1 MONGOLIA MARKS CENTENNIAL WITH A NEW COURSE FOR CHANGE WWW.EASTASIAFORUM.ORG PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      2 E-MART OPENS FIFTH STORE IN ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA, TARGETING K-FOOD CRAZE WWW.BIZ.CHOSUN.COM PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      3 JAPAN AND MONGOLIA FORGE HISTORIC DEFENSE PACT UNDER THIRD NEIGHBOR STRATEGY WWW.ARMYRECOGNITION.COM  PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      4 CENTRAL BANK LOWERS ECONOMIC GROWTH FORECAST TO 5.2% WWW.UBPOST.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      5 L. OYUN-ERDENE: EVERY CITIZEN WILL RECEIVE 350,000 MNT IN DIVIDENDS WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      6 THE BILL TO ELIMINATE THE QUOTA FOR FOREIGN WORKERS IN MONGOLIA HAS BEEN SUBMITTED WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      7 THE SECOND NATIONAL ONCOLOGY CENTER TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN ULAANBAATAR WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/20      8 GREEN BOND ISSUED FOR WASTE RECYCLING WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      9 BAGANUUR 50 MW BATTERY STORAGE POWER STATION SUPPLIES ENERGY TO CENTRAL SYSTEM WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      10 THE PENSION AMOUNT INCREASED BY SIX PERCENT WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/12/19      КОКС ХИМИЙН ҮЙЛДВЭРИЙН БҮТЭЭН БАЙГУУЛАЛТЫГ ИРЭХ ОНЫ ХОЁРДУГААР УЛИРАЛД ЭХЛҮҮЛНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     "ЭРДЭНЭС ТАВАНТОЛГОЙ” ХК-ИЙН ХУВЬЦАА ЭЗЭМШИГЧ ИРГЭН БҮРД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГ ӨНӨӨДӨР ОЛГОНО WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГИЙН ОРЛОГО 2040 ОНД 38 ИХ НАЯДАД ХҮРЭХ ТӨСӨӨЛӨЛ ГАРСАН WWW.NEWS.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ЭРДЭНЭС ОЮУ ТОЛГОЙ” ХХК-ИАС ХЭРЛЭН ТООНО ТӨСЛИЙГ ӨМНӨГОВЬ АЙМАГТ ТАНИЛЦУУЛЛАА WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     Л.ОЮУН-ЭРДЭНЭ: ХУРИМТЛАЛЫН САНГААС НЭГ ИРГЭНД 135 МЯНГАН ТӨГРӨГИЙН ХАДГАЛАМЖ ҮҮСЛЭЭ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ENTRÉE RESOURCES” 2 ЖИЛ ГАРУЙ ҮРГЭЛЖИЛСЭН АРБИТРЫН МАРГААНД ЯЛАЛТ БАЙГУУЛАВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     “ORANO MINING”-ИЙН ГЭРЭЭ БОЛОН ГАШУУНСУХАЙТ-ГАНЦМОД БООМТЫН ТӨСЛИЙН АСУУДЛААР ЗАСГИЙН ГАЗАР ХУРАЛДАЖ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/20     АЖИЛЧДЫН САРЫН ГОЛЧ ЦАЛИН III УЛИРЛЫН БАЙДЛААР ₮2 САЯ ОРЧИМ БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     PROGRESSIVE EQUITY RESEARCH: 2025 ОН “PETRO MATAD” КОМПАНИД ЭЭЛТЭЙ БАЙХААР БАЙНА WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19     2026 ОНЫГ ДУУСТАЛ ГАДААД АЖИЛТНЫ ТОО, ХУВЬ ХЭМЖЭЭГ ХЯЗГААРЛАХГҮЙ БАЙХ ХУУЛИЙН ТӨСӨЛ ӨРГӨН МЭДҮҮЛЭВ WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/12/19    

Events

Name organizer Where
MBCC “Doing Business with Mongolia seminar and Christmas Receptiom” Dec 10. 2024 London UK MBCCI London UK Goodman LLC

NEWS

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Mongolia and Brazil to boost cooperation in healthcare www.en.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Minister of Health, Mr A.Tsogtsetseg received on November 15 the Ambassador of Brazil, Mr Marcos Caramuru de Paiva and the First Secretary of the Embassy, Mr Winston Alexander Silva. The Minister expressed her hope that the health ministries of Mongolia and Brazil, the two countries with long-standing friendship, will strengthen the cooperation.
 
