1 MONGOLIA DRAGGED ITS WILD HORSES BACK FROM EXTINCTION – CAN IT SAVE THE REST OF ITS WILDLIFE? WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      2 FOUR KILLED BY HEAVY SNOW IN MONGOLIA WWW.XINHUANET.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      3 CHINA-MADE BUSES TO HIT THE ROAD IN MONGOLIA'S CAPITAL WWW.XINHUANET.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      4 MONGOLIA'S GDP EXPECTED TO GROW BY 6.2% IN 2024 - WORLD BANK WWW.AKIPRESS.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      5 CHINA'S IMPORTS OF MONGOLIAN COAL SET TO RISE AS TRANSPORT IMPROVES WWW.REUTERS.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      6 RUSSIA BOOSTS FUEL EXPORTS TO CENTRAL ASIA, AFGHANISTAN AND MONGOLIA IN 2023 WWW.REUTERS.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/13      7 MONGOLIA'S INFLATION DOWN TO 7.9 PCT WWW.XINHUANET.COM PUBLISHED:2024/01/11      8 PRESIDENT OF MONGOLIA INVITED HEADS OF STATE OF TWO NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES WWW.GOGO.MN PUBLISHED:2024/01/11      9 63.2 PERCENT OF MILK AND DAIRY PRODUCTS DOMESTICALLY SOURCED WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/01/11      10 ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING STATIONS TO BE BUILT AT 25 LOCATIONS IN ULAANBAATAR WWW.MONTSAME.MN PUBLISHED:2024/01/11      ИНФЛЯЦЫН ТҮВШИН 7.9 ХУВЬТАЙ ГАРЛАА WWW.EAGLE.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     АЮУЛТ ҮЗЭГДЭЛ, ОСЛЫН ТОХИОЛДОЛ ӨМНӨХ ОНООС 4.3 ХУВИАР ӨСЖЭЭ WWW.EAGLE.MN  НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     ОЛОН УЛСЫН ЗАХ ЗЭЭЛЭЭС 225 САЯ АМ.ДОЛЛАРЫН БОНДЫГ АМЖИЛТТАЙ АРИЛЖААЛЛАА WWW.IKON.MN  НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     "МОНГОЛЫН ХӨРӨНГИЙН БИРЖ" ХК НЭГ ЖИЛИЙН ХУГАЦААНД 15.1 САЯ ТОНН НҮҮРСИЙГ ₮7.4 ИХ НАЯДААР АРИЛЖЖЭЭ WWW.IKON.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     ИНФЛЯЦЫГ ТОГТВОРЖУУЛАХАД ЧИГЛЭСЭН МӨНГӨНИЙ БОДЛОГО ХЭРЭГЖҮҮЛНЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN  НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     ИРЭЭДҮЙН БЭЛЭН БАЙДЛЫН ИНДЕКСЭЭР МОНГОЛ УЛС 124 УЛСААС 75 ДУГААРТ ЭРЭМБЭЛЭГДЭВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     XII САРД ШИНЭ ОРОН СУУЦНЫ ҮНИЙН ӨСӨЛТИЙН ХУРД ҮЛ ЯЛИГ СААРЧ, 9.9 ХУВЬ БОЛОВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN  НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     БҮХ ТӨРЛИЙН ТЭЭВРЭЭР 105 САЯ ТОНН АЧАА ТЭЭВЭРЛЭЖЭЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/14     ИНФЛЯЦ 3 САР ДАРААЛАН НЭГ ОРОНТОЙ ТООНД ХАДГАЛАГДАВ WWW.BLOOMBERGTV.MN НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/11     ӨНГӨРСӨН ОНД НҮҮРСНИЙ ЭКСПОРТЫН 92 ХУВИЙГ АВТО ЗАМЫН ХИЛИЙН БООМТООР ГАРГАЖЭЭ WWW.MONTSAME.MN  НИЙТЭЛСЭН:2024/01/11    

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NEWS

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Hanjin ships, cargo and sailors stranded at sea www.bbc.com

