1,200 North Korean workers to leave Mongolia as South Korea calls for increased sanctions www.theubpost.mn

More than 1,190 North Korean citizens working in Mongolia will not be allowed for renewal of their contracts in accordance to the UN Security Council’s crackdown on the reclusive state’s exported workforce.

Transport Minister attends Transport Week 2017 www.mongolia.gogo.mn

Minister of Road and Transportation Development J. Bat-Erdene attended Transport Week 2017, an annual international industry event, at the invitation of Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov. Transport Week was held in Moscow, Russia, from December 2 to 8.

Minister J. Bat-Erdene met with Minister Sokolov and Russian Railways President Oleg Belozerov to discuss strengthening the capacity of Ulaanbaatar Railway JSC and introducing technical upgrades.
The sides also exchanged views on implementing the railway project for the Russia-Mongolia-China economic corridor. Minister J. Bat-Erdene noted that Mongolia is eager to participate in regional logistics by cooperating with Russia and China.

Apple 'to buy Shazam for $400m' www.bbc.com

Apple is close to buying the music recognition app Shazam for about $400m (£300m), media reports say.

Shazam, a UK company founded in 1999, allows people to use their smartphone or computer to identify and buy music through a snippet of sound.
Shazam, which says it has more than 100 million monthly users, makes most of its revenue from commissions paid on referrals to Apple's iTunes Store.
Neither Apple nor Shazam have commented on the reports on the TechCrunch site.
If the deal is confirmed, Shazam will become the latest in a string of UK technology firms to be bought up by larger businesses.
The influential Music Business Worldwide site points out that the reported price is significantly lower than the $1bn valuation placed on Shazam during its last funding round in 2015.
By acquiring Shazam, Apple would basically cut out the middleman and save money on commissions.
It would also hurt the competition, since Shazam would no longer be referring people to rivals Spotify and Google Play Music.
The deal would also help the Apple Music service gain ground on Spotify, by making it easier for users to find songs and add them to playlists.
At present, Spotify has 60 million users worldwide, while Apple Music has just 27 million.

Papers on Harumafuji sent to prosecutors www3.nhk.or.jp

Japanese police have sent papers to prosecutors on former sumo grand champion Harumafuji for assaulting and injuring a rank-and-file wrestler.

Mongolian memory team triumphs at World Memory Championship www.theubpost.mn

The Mongolian memory team claimed 57 medals out of 90 available at the 26th World Memory Championships, which took place in Jakarta, Indonesia from December 1 to 3.

Training of policy makers from Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal www.web.unep.org

From 11 to 15 December 2017, policy makers from Bhutan, Mongolia and Nepal will join the International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) team in Bangkok, Thailand, for a five-day training on how to achieve long-term reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and short-lived climate pollutants from the waste sector.

Russia-China real gold standard means end of US dollar dominance www.rt.com

The BRICS counties are considering starting an internal gold trading platform, according to Russian officials. When this happens, the global economy will be significantly reshaped, and the West will lose its dominance, predicts a precious metals expert.

In 2016, 24,338 tons of physical gold were traded, which was 43 percent more than in 2015, according to Claudio Grass, of Precious Metal Advisory Switzerland.

“We have to put the BRICS initiative into a broader context. It is just part of a geopolitical tectonic shift which started decades ago. We have seen a constant outflow of physical gold from the West to the East. At the same time, the West has lost the economic war, and as a consequence, the focus now turns to the financial system. China dominates the world economy and has displaced the US as the world’s most formidable economic powerhouse,” he told RT.

The creation of a new gold standard by BRICS is also a step to end the US dollar’s domination of the global economy

“As Bejing and Moscow understand that America used the dollar to control the world, by implementing a new kind of ‘Gold standard 2.0’ they want to distance themselves from this control. Furthermore, the vast majority of the people in Asia sees gold as superior, or ‘real’ money, something the West has forgotten, because of all the paper wealth (credit) they have accumulated,” said Grass.

The expert notes the BRICS countries account for 40 percent of the world’s population and around 23 percent of the world’s domestic product.

"In combination with the announcement of pricing oil in yuan, using a gold-backed futures contract in Shanghai, the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, China is setting up an alternative to the post-Bretton Woods establishment. This is certainly a game changer,” said Grass.

The level of trust between BRICS countries can help them establish intragroup gold trading, which would be 100 percent physically backed.