The Ambassador noted the main goal of this meeting is to boost cooperation in healthcare with Mongolia, and underlined Brazil is not cutting healthcare budgets even in these times of political and economic difficulties back in his country.
 
Governments of Mongolia and Brazil have established a cooperation agreement when the Health Ministry of Mongolia has been also accountable for the matters of sports and physical culture, and the first Mongolian team took part in the First Indigenous Peoples’ Games, held in Brazil in July, 2016.
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Japan's first cellular drone www3.nhk.or.jp

NTT Docomo has carried out Japan's first trial of a drone using a mobile phone rather than wireless technology.
 
The mobile phone carrier jointly developed the system with a group of venture firms.
 
The drone transported a roughly one-kilogram package from a port to an island about 2.5 kilometers offshore at the tryout in Fukuoka City. The delivery took about 5 minutes with a top speed of 50 kilometers per hour.
 
Conventional, wireless-controlled drones have an operational limit about one kilometer. Mobile phones allow operation from tens of kilometers away.
 
Engineers plan to test if the drone operation affects mobile phone communications on land. They aim to put the drone into practical use from 2018.
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Japan bank to provide loans for UK biomass project www3.nhk.or.jp

NHK has learned that a government-affiliated bank in Japan plans to provide funds for a biomass power project in Britain. The green energy uses materials from plants and animals, such as woodchips and cattle manure.
 
Sources say the Development Bank of Japan, along with other banks in Japan and Europe, will extend loans to build a plant near Middlesbrough.
 
The sources say the Development Bank will lend tens of millions of dollars in project financing.
 
With a capacity of 300 megawatts, the biomass plant will be one of the largest in the world. It is expected to start operating in 2020 and will supply electricity to 600,000 homes.
 
Biomass is seen as a more stable source of renewable energy than solar and wind power. It is also expected to help the forestry industry by using woodchips obtained by thinning trees.
 
Biomass power generation is expected to increase in Japan as the Paris Agreement has taken effect to cut greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
 
The sources say the Development Bank is hoping to apply the know-how from the British project to promote renewable energy in Japan.
 
The bank is also financing solar and offshore wind power generation projects.
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Bank of Cyprus to list on London Stock Exchange www.theguardian.com

Bank of Cyprus is to list on the London Stock Exchange and expand in the UK, in the latest sign of its path towards rehabilitation since savers were forced to take losses to pump billions of euros into its bailout three years ago.
 
Under John Hourican, a former senior executive at Royal Bank of Scotland who left during the Libor rigging crisis, Bank of Cyprus has undergone a radical restructuring and repaid all but €800m (£690m) of €11.4bn emergency liquidity assistance used to keep it afloat at the peak of the island’s economic meltdown.
 
The Mediterranean island was at the heart of the eurozone crisis in 2013 when a rescue deal for Bank of Cyprus – its biggest lender – was a key part of measures need to keep the country inside the single currency area. Laiki, or Cyprus Popular Bank, was closed and its smaller depositors placed in Bank of Cyprus, which in turn imposed losses on savers holding deposits more than €100,000, many of whom were said to be Russian.
 
It was first bank in the eurozone to take a slice of customers’ savings as part of the international €10bn bailout of the island to avoid recourse to taxpayers.
 
