Rio Tinto Group said it’s close to a breakthrough in a landmark deal to unlock the world’s biggest untapped iron ore mine.

Efforts to develop the massive Simandou project in Guinea have been stymied for years by a litany of disputes over ownership and infrastructure, and by political changes in Guinea. Negotiations between investors and the Guinean government to build a railway for exporting ore may now be nearing a resolution, said Rio Chief Executive Officer Jakob Stausholm.

“We might be very close,” he said in an interview after the company reported first half results on Wednesday. “It could happen very quickly.”

Simandou is divided into four blocks, with blocks 1 and 2 controlled by the Winning Consortium Simandou, backed by Chinese and Singaporean companies, while Rio Tinto and Aluminum Corp. of China, known as Chinalco, own blocks 3 and 4.

Simandou offers a potentially huge new source of supply for Rio, the world’s largest iron ore producer, while China sees the project as key to easing its steel industry’s dependence on Australian output. The world’s top steel-producing nation recently embarked on one of the biggest shake-ups of the global iron ore market in more than a decade by setting up a new state-owned group, designed to be a hub for huge overseas mine investments and buying the steelmaking material from international suppliers.

Earlier this year, the two consortiums at Simandou struck a deal to jointly build a 650 kilometer (404 mile) railway linking the mine to a planned port. As part of the deal, the government received a 15% stake in the infrastructure, matching its ownership stake in the mines. Yet talks about how the rail line will be paid for have dragged on.

Rio Tinto’s negotiating team, led by executive Bold Baatar, is currently in the capital Conakry, where talks with the parties are ongoing, Stausholm said. He declined to comment on the specifics of the discussions.

Negotiations have been centered over whether the government should have to pay for its share of the rail and port building costs, according to people familiar with the situation. Rio and the Winning consortium had offered an interest-free loan to cover the government’s costs, while the government pushed for a free carry for its stake, the people said. Rio had been willing to renegotiate the point but the Winning group’s stance was less clear, the people said.

Spokespeople for Winning and Guinea didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The railway could cost more than $10 billion, according to earlier estimates, although an updated cost forecast is not expected until after an agreement is struck.

The Guinean government has sought to force the hand of the companies involved. Earlier this month, the government ordered both consortiums to halt activity in the country, citing their failure to reach a deal on collaboration. Mining Minister Moussa Magassouba also said the country was prepared to develop the project without the two consortiums if an agreement wasn’t forthcoming.

“I don’t have much concern,” said Stausholm. “If we’re not able to sign a deal in the foreseeable future I’ll be more concerned.”

Getting Simandou under development would be a second major win for the CEO, after striking a deal with Mongolia earlier this year on Rio’s flagship copper project. Since taking the helm just over a year ago, the CEO has prioritized getting stalled projects moving, while rebuilding the company’s reputation after a series of missteps.

(By Thomas Biesheuvel and Alfred Cang, with assistance from Ougna Camara)

At its regular meeting dated July 27, Prime Minister L.Oyun-Erdene tasked the relevant organizations such as Ministry of Finance, Independent Authority Against Corruption of Mongolia, and National Police Agency to;

- check the implementation of the Law on State Austerity as it has been three months since its approval,

- investigate whether the officials who started the process of selecting road contractor for the Ulaanbaatar-Darkhan route are guilty or not,

- and to promptly organizing works, such as inspecting the reason why the Zuunbayan-Gashuunsukhait railway line was not constructed in 2008-2019, estimating the lost opportunities, and setting up an inspection team.

The Cabinet has decided to spend MNT 6.5 billion from the government’s reserve fund to keep the price of diesel fuel at the same level as it was during the last spring’s sowing.

The price of diesel fuel was MNT 3,380 per liter during the last sowing season. However, it is MNT 4,030 today, increasing by 19.6 percent. An average of 20-25 thousand tons of fuel is needed every spring sowing and autumn harvesting. The price of 10 thousand tons of diesel will be kept at the same level as the last spring’s sowing.

The decision is aimed at keeping the price of wheat, flour, and other food products stable, highlighted the Minister of Agriculture and Light Industry Z.Mendsaikhan.

This year, sowing has been made to 478.7 thousand hectares nationwide, of which grain in 347.7 thousand hectares (wheat in 331.0 thousand hectares), potatoes in 17.9 thousand hectares, vegetables in 7.9 thousand hectares, fodder plants in 16.8 thousand hectares, and oil plants in 81.2 thousand hectares.

A week ago, I went on a trip to Mongolia. The country was more vibrant than ever, as if the pandemic was already well in the past. The impetus for this particular trip was Dr. Yeosang Yoon and his team’s research on the lives and human rights situation of overseas North Korean workers, which was published by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) back in 2016. Between sanctions against North Korea and the pandemic, I naturally wanted to get out in the field and investigate how the North Korean workers dispatched to Mongolia were faring. Ultimately, I found that due to sanctions there were no North Korean workers officially staying in Mongolia.

North Korean labor in Mongolia can be broadly divided into three types. First, there are those working and running North Korean restaurants, much like the kinds operated in China, Russia, and parts of Southeast Asia. Second, there are workers dispatched to construction projects in urban areas, such as Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. Third, there are the workers dispatched to factories manufacturing cashmere, one of Mongolia’s key industries.