With South Korea's biggest shipping company filing for bankruptcy protection, the vessels, sailors and cargo of Hanjin Shipping are stuck in limbo, stranded at sea.
Ports, fearing they will not get paid, refuse to let them dock or unload.
That means the ships are forced to wait for Hanjin, its creditors or partners to find a solution.
It's a case of unprecedented scale, with experts expecting the deadlock to last for weeks, if not months.
"[It is] a major disaster for the shipping companies and for the companies that own the goods in those containers," Greg Knowler, maritime and trade analyst with IHS Markit, told the BBC from Hong Kong.
Peak season
Not only are ships not allowed to unload, containers waiting to be picked up are also being held back by the ports as collateral over unpaid bills.
And even if the ports did allow them in, Hanjing would probably not as the vessels could expect to be immediately repossessed by the firm's creditors.
Beyond the ships and containers, there is of course the cargo within those containers - in many cases part of a tight chain of supply and delivery.
By September, the global shipping industry is already into what is its busiest time of the year ahead of the Christmas season.
"Just imagine, there are some 540,000 containers with cargo caught up at sea," explains Lars Jensen, chief executive of Sea Intelligence Consulting in Copenhagen.

That means that a lot of the goods en route to the US are geared at the busy year-end holidays and any disruption will be a major headache for the companies that have entrusted their products into the hauls of the Hanjin freighters.
Who owns what?
Let's break down the somewhat confusing ownership structure at play here.
Hanjin operates partly with its own ships, and partly with vessels it leases from others. So some of the vessels stuck at sea are owned by other companies who now can't get them back and on top of that have to assume they won't get paid for leasing them in the first place.
The containers on board the ships are also not all Hanjin's own. As the company is part of an alliance with five other cargo firms, there will be a mix of containers on each vessel - some belonging to Hanjin, the rest to the other four partners.
And lastly, there are the firms who own the content of the containers, for instance an Asian electronics firm sending its goods to the US market.
Hanjin's bankruptcy is the largest ever to hit the shipping industry so there's no roadmap as to what will happen now, no precedent of comparable scale.
Stuck in ports

Let's take a container brought from, say, the Philippines to Hong Kong, to then be picked up from there and taken to the US.
Birthing and handling of that cargo at the Hong Kong port costs money. If Hanjin can't pay that, the port will hold on to those containers as collateral until someone will be willing to pay.
A possible solution would be that the companies who own the contents of those containers ask other shipping companies to step in and pick up where Hanjin left off. The cost of this would be immense, and would come on top of anything they had already paid to Hanjin beforehand. Part of it might be covered by insurance but it would still be an extremely costly endeavour.
Stuck at sea
The containers stuck on board the ships are the next problem. While at sea, there is no way to get the cargo off board.
Ships that are only leased by Hanjin could see their actual owner take back control and bring them into a harbour. They would still need to be cleared of their cargo but could then be leased to other companies.
Given that the owners of any leased vessels would probably not want to foot the bill themselves they may try to draft in the four partner lines that have containers on the ship or maybe even the companies whose cargo is inside those containers.

Hanjin's bankruptcy is the largest ever to hit the shipping industry
The ships owned by Hanjin itself would most likely have to be sold before anyone would bring in the money to get them into a port and cleared. The fact that they would have to be sold as is, i.e. at sea, and with a load of overdue containers on board would probably weigh down the price of the vessels.
Stranded sailors
Each stranded ship has about 15 to 25 crew on board. Unable to call at any port, they will have to depend on the supplies they have with them until a solution can be found. While food should last long enough, they will eventually need fuel.
In a worst-case scenario, should they find themselves unable to pay for fuel being delivered by a shuttle, they would risk running into serious trouble. In that case though, nearby ports would likely be forced to accept them.
Aside from the prospect of being stuck for weeks at sea, the sailors will also face uncertainly over their wages. Most of them are not actually hired by Hanjin but by crewing agencies. Those agencies are unlikely to get paid by Hanjin and therefore won't be able to pay the crews.
"Unless someone steps in very quickly - and there is no sign of that - this will last a very long time," according to Mr Jensen.
Ships, cargo and crew might find themselves stuck for weeks, if not months, without knowing when and where their current voyage will end.