Hourican, who is Irish, tried to leave last year but was convinced to stay on by veteran banker Josef Ackermann, who became chairman of Bank of Cyprus in 2014 when it received a capital injection from a group international investors led by private equity billionaire Wilbur Ross. Ackermann is a former chief executive of Deutsche Bank, itself mired in financial difficulties.
 
An attempt at a London listing is a high-profile move for Hourican, who told parliamentarians after the RBS £290m Libor fine that he had told colleagues “they should not waste my death” and clean up the culture of the bank. He was described by Andrew Tyrie MP as a “human shield” for others at RBS.
 
Hourican has sold off Bank of Cyprus’s Russian arm and scaled back its other international operations but intends to expand in the UK, where there already four branches.
 
The aim is to target the professional buy-to-let market and small business customers, entrepreneurs and Cypriots living in the UK. The London-based arm is covered by the UK deposit scheme, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which covers the first £75,000 of savings.
 
To facilitate the listing in London – through which Bank of Cyprus does not intend to raise fresh funds – a holding company will be set up in Ireland so that it meets the standards to allow it to be included in the FTSE series of stock market indices. It will remain listed in Cyprus but delist from Athens.
 
At the time of the bank’s half-year results in August, Hourican described in a Bloomberg interview how the bank and the country had experienced a “significant cardiac arrest” when he took over.
 
As the bank reported €120m on pre-tax profits for the first nine months of 2016, Hourican said customer deposits had increased 10%. “We remain focused on operating as an accelerator for growth in the real Cypriot economy,” he said.
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Iron ore price plummets 9% www.mining.com

The import price of 62% Fe content ore at the port of Tianjin plummeted 8.7% to $72.80 per dry metric tonne on Tuesday after a frenzied month of trading saw the price reach a two-year high.
 
On the Dalian Commodities Exchange iron ore futures again reached the daily price change upper limit in the morning, only to turn around and close down the maximum 6% to trade at $87.90 a tonne.
 
Chinese authorities recently upped trading fees and margin requirements to cool down the credit-fuelled speculation in iron ore, met coal and rebar.
 
Analysts and mining companies have called the price of the steelmaking raw material down on ample supply from top producers Australia and Brazil (despite recent cuts and lowered output guidance) and worries about the strength of the recovery in top consumer China.
 
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Daniel Morgan, commodities analyst at UBS as saying "the price at the moment is above a sustainable medium-term price":
 
"A lot of the marginal tonnes which have left this market, let's call it around 200 million tonnes of high-cost suppliers that have exited in the last two years, if this price was to be any way sustained I'm sure they'd re-enter the trade, but they haven't," says Mr Morgan.
World number two iron ore producer Rio Tinto surprised the market on Tuesday announcing the shutdown of one of its biggest mines in Australia's Pilbara region over the end-of-year holiday period.
 
Financial Times reports that in an email to 440 staff at the Hope Downs 4 mine Rio said the decision would “reduce operating costs and maximise cash to strengthen the business” in expectation of a tough year ahead.
 
Mining companies in Western Australia are also bracing for a resources tax that they say will add more than $1 billion to operating costs per year.
 
Year to date the price of the steelmaking raw material is up 70% following near-decade lows in December last year.
 
 
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Snapchat files for one of the biggest tech IPOs in years: sources www.reuters.com

Snapchat has filed for an initial public offering, sources familiar with the situation said on Tuesday, which puts the messaging app a step closer to the biggest U.S. stock market debut since 2014.
 
The Venice, California-based company could go public as soon as March and be valued at $20 billion to $25 billion, making it the largest IPO since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (BABA.N) went public two years ago valued at $170.9 billion. It would be the largest U.S. technology IPO since Facebook Inc's (FB.O) debut in 2012 with a value of $81.2 billion.
 
Snapchat filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. Companies with less than $1 billion in revenue can secretly file for an IPO, allowing them to quietly test investor appetite while keeping financials confidential.
 