As for North Korean restaurants in Mongolia, there used to be three thriving restaurants operating in central Ulaanbaatar under the names “Pyongyang Baekhwagwan,” “Pyongyang Restaurant,” and “Pyongyang Koryo Folk Restaurant.” I verified that none of these three restaurants were operating. At “Pyongyang Baekhwagwan,” the restaurant sign had an “under construction” notice still up, and new shops had moved into the locations of the other two restaurants. According to a source in Mongolia, the North Korean embassy in Mongolia owned “Pyongyang Baekhwagwan,” which meant that it was not completely shut down; rather, it had temporarily suspended operations. The source also told me that the restaurant’s sign remained up and embassy officials regularly came by to inspect the shops.

Meanwhile, construction workers have become scarce in Mongolia, at least officially. In Russia, crowded flights and trains prevented some workers from returning to North Korea following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even now, some workers are tacitly employed on house remodeling projects and other small-scale construction projects. However, North Korea had already officially pulled workers out of the country before the UN-mandated deadline of December 22, 2019. Since then, COVID-19 has made it difficult for North Korea to send large numbers of workers to the country.

A photo of the Pyongyang Baekhwagwan restaurant. The photo on the left shows a note saying the restaurant is closed for construction work. (Kang Dong Wan)

North Korea’s largely female workforce in Mongolia’s cashmere factories has also disappeared. During my trip, I paid a visit to a cashmere factory that had once employed about eight hundred North Korean workers. Factory officials there told me that they no longer employ North Korean laborers. I found that the situation at local hospitals was much the same. North Korean doctors, who had primarily practiced traditional Korean medicine such as acupuncture and physical therapy, had all left the country. On the signboard advertising the hospital, only the North Korean and Mongolian flags hanging side-by-side remained and there were no North Korean doctors to be found. Was that why nothing but a sense of desolation seemed to hang over the North Korean embassy in the heart of downtown Ulaanbaatar?

Some people are calling for sanctions on North Korea to be lifted. However, we need to look back on why North Korea was slapped with sanctions in the first place. The sanctions began with North Korea’s nuclear tests and long-range missile launches. We shouldn’t view the issue as one where an innocent North Korea is suffering because of sanctions. Rather than look at our government or international society as imposing unjust pressure or sanctions, we would be better served by urging North Korean authorities to quickly suspend nuclear development and set out on the path towards economic reforms and opening.

Finally, I took a walk through Mongolia’s desert. I had heard testimony from a defector who had spent weeks crossing the desert without so much as a drop of water and knew I had to try walking in their shoes. After only a few steps, I had sunk up to my ankles in a sand trap; it was so hard to breathe I felt like I would die! I had imagined something romantic, looking up at the Milky Way and casting my body away into the starlight, but this was no such place. In short, the desert made me feel like I was standing at the crossroads between life and death.

I felt utterly ashamed and contrite in the face of those defectors. I had come to understand just a fraction of what it must have been like to walk and walk for days across the desert chasing their hope for freedom. In the desert, where a single step can decide life or death, just how many defectors have disappeared into the darkness? Even now, the procession of defectors continues. The Kim Jong Un regime has doggedly pursued nuclear weapons with no end in sight to the barrage of tests. What we need right now is not unconditional dialogue. As for our deference towards Kim Jong Un and efforts to curry favor with the regime, the last five years have been sufficient. You can’t speak of peace with nuclear weapons balanced on your head. Standing in the middle of Mongolia’s desert, I was hit by this simple truth: we must make improving North Korean human rights our foremost priority and work to expand liberal democratic values in the country. With this renewed conviction, I returned home.

Translated by Rose Adams

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

The Office of President of Mongolia, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the United Nations and UNA Mongolia are launching the UN Youth Delegate - Environmental Leadership program in August 2022 to enable youth to participate in biodiversity and to bring their voices to the national and global decision-making levels.

The program will select 30 young people aged from 18 to 30 who will be able to attend seminars on various environmental issues for two months and implement an environmentally friendly project. The top two participants will have the opportunity to represent Mongolian youth at UN international conferences in Egypt and Canada.

Once the UN Youth Delegates attend the conferences, they jointly organize a National Youth Dialogue to share their knowledge and identify opportunities and next steps for youth participation in protecting the environment.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Wang Yi will pay an official visit to Mongolia in August. During today’s press conference to present the decisions made at the Cabinet meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs B.Battsetseg briefed on the upcoming visit.

The visit is expected to mainly focus on strengthening Mongolia-China comprehensive strategic partnership and holding talks on economic cooperation and operations of border checkpoints.

The exact date of the visit will be decided by the two countries in the near future, said the Minister.

MBD's official partner, one of the leading taxpayers (TOP 10) of Mongolia, Shunkhlai Holding LLC welcomes potential candidates to the following open positions at the group companies.

Shunkhlai LLC was established in 1993 with its first operations in the area of vehicle repair services and petroleum product import and distribution, it later diversified its operations into the food industry, information technology, telecommunication, real estate, convenient store chain, media, automobile distribution, and technology and it employs more than 5000 people in its over 30 main and sub businesses.

Please visit the following link for TOR and information in detail about each position. http://mongolianbusinessdatabase.com/base/jobs

Graphic designer (Media Group LLC)

Video Editor ("Media Group" LLC)

Project administrator (SD Engineering and Construction LLC)

Union alarm control engineer ("SD Engineering and