Basic guideline approved to develop Ulaanbaatar in 2018 www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ At its 1st irregular meeting on November 16, Citizens’ Representatives’ Khural approved a basic guideline on developing socio-economy of the capital city in 2018. The basic guideline reflects over 400 policy actions in five chapters.

Gobi desert sees world's longest traffic jam www.news.mn

On the Mongolian-Chinese border, superhuman patience is required. Lorries are queuing over a 130-kilometer stretch of road. It's not only harming the health of the drivers, but also the Mongolian economy.

Automated forging lines for Mongolian metallurgical plant www.news.mn

Mongolian Darkhan Metallurgical Plant installed two automated Schuler forging lines featuring short stroke die forging hammers KGH 5.0B for the manufacture of balls with diameters of 100 to 140 millimeters.

South China coastal city to host ethnic Mongolian carvinal www.news.xinhuanet.com

GUANGZHOU, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's ethnic Mongolian carvinal, Naadam fair, will be introduced to south China's coastal city Huizhou of Guangdong Province on November 25, organizers said on Friday.

The two-day events, first of its kind in the coastal city, will showcase ethnic Mongolians' "three manly skills" including horse racing, Bokh or Mongolian wrestling and archery at the beach or on the yacht, organizers said.
More than 80 competitors from both northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Guangdong Province will participate in the sports items.
Organizers estimated the fair, cosponsored by Inner Mongolia Chambers of Commerce in Guangdong and Huizhou, will attract thousands of tourists and local residents, who will also enjoy Mongolian costume performance, traditional Mongolian arts and dairy products.
In China, the Naadam fair is a major holiday for ethnic Mongolians featuring Mongolian sports and it is mainly hosted in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

2018 monetary policy direction adopted www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Parliament discussed and adopted a resolution on the Main Directions for 2018 State Monetary Policy on November 16.

Comcast, Verizon approached Twenty-First Century Fox to buy some assets: sources www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc have both expressed interest in acquiring a significant part of Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s assets, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday.

FILE PHOTO: The Twenty-First Century Fox Studios flag flies over the company building in Los Angeles, California U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson /File Photo
News of competing interest in some of Murdoch’s assets broke even though the U.S. Justice Department was preparing a lawsuit to block AT&T Inc, the largest pay-TV provider in the United States, from buying Time Warner Inc for $85.4 billion, according to a source. This raised questions about the U.S. government’s willingness to allow large media industry mergers.

The Fox assets that buyers have expressed interest in include Fox’s movie and TV production studios, cable networks FX and National Geographic, and international assets such as the Star network in India, and the European pay TV provider Sky Plc. These units have also been the subject of recent talks between Fox and Walt Disney Co, one of the sources said.

Fox shares jumped nearly 8.0 percent in after-hours trading after the Wall Street Journal first reported the news. Shares of Viacom Inc and CBS Corp also rose more than 2.0 percent, a sign investors may see them as potential targets also.

Comcast has approached Fox about its interest, and talks are in early stages, the source added, requesting anonymity. There is no guarantee that talks between the companies will result in a deal.

Fox, Comcast and Verizon declined comment.

After Comcast first bought a stake in NBCUniversal in 2011, buying the Fox assets would give Comcast, the largest cable provider in the United States, an international distribution footprint through ownership of Sky and Star in India.

Comcast has steadily boosted its ownership of content over the years and acquiring Fox’s assets would further position Comcast as a diversified conglomerate to rival Disney, analysts said.

The deal would bulk up its NBCUniversal unit, which acquired Dreamworks Animation for $3.8 billion last year, as well as increase its ownership stake in video streaming service Hulu.

Verizon is also in the early stages of exploring a deal, one of the sources said. A deal could give the U.S. No. 1 wireless phone carrier ownership of movies and TV shows to stream to its mobile subscribers.

Acquisition of a movie studio and cable channels would be a departure for Verizon, which has focused its media deals around advertising technology and internet properties.

Verizon spent $4.48 billion acquiring the core business of Yahoo, which it merged with AOL this year to form a venture called Oath. Led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Oath owns more than 50 brands including HuffPost, TechCrunch and Tumblr.

Roger Entner, an analyst of Recon Analytics, said, “It is undeniable that there is a trend of combining content with distribution.”

Verizon, which has said it is launching a new streaming service, could have more targeted advertising with a vertically integrated platform, he added.