The filing was made before Republican Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8 which has increased uncertainty in global markets, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI has hit record highs for four straight sessions.
 
The sources asked not to be named because the information is private. A spokesman for Snap Inc, Snapchat's parent company, declined to comment.
 
Reuters was first to report news of the confidential filing.
 
BELLWETHER FOR 'DECACORNS'
 
A Snapchat IPO is seen by many investors as a bellwether for many of the largest so-called "unicorns," private, venture-backed companies that are valued at more than $1 billion. Nicknamed "decacorns," these companies are valued in the tens of billions of dollars and include Snapchat, car-sharing company Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and home-sharing company Airbnb. No decacorn has yet tested the public market, and it is unproven whether they can beat or even replicate such astronomic valuations with more scrutinizing public investors.
 
The market for technology IPOs for this year has been rocky, with investors left skittish due to volatile technology stock performance and uneven returns from recent IPOs. Year to date, 123 U.S. technology companies have gone public, raising $7.1 billion, a 58 percent decline in proceeds and 20 percent drop in the number of offerings from this time last year.
 
Snapchat started in 2012 as a free mobile app that allows users to send photos that vanish within seconds. It has more than 100 million active users, about 60 percent of whom are aged 13 to 24, making it an attractive way for advertisers to reach millennials.
 
Awash in venture funding, the company raised $1.81 billion in May, which valued it at about $20 billion, media reports said at the time.
 
But investors worry that Snapchat's advertising sales, which began last October, is the company's only significant revenue source.
 
Snap in September starting describing itself as a camera company and earlier this month it debuted its $130 video-camera sunglasses. The glasses are equipped with a camera that connects wirelessly to a smartphone to take and send "snaps" - the company's terms for video and photo messages sent on its app.
 
According to postings on Twitter, a line of more than 100 people quickly formed in front of a vending machine on a Venice, California, boardwalk where the glasses were being sold.
 
The company's investors include General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price and Lone Pine. Previous rounds included Fidelity Investment, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O).
 
Earlier this month, Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) venture capital arm CapitalG, earlier known as Google Capital, disclosed an investment in Snapchat by adding the social networking firm's logo to a page on its investment portfolio website.
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Google commits to £1bn UK investment plan www.bbc.com

Google is to open a new headquarters building in London which could see 3,000 new jobs created by 2020.
The news comes as a major boost to Britain's technology sector.
Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, told the BBC that the UK was still an attractive place to do business.
He said open borders and free movement for skilled migrants were "absolutely" important to the success of the technology sector in the UK.
It was Mr Pichai's first European broadcast interview since he became chief executive last year.
Sources at the technology company also said if barriers were thrown up to skilled immigration following the vote to leave the European Union, some of Google's investment could be at risk.
Turning to the "fake news" controversy in America - and choosing his words very carefully - Mr Pichai said that, at the margin, false stories about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could have affected the outcome of the US election as the margins were "very narrow".
And that it was important that companies like Google and other social media businesses promoted "accurate" stories to their billions of users.

Although Google refused to be drawn on the cost of the UK investment, development experts said the new building in King's Cross and the cost of employing thousands more staff was likely to put the figure at over £1bn.
At present, Google employs around 4,000 people in the UK, a figure that could now rise to 7,000.
The office space owned by Google in King's Cross will more than double.
"The UK has been a tremendous market for us," Mr Pichai told me.
"We see big opportunities here. This is a big commitment from us - we have some of the best talent in the world in the UK and to be able to build great products from here sets us up well for the long term."