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iRobot plans big investment www.chinadaily.com

iRobot Corp, the US-based robotic technology solutions provider, which is known primarily as a maker of robot vacuum cleaners, is planning to triple or quadruple its investment in the Chinese market next year, in view of its average annual growth rate of 70 to 100 percent in China.
 
The company will open its Chinese headquarters in Shanghai on Thursday to strengthen marketing and promotion in China and extend its robotic products to healthcare services and the smart-home field.
 
"iRobot is focused on significant growth opportunities in China. We are continuing to increase the size of manufacturing operations in China as well as engineering functions. China is an incredibly important part of iRobot's strategy and we will continue to grow," said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot.
 
It launched on Tuesday its Braava jet mopping robot designed for the Chinese market. Starting at 1,999 yuan ($299), the compact robot mops hard floors to remove fine dust and stains. It cleans even in hard-to-reach places, like under cabinets and furniture.
 
"We will continue to diversify our home robot offerings and identify new product categories tailored for Chinese consumers," said Angle.
 
Angle emphasized that they are growing their investment in China very quickly and that establishing the headquarters in China is just the next step of their growth strategy.
 
"We will probably spend three to four times as much as money on marketing and advertising in 2017 as we did in 2016."
 
He also estimated the overall growth of home robots globally is about 25 percent. In China, the growth rate is very fast, close to 70 or 100 percent.
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Firms investing more www3.nhk.or.jp

Officials from Japan's Finance Ministry have released figures showing that companies are boosting investment.
 
The economic data reveals that Japanese firms increased spending on facilities and equipment in the April-to-June period. It marks the 13th straight quarter of year-on-year rises.
 
Ministry officials say the capital expenditures of about 30,000 companies with capital funds of about 100,000 dollars or more totaled over 90 billion dollars. That figure is up 3.1 percent from a year ago.
 
The growth came as automakers increased their production capacity for new models. Some chemical companies also took actions to increase their ability to produce parts for vehicles and smartphones.
 
But some companies in the retail and leisure industries saw slowdowns, which weighed on the data.
 
The figures also show that corporate sales fell 3.5 percent and pretax profits fell 10 percent. Both numbers mark three straight periods of decline.
 
Sales from foreign tourists showed signs of a slowdown while a stronger yen cut into profits.
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The Government will continue the 8% mortgage program www.mongolia.gogo.mn

Today Minister of Construction and Urban Planning G.Munkhbayar held meeting with representatives of construction companies and non-governmental organizations.
Currently, 7000 companies hold licenses in construction sector. Out of 1400 licenses, issued by Construction Development Center, have not commenced the construction. Therefore, licenses will be issued through online service in further.
Minister G.Munkhbayar noted:
"Construction companies must build school and kindergarten in accordance with their social responsibility. National commission will receive towns with school and kindergarten in further.
8% mortgage program is expected to be continued in Ulaanbaatar city. Also, the mortgage loan interest will be reduced to 5% for local residents. In regards, the Government established working group in cooperation with Bank of Mongolia.
In addition, we are seeking opportunity to expand the apartment size from 80 sq. m to 100 sq. m while we are following a policy to lower monthly payment of mortgage loan".
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China’s role in an emerging global order www.eastasiaforum.org

China’s status within the prevailing global order has sparked one of the most contested debates in international affairs. For some, it evokes their worst fears over a rising revisionist power; for others it creates inflated expectations over what the Chinese leadership is willing to commit to within the global arena.
 
Workers peel papers off a wall as they re-paint the Chinese Communist Party flag on it at the Nanhu revolution memorial museum in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, 21 May 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
 
The tendency to exaggerate Chinese global influence is, in part, a reflection of the difficulties involved in gauging the extent to which China’s external commitments are driven by domestic political imperatives. China’s international behaviour is also often defined in relation to the United States, thus creating an image of a superpower in waiting that underestimates the complex realities of China’s expanding influence in the world. For some commentators, China’s rising international status presages the eclipse of a Western-dominated liberal order. In reality, China’s position within an emerging global order that is both inclusive and legitimate has yet to be clearly defined.
 
Existing accounts of China’s role in order building suggest three divergent approaches based upon opportunism, ambivalence and accommodation. The opportunistic approach is centrally focused upon material preponderance, rising nationalism and a strategic posture that seeks to achieve China’s rightful status as a powerful nation.
 