Traditional cable television networks have been struggling with faster-than-expected subscriber erosion in the competition with streaming services like Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

To increase its scale, Fox tried to buy Time Warner Inc. three years ago and last year announced its intention to buy the rest of Sky beyond the 39 percent it already owns.

The moves also come after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to remove key roadblocks to increased consolidation among media companies, potentially unleashing new deals among TV, radio and newspaper owners as they seek to better compete with online media.

Bitcoin recovers from price crash despite bubble warnings www.rt.com

Following huge losses sustained last week, the value of bitcoin has surged, recovering over $2,000 since Sunday. The world’s most popular virtual currency has shown resilience despite continued skepticism over the bitcoin phenomenon.

According to data provided by CoinMarketCap, bitcoin traded at $7506.14 at 11:22am GMT, fixing a daily gain of over seven percent. The cryptocurrency began the year below $1,000 per token.

November 16, 2017 trading report www.mse.mn

On November 16, 2017, 226,230 shares of 25 firms listed as Tier I, II, and III were traded. 9 firms’ shares increased in price, 12 decreased and 4 remained unchanged. ITools JSC /ITLS/ and Erchim Bayan Ulgii JSC /BOE/ was the top performer, increasing 15.00 percent, whereas Noyot Khairkhan JSC /NIE/ was the worst performer, decreasing 12.00 percent.

Canada says coal not coming back, US and Germany differ www.mining.com

Nearly 20 countries and regions pledged Thursday to never use coal again as fuel for power generation from 2030 onwards, adhering to a British-Canadian initiative presented at the 2017 United Nations climate change talks in Bonn, Germany.

Two nations, however, did not sign the accord — the United States and the host country.

US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his intention, at least in paper, of “bringing back coal.” So far, he has by rolled back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants among other measures.

However, dozens of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to dent domestic demand. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, the region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011. And that’s only in one section of the US.

Overall, coal’s share of the power mix is declining, and wind and solar remain the fastest-growing US sources of electricity.

One problem is that most of the installed coal-fired generation capacity in the US is quite old, and with gas prices being low, companies don’t seem willing to invest in repairing those outdated facilities.

Another issue is that not one single new commercial plant of this kind is planned in the whole country for the near future, compared to 2.6GW of new solar capacity, 10GW of new wind and 38GW of new gas-fired plants scheduled to start up in 2017-18.

Even AEP, the US top generator from coal in 2015, has been embracing renewables. In July, in fact, it announced it would invest $4.5 billion to build the largest wind farm in the US.

Despite these facts, coal jobs have increased and Bloomberg explains partly why:

US coal production began rising in mid-2016, boosted by higher global prices that were mainly due to production cutbacks in China. Cyclone Debbie buffeted Australia’s coast earlier this year, sending prices rallying again. And in the US., coal became more competitive in the utility mix after natural gas — a rival power-plant fuel — rebounded from last year’s historically low prices (…) Coal production has since fallen below 2016 levels.
Germany, in turn, which for years has been seen as a world leader in the fight against carbon emissions and pollution, still gets 40% of its energy from coal, a larger share than most other European countries, data from Eurostat show.

The reality is so despite the Angela Merkel’s administration has invested billions in renewable energy and it means that Germany will miss its goal of cutting 40% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Currently, official figures show that number is likely to fall to little more than 30%.

Canadian and British authorities declined to criticize the US and Germany’s decisions. Instead, the Financial Times reports, they emphasized the economic opportunities arising from the shift towards less polluting technologies:

“My message to President Trump is: Have a look at what other countries are doing,” Claire Perry, the UK minister for climate change and industry said. “Clearly you have to make choices based on your manifesto agreements. But there are really big opportunities out there in the transition to clean energy for jobs and for growth.”

“Coal is not coming back,” noted Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister for environment and climate change. “The economic case is clear. The price of solar and wind has plummeted. Clean power is also increasingly the cheapest power.”
Some of the countries that have joined the so-called Powering Past Coal Alliance to phase out coal from power generation before 2030 include Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ethiopia, Mexico, Chile and the Marshall Islands.

The coalition expects to include at least 50 countries by next year.

Billionaire investor George Soros dumps Apple & Facebook www.rt.com

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show the George Soros' investment fund has disposed of its holdings in Apple and Snap in the last quarter, reducing stakes in other tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter.

According to the filings, the fund sold 1,700 shares of Apple and 1.55 million of Snap stock. It also reduced its stake in Twitter by 5,700 shares while still holding 18,400 shares of the social media site. The investor got rid of 367,262 shares in Facebook; he has now 109,451 of the network’s shares.