The new 650,000 sq-ft headquarters has been designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the designer behind the "garden bridge" across the Thames.
He was brought in by Google after its founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, rejected initial designs for a new headquarters as "too boring" in 2013. Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group are also involved in the project.
Many companies raised fears before the referendum that if Britain voted to leave the European Union, foreign investment would be affected.
Questions were raised over whether Google would commit to the new building.
But Mr Pichai made it clear the strength of the UK economy went far beyond the Brexit vote.
"The innovation we see here, the talent we have available here and how on the cutting edge of technology we are able to be here makes it an incredible place for us to invest," he said.
"We do value how open and connected it is and we can bring in talent from anywhere in the world and we value those attributes and we are optimistic that those will stay true over time.
"So we did [make the investment decision] taking into consideration [the referendum], but we are very optimistic."
He said Brexit may have complicated "secondary effects" over the longer term but it was too early to say what they may be.

I asked Mr Pichai what the government's approach should be to immigration controls.
"I want to be respectful," he answered.
"These are important questions for the citizens of the UK to answer.
"I think there are thoughtful debates to be had.
"In our experience as a company, when we have been able to bring people together and operate in an open and connected way it achieves tremendous impact over time.
"Those are the values we cherish, and we have been open and public about how we think about these things.
"When I look at London [I see] a place in which we are able to attract great talent, find great talent in the UK, thanks to a great educational system here, but it has also been a place where people are willing to come from anywhere in the world.
"Increasingly, for the kinds of complex things we do, we need to bring people who are across many disciplines - with many different backgrounds - together to solve problems. That's how you can build newer things, so that is particularly important for us."
He said that he would "worry" if controls on skilled migration were made more stringent.

Sundar Pichai said the US was "deeply divided"
Turning to events in America and the election of Donald Trump, Mr Pichai said it was clear the country was "deeply divided".
"I come from India, I am used to a vibrant democracy, and it is the same in the United States.
"It is important to remember that we had a democratic process and there has been an outcome.
"As you can see the country is deeply divided so I tend to look forward and I think we need to figure out how to constructively engage with the new administration and hear the voices of people, as at Google we care about certain values - be it freedom of expression, the notion of inclusion and fairness, building open systems, building a connected world.
"But it is also important to acknowledge that there are people, through a process like this, who feel left behind, and I am glad the democratic process gives voices to everyone."

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Merkel warns Trump against slide into protectionism www.rt.com

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged countries to enter into multilateral agreements with a view to globalization rather than to adopt protectionist measures. The message is seen as a thinly veiled warning to US President-elect Donald Trump.
 
Trump to discuss transition plans in the White House Oval Office in Washington, U.S., November 10, 2016. © Kevin LamarqueObama gives up hopes to pass TPP before Trump’s swearing-in
“We are at the moment in a situation in the European Union, in our country and worldwide where there is an argument about how we want to shape globalization,” the chancellor said at a meeting of Germany's BDA employers association.
 
Donald Trump has widely criticized international trade agreements, saying they hurt American workers and the country's competitiveness.
 
In his campaign, Trump promised to “get tough” with China as well as to quit TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), which has not been finalized yet.
 
The German government led by Merkel is urging the EU to join a similar trade deal with the US known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
 
After suggesting last week Trump work based on democratic values, Merkel reportedly used the speech to point out the case for deepening international trade cooperation.
 
“Globalization is happening. We can arrange it such that we strengthen multilateral instruments... or such that we seal ourselves off and become protectionist,” she said, stressing that globalization must be fashioned in a multilateral way.
 
The chancellor promised to make globalization a key subject for debate during Germany's presidency of the G20 next year.
 
“This dispute over openness or sealing ourselves off will keep us very busy in the coming years,” Merkel said.
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Google, Facebook move to restrict ads on fake news sites www.reuters.com

 

Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Monday announced measures aimed at halting the spread of "fake news" on the internet by targeting how some purveyors of phony content make money: advertising.

Google said it is working on a policy change to prevent websites that misrepresent content from using its AdSense advertising network, while Facebook updated its advertising policies to spell out that its ban on deceptive and misleading content applies to fake news.

The shifts comes as Google, Facebook and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) face a backlash over the role they played in the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false and often malicious information that might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The issue has provoked a fierce debate within Facebook especially, with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg insisting twice in recent days that the site had no role in influencing the election.