Ambivalence is most keenly expressed in China’s defensive approach towards global leadership and an inherent sense of historical entitlement that places nation-building before the obligation to deliver global public goods. This ambivalence also includes a continuing emphasis on reforming global institutions to simply accord with national interests.
 
Proponents of an accommodationist approach highlight Chinese efforts to seek social prestige by gradually increasing international commitments; taking responsibility across a wider spectrum of functional areas of cooperation; and enhancing China’s contributions to international peace, security and development in accordance with its perceived ranking in the global power hierarchy.
 
All three approaches are visible in practice, making it difficult to discern a clear position on the part of the Chinese leadership. Under the Xi Jinping administration it is possible to distinguish a new approach aimed at centralising China’s role in global order building. This involves placing China at the centre of new and existing institutions, promoting Chinese ideas and experiences, and advocating a new type of international relations with explicitly Chinese characteristics.
 
Three trends in contemporary Chinese foreign policy support this new, centralising approach.
 
The first is China’s strategic reorientation. China’s overriding concern lies with the post-WWII US-led alliance system, which is primarily seen as a bulwark against the advancement of Chinese strategic interests. Chinese military and defence elites no longer tolerate the status quo. China’s strategic posture is now delineated on the basis of geopolitical imperatives that aim to place China at the centre of an East–West axis in both continental and maritime domains. China’s commitment to the defence of its periphery is underscored by the One Belt, One Road and its attempts to consolidate strategic space in the South China Sea.
 
The second trend is China’s leadership in global governance. At the diplomatic level, Chinese foreign policy discourse is now replete with references to the importance of a Chinese voice in global governance. Chinese representation in international institutions is spreading gradually across the economic, security and legal realms of global policymaking. Chinese commitments to peacekeeping and development have also increased exponentially in recent years. The United Nations remains China’s institutional focal point. But increasingly Chinese policy elites are more actively engaged in regional fora and informal institutions such as the G20. Chinese sponsorship of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank attests to the determination of the Xi administration to place China at the centre of reforms in global economic governance.
 
The third trend is China’s emphasis on civilisational revival as a counter-balance to ideological conflicts. Chinese policy and intellectual elites advocate the idea of a peaceful coexistence between civilisations based upon a pluralistic understanding of global political culture. A new civilisational politics aims to provide a means of overcoming the zero-sum predicament of power politics via the cultivation of global values linked to modernity. Ideas promoting gong sheng, the Chinese concept of symbiosis, seek to place cultural fusion between East and West at the centre of global relations.
 
What are the implications for the rules-based liberal order? China seeks to play a central role in the creation of a more inclusive and equitable global order that is aligned with its own national interests and worldview. But its new approach creates a legitimacy dilemma: China’s potential to contribute to the reform of global institutions and the re-making of international rules and norms requires social consent. This can only be fully realised if its search for power status is seen as legitimate in the eyes of other nations.
 
The Achilles heel of Chinese foreign policy is political legitimacy. Currently, both internal and external sources of legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party rely upon nationalism and economic performance. Waning external legitimacy is most evident in the case of China’s provocative stance in the South China Sea, which threatens to jeopardise its fledgling status as a responsible major power.
 
In the context of current structural power shifts within the international system, China’s active engagement in global governance is a positive sign of our collective potential to safeguard international peace and development. Beyond the parameters of national rejuvenation, if China is to play a central role in reforming international rules and institutions it will need to engage with the aspirations of other states and peoples. This raises a fundamental question: where do individual rights and freedoms fit within the Chinese vision of a global rules-based order?
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Coking coal prices are on fire — up more than 80% in six months www.mining.com

Prices of coking coal, the steel-making kind, keep soaring on slowing supply growth from China and increased demand from Indian steel mills.
 
Far seems to be the multi-year lows struck in February, as the commodity has surged more than 80% since then, jumping 41% in August alone to nearly $140 a tonne, the highest level in over two and a half years.
 
The rally has been triggered in part by Beijing’s decision to limit coal mines operating days to 276 or fewer a year. In addition, recent heavy rains in the key mining province of Shanxi, have significantly reduced the number of available roads and damaged other transportation infrastructure, curbing local supplies.
 