“This will present a viable challenger that could over time lead to a break up of the current system since the West will likely still trade paper gold in the meantime,” Grass said.

According to London gold clearing statistics for 2016, the total trading volume in the London Over-the-Counter (OTC) gold market is estimated at the equivalent of 1.5 million tons of gold. The volume of 100oz gold futures on New York's COMEX reached 57.5 million contracts during 2016 or 179,000 tonnes of gold, the analyst notes.

The amount of mined gold is much smaller

“If we now take into consideration that only approximately 180,000 tons of gold have actually been mined up to today the scam is just gigantic and obviously unsustainable. The paper scams in London and New York will either blow up when the paper price of gold drops to zero or when just a fraction of investors insists upon receiving physical gold in return,” Grass said.

The expert believes that with paper gold trading, the established gold exchanges could cease to exist sooner or later.

“They will likely become obsolete and lose their importance over time. Although one cannot predict exactly how fast this will happen, the trend is clear: OTC and COMEX are working toward their own destruction,” he said.

“It will definitely lead to higher prices for physical gold. Imagine if you could buy on COMEX and OTC gold at a much lower price and still have the option to sell it in Asia for a much higher price; this would kill the old paper scams immediately. Therefore, I would guess that both could come up with new restrictions that only cash settlements will be allowed to avoid this. We know for example that even today 99.96 percent of COMEX gold futures are settled in cash,” Grass wrote.

The final battle: Gold vs. US dollar

The analyst recollected the Heartland Theory of Halford Mackinder, a British geostrategist at the beginning of the 20th century who influenced the likes of Kissinger and Brzezinski. Following the theory, we will soon face a war between physical gold and the US dollar.

“As per my understanding, we are moving into the final phase, the battle between currencies – one that will be backed by a hard asset which was real money since time immemorial until 1971 and the other one, backed by promises that future generations will pay through debt, inflation and ever-rising taxation,” he said.

Bitcoin futures start trading on CBOE exchange www.reuters.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The newest way to bet on bitcoin arrived on Sunday, with futures of the cryptocurrency that has taken Wall Street by storm starting trading for the first time.

Iron ore, copper prices recover after record Chinese imports www.mining.com

Copper and iron ore prices bounced back on Friday after customs data showing a sharp increase in imports by China as the country's winter anti-pollution program cuts down domestic refinery and blast furnace production.

In brisk trading New York Comex copper for delivery in December added nearly 1% from Thursday's settlement price touching a high of $2.9915 a pound ($6,595 per tonne). Copper is still down sharply for the week after suffering its worst one-day decline in almost three years on Tuesday.

November customs data from China showed import volumes of unwrought copper rose sharply totalling 470,000 tonnes during the month, up more than 42% from October and the highest since December 2016. While imports were up 23.7% from November last year, cargoes are down some 5% over the first 11 months of 2017 to 4.24m tonnes compared to the same period in 2016. Full year imports in 2016 hit a record 4.94m tonnes.

Shipments of copper concentrate in October increased slightly from last year to total 1.78m tonnes in November, a new monthly record and up nearly 30% from October's disappointing figure. Year to date Chinese concentrate imports are up moderately from last year. China consumes nearly 50% global copper output.

"Chinese traders appear to have bought more copper abroad because some copper smelters in the country have reduced their production for environmental reasons or because the traders expect production to be cut," Commerzbank analysts said in a note.

"The fact that copper concentrate imports climbed to a record high in November does not tally with this argument, however. It points rather to an ongoing high level of refined copper production in China."

Iron ore shipments set for another record year
China consumes more than two-thirds of the seaborne iron ore market and produces as much steel as the rest of the world combined. Beijing's war on smog has concentrated on the country's steelmaking hubs near the capital where mandated cuts of as much as 50% came into effect in October.

Imports of high-quality iron ore fines and lump ore from Australia, Brazil and South Africa jumped 19% from October to 94.45m tonnes last month. November imports were up 2.8% from a year ago after topping 100m tonnes in a single month for the first time in September.

Total shipments for the first 11 months of the year are up 6% to 990m tonnes putting the country on track to top record imports in 2016 of just over 1 billion tonnes.

China's iron ore imports rose in November even as steel mills are cutting output as part of a government drive against pollution as some analysts said traders were stockpiling inventory.