Facebook's steps are limited to its ad policies, and do not target fake news sites shared by users on their news feeds.

"We do not integrate or display ads in apps or sites containing content that is illegal, misleading or deceptive, which includes fake news," Facebook said in a statement, adding that it will continue to vet publishers to ensure compliance.

Google's move similarly does not address the issue of fake news or hoaxes appearing in Google search results. That happened in the last few days, when a search for 'final election count' for a time took users to a fake news story saying Trump won the popular vote. Votes are still being counted, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton showing a slight lead.

Nor does Google suggest that the company has moved to a mechanism for rating the accuracy of particular articles.

Rather, the change is aimed at assuring that publishers on the network are legitimate and eliminating financial incentives that appear to have driven the production of much fake news.

"Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," Google said in a statement.

The company did not detail how it would implement or enforce the new policy.

MACEDONIA NEWS

AdSense, which allows advertisers to place text ads on the millions of websites that are part of Google's network, is a major source of money for many publishers.

A report in BuzzFeed News last month showed how tiny publishers in Macedonia were creating websites with fake news - much of it denigrating Clinton - which were widely shared on Facebook.

That sharing in turn led people to click on links which brought them to the Macedonian websites, which could then make money on the traffic via Google's AdSense.

Facebook has been widely blamed for allowing the spread of online misinformation, most of it pro-Trump, but Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that Facebook influenced the outcome of the election or that fake news is a major problem on the service.

"Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic," he wrote in a blog post on Saturday. "Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes."

Google has long had rules for its AdSense program, barring ads from appearing next to pornography or violent content. Work on the policy update announced on Monday began before the election, a Google spokeswoman said.

The company uses a combination of humans and artificial intelligence to review sites that apply to be a part of AdSense, and sites continue to be monitored after they are accepted, a former Google employee who worked on ad systems said. Google's artificial intelligence systems learn from sites that have been removed from the program, speeding the removal of similar sites.

The issue of fake news is critical for Google from a business standpoint, as many advertisers do not want their brands to be touted alongside dubious content. Google must constantly hone its systems to try to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous publishers, the former employee said.

Google has not said whether it believes its search algorithms, or its separate system for ranking results in the Google News service, also need to be modified to cope with the fake news issue.

Fil Menczer, a professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University who has studied the spread of misinformation on social media, said Google's move with AdSense was a positive step.

"One of the incentives for a good portion of fake news is money," he said. "This could cut the income that creates the incentive to create the fake news sites."

However, he cautioned that detecting fake news sites was not easy. "What if it is a site with some real information and some fake news? It requires specialized knowledge and having humans (do it) doesn't scale," he said.

(Reporting by Julia Love and Kristina Cooke; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Bill Rigby and Edwina Gibbs)

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Work begins on Fukushima nuclear waste site www3.nhk.or.jp

Construction work has begun in Fukushima Prefecture on intermediate storage facilities for contaminated soil and waste materials from the 2011 nuclear disaster.

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in the towns of Futaba and Okuma on Tuesday.

Two facilities will be built in a 16-square-kilometer area that straddles in the towns. One will be used to sort nuclear waste by size and level of contamination, and the other will store the sorted soil.

State Minister for the Environment Tadahiko Ito encouraged workers, saying they should be proud to be working for the region's revival.

In the first day of work on Tuesday, workers removed contaminated soil from the surface of the site. Full-fledged construction work is to begin in January.

Waste from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and soil that has been removed in decontamination operations will be stored at the intermediate storage site before it is ultimately disposed of.

The contaminated soil and waste have been kept at temporary sites throughout Fukushima Prefecture longer than the 3 years the government had initially promised local communities. This is because construction of the intermediate storage site was delayed due to a lack of progress in acquiring the land.

The Environment Ministry plans to begin operating the intermediate storage facilities in about a year. It plans to enlarge the site after acquiring more land.

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