Bad weather and operating issues have also kept supply subdued in Australia. The country, a main source of coking coal for major consumers such as India and China.
 
Based on figures released by Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Sciences in July, the country’s metallurgical coal production is expected to jump by roughly 2% to 192 million tonnes in the current financial year.
 
However, the agency also said that the country’s metallurgical coal export earnings are likely to decline by a further 5% to A$18.2 billion in 2016–17 due to “lower prices and subdued growth in volumes”.
 
Australia’s coal exports — both metallurgical and thermal — were worth A$37 billion in 2015, official data shows, which is equivalent to nearly 12% of all the nation’s exports of goods and services, and second only to iron ore in terms of total value.
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Cabinet meeting in brief www.en.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A governmental resolution was approved at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday on re-opening the hospital for special public servants. This hospital will serve for servicemen and authorities of emergency, border protection, law enforcement as well as people from the city’s Chingeltei district.
 
- A composition of the Council of Food Safety was reapproved. This Council is chaired by the Prime Minister.
 
- The cabinet reapproved a composition of an organizing commission for marking the 100th anniversary of Yu.Tsedenbal, a prominent political and social figure. The commission is led by head of the Cabinet Secretariat for Government.
 
- The cabinet decided to withdraw from parliament a draft amendment to the law on rule of maintaining the law on debt management and a bill on rule of maintaining some clauses of the law on the Bank of Mongolia.
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Ukraine to launch serial production of world’s biggest aircraft together with China www.rt.com

Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Antonov and China’s Aerospace Industry Corporation have signed a deal which will facilitate the serial production of the world’s largest aircraft, the AN-225 Mriya (‘Dream’), in China.
Negotiations between the two enterprises have been held since May 2016 and the deal was signed on August 30 in Beijing.
 
“On August 30, Antonov [Company] and Aerospace Industry Corporation of China (AICC) signed an agreement on cooperation on the AN-225 project,” Antonov’s press service said in a statement, UNIAN news agency reported. The company added that cooperation between the two companies include the projected construction of the second aircraft of its kind in Ukraine and its handover to China at the first stage of the project, as well as the creation of an aircraft production line under a Ukrainian license in China at the second stage.
 
Representatives of Antonov Company told UNIAN that each stage of the project will be implemented under a separate contract. The two companies did not reveal any further details about the agreement and said nothing about the project deadlines or the planned numbers of the AN-225 aircraft set to be built in China.
 
Earlier, China’s CCTV Channel said on its Facebook page that Antonov Company sold all manufacturing rights and technological documents for the super-heavy air freighter AN-225 Mriya to the China Aerospace company. It added that the first AN-225 could be produced in China as early as in 2019.
 
Antonov’s press service dismissed these reports as untrue.
 
In May, Antonov’s deputy head said that Ukraine had been considering launching joint manufacturing production with China and was planning to invite Chinese investors to the project. On Wednesday, Antonov refused to make any comments on the deal and said that it will publish additional information about the negotiations with the Chinese company later, after its delegation returns from Beijing.
 
AN-225 is currently the biggest aircraft in the world, with a takeoff mass amounting to 640 tons and a working load of 250 tons. It was developed in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and was initially designed as a carrier for the Soviet Buran (Snowstorm) space shuttle.
 
The only existing AN-225 aircraft took its first flight in 1988 and is now operated by Antonov Airlines, which is a part of the Antonov Company.
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Eurozone inflation remains weak in August www.bbc.com

Eurozone inflation remained weak in August, raising the prospect of further action from the European Central Bank to stimulate the bloc's economy.
Inflation in the eurozone was 0.2%, unchanged from July and below analysts' forecasts of a slight increase.
The ECB has introduced a number of stimulus measures, but the inflation rate still remains some way off the bank's target of just below 2%.
Separate data showed the unemployment rate remained at 10.1% in July.
Analysts had been predicting a slight fall in the jobless rate.
ECB meeting
Eurozone inflation remained unchanged as prices of food, services, and industrial goods rose by less than in July, while the drop in energy prices was not as sharp.
In March this year, the ECB stepped up its attempts to stimulate the eurozone's economy, cutting its main interest rate from 0.05% to 0% and its bank deposit rate from minus 0.3% to minus 0.4%.
The ECB has stepped up its programme of quantitative easing, and is now buying €80bn worth of bonds a month.
The bank's rate-setting Governing Council is due to meet next week, although analysts are not sure whether it will announce new policy measures at the meeting.
"It looks to be a very tight call as to whether or not the ECB acts on 8 September or decides to maintain a 'wait and see' stance as to how the Eurozone economy is performing - we marginally lean towards the 'wait and see' view," said Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight.
However, Stephen Brow of Capital Economics said: "There is a strong case for the ECB to announce further policy easing. This could come as soon as the bank's meeting next week."

