, he maintained, were too weak.

"Internet monopolies have neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions," he emphasised.

'Societies in crisis'
The Hungary-born hedge fund manager, who initially became famous for having made $1bn by betting on the devaluation of the pound in 1992, heads several foundations devoted to "defending open societies from their enemies".

Mr Soros, a Holocaust survivor, opened his speech by disclosing that he found the current moment in history "rather painful".

"Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Putin's Russia, are on the rise."

But he predicted that Donald Trump, whom he previously branded a "would-be dictator," might not last to the end of his term.

"I expect a Democratic landslide in 2018," Mr Soros asserted.

“The bitcoins mining, which is this accelerated and augmented use of computers to actually determine the value and incentive the functioning of the mechanism, is energy angry,” Lagarde said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday.

“And we figure that in 2018, if it continues, that system will actually consume as much electricity as Argentina.”

According to the Bloomberg’s data, cryptocurrency miners used more than 37 gigawatt-hours a day – equivalent to 30 1.2-gigawatt nuclear reactors running at full capacity.

Digiconomist’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index says cryptocurrency mining could power 4,124,115 US households, and the energy consumed can be compared to Iraq’s electricity consumption.

The cryptocurrency network is mostly fueled by coal-fired power plants in China because energy is cheap there, which results “in an extreme carbon footprint for each unique bitcoin transaction,” the website claims.

“In times of climate change and when we look at how much coal is being used in some Chinese provinces to actually mine bitcoin, it’s a big concern,” Lagarde said.

With the upgraded rating, DBM has the opportunity to issue long-term and low-cost financing in the international stock market. A country’s financial system, governance, budget and monetary policy play an important role in determining a nation's credit rating. When a rating changes, international investment expenditure can swing by up to 0.8 percent.