Iron ore imports "were not necessarily just by steel mills but could have been also purchased by traders," said Helen Lau at Argonaut Securities in Hong Kong.

The Steel Index benchmark price for Northern China 62% Fe ore climber 3% on Friday to trade at $68.40 a tonne. While down sharply from highs struck early in 2017, iron ore has recovered by 19% from lows hit two months ago. Year-to-date iron ore has averaged $70.60 a tonne compared to $56.50 over the course of 2016.

Countering Fake News and Corruption in Mongolia www.democracyspeaks.org

Fake news and corruption are two significant issues testing the fabric of Mongolian democracy today.

Although these challenges have been widely covered global trends, with fake news becoming somewhat of a buzz word in the realms of politics and international development, neither issues are new but will continue to test the integrity of developing democratic systems around the globe. As a result, democracies such as Mongolia will require strong investigative journalism to counter their toxic and disruptive effects. The role of a free, open and credible press is now more critical than ever to help inform citizens and inject transparency and accountability into anti-corruption efforts.

According to the latest report by Mongolia’s Independent Authority Against Corruption—an independent government body tasked with raising public awareness and supporting corruption prevention activities, a wide range of inappropriate practices and illegal budget spending practices have recently been uncovered. The investigation, which assessed the activities of local government activities across all 21 provinces, including state institutions from 98 soums (counties) revealed a host of corrupt practices being carried out by local governments. These corruption violations purportedly include government officials concurrently taking charge over multiple political positions; unreasonable dismissal of local government employees; the dissemination of salaries during periods of unemployment; obtaining illegal donations and financial assistance; and hiring unqualified candidates for government positions.

Admittedly, addressing corruption and abuse of public resources and the authority of local officials remains a formidable challenge; however, an invaluable first-step is for such abuses to be uncovered and revealed to citizens. As a democratic country with an open media environment and free press, Mongolian journalists can play a key role in Mongolia’s fight against corruption by bringing transparency and accountability to violations and patterns of corruption.

Since 2014, IRI has supported transparency and accountability in local democratic governance through a dual-track approach that targets both the supply side (government) and demand side (civil society) of the democratic governance equation. IRI works directly with the Capital City Governor’s Office and Mayor of Ulaanbaatar to counter corruption and increase transparent governing practices while also bringing together municipal civil servants, civil society organizations and ordinary citizens to fight corruption. Through its partnership with the Ulaanbaatar Mayor, IRI has facilitated a jointly implemented Transparent UB Academy where government officials, civil servants and civil society organizations collaborate and create a citizen-focused information campaign. With technical support from IRI, these groups have worked on initiatives that improve transparency and accountability—from budget analysis and citizen budget seminars to workshops for public servants in decision-making positions focused on legal knowledge of anti-corruption statues and international ethics standards. For instance, this year alone, IRI has trained nearly 300 civil servants throughout Ulaanbaatar.

More recently, in cooperation with the Public Affairs Section of U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, IRI trained journalists from Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan. The participating press learned how to identify opportunities for investigative stories and contribute to the propagation of accurate news in Mongolia, which can go a long way in helping journalists and citizens uncover both cases of fake news and corruption abuses.

The case is clear that there is a role for investigative journalism to supplement anti-corruption efforts; however, more work needs to be done to enable and empower Mongolia’s press to call out corruption and serve as a check on abuses of local public office. Due to a weak institutional framework for the growth of a vibrant media whereby underpaid and undertrained media outlets are susceptible to corruption in addition to an overall lack of a universal code of conduct among Mongolian journalists, media outlets still struggle to report factual, citizen-centered information.

Despite highly publicized exposés highlighting corruption and misuse of government funds spearheaded by many prominent Mongolian journalists, most journalists and news agencies are susceptible to political pressures and remain disempowered. Within this context, IRI works to build the capacities of Mongolian journalists to maintain ethical standards and to develop high-quality, unbiased and accurate content relevant to Mongolian citizenry to address the problem of fake news in the digital age. Despite robust buy-in on the part of Mongolian journalists and media outlets to partner with IRI and past support from the Public Affairs Sector of the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar for empowering journalists, IRI’s current analysis has revealed a clear need for continued support and capacity building for journalists to counter the toxic and disruptive effects that fake news and corruption have on Mongolia’s democracy.

Posted by
Craig CastagnaProgram Officer, Asia Division