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SWIFT discloses more cyber thefts, pressures banks on security www.reuters.com

SWIFT, the global financial messaging system, on Tuesday disclosed new hacking attacks on its member banks as it pressured them to comply with security procedures instituted after February's high-profile $81 million heist at Bangladesh Bank.

In a private letter to clients, SWIFT said that new cyber-theft attempts - some of them successful - have surfaced since June, when it last updated customers on a string of attacks discovered after the attack on the Bangladesh central bank.

"Customers’ environments have been compromised, and subsequent attempts (were) made to send fraudulent payment instructions," according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Reuters. "The threat is persistent, adaptive and sophisticated - and it is here to stay."

The disclosure suggests that cyber thieves may have ramped up their efforts following the Bangladesh Bank heist, and that they specifically targeted banks with lax security procedures for SWIFT-enabled transfers.

The Brussels-based firm, a member-owned cooperative, indicated in Tuesday's letter that some victims in the new attacks lost money, but did not say how much was taken or how many of the attempted hacks succeeded. It did not identify specific victims, but said the banks varied in size and geography and used different methods for accessing SWIFT.

A SWIFT spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the recently uncovered incidents or the security issues detailed in the letter, saying the firm does not discuss affairs of specific customers.

All the victims shared one thing in common: Weaknesses in local security that attackers exploited to compromise local networks and send fraudulent messages requesting money transfers, according to the letter.

Accounts of the attack on Bangladesh Bank suggest that weak security procedures there made it easier to hack into computers used to send SWIFT messages requesting large money transfers. The bank lacked a firewall and used second-hand, $10 electronic switches to network those computers, according to the Bangladesh police.

SWIFT has repeatedly pushed banks to implement new security measures rolled out after the Bangladesh heist, including stronger systems for authenticating users and updates to its software for sending and receiving messages. But it has been difficult for SWIFT to force banks to comply because the nonprofit cooperative lacks regulatory authority over its members.

SWIFT told banks Tuesday that it might report them to regulators and banking partners if they failed to meet a November 19 deadline for installing the latest version of its software, which includes new security features designed to thwart the type of attacks described in its letter.

The security features include technology for verifying credentials of people accessing a bank's SWIFT system; stronger rules for password management; and better tools for identifying attempts to hack the software.

(For a graphic on how hackers made off with millions, clicktmsnrt.rs/29WrMai)

SWIFT is trying coerce members into prioritizing cyber-security by threatening to share confidential information about security lapses that banks want to keep private, said Shane Shook, an independent security consultant who advises central banks.

"That type of information sharing is something that no bank likes to see happen without their direct approval and involvement, because it can affect market confidence," Shook said.

SWIFT disclosed the new hacks after reports of previous incidents prompted regulators in Europe and the United States to urge banks to bolster cyber-security.

Other cases involving fraudulent transfer requests include the theft of more than $12 million from Ecuador's Banco del Austro and a failed attempt later in 2015 to steal money from Vietnam's Tien Phong Bank.

The attacks have prompted regulators globally to press banks to bolster defenses.

The Bank of England in April ordered UK firms to detail actions to secure computers connected to the SWIFT system, while the European Banking Authority in May said domestic authorities should stress test banks for cyber risks.

The Federal Reserve and other U.S. agencies told banks in June to review protections against fraudulent money transfers.

Six U.S. senators on Monday urged the G20 nations to agree when they meet at a summit this weekend on a “coordinated strategy to combat cyber-crime at critical financial institutions.”

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston. Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer in New York.; Editing by Brian Thevenot.)

 
 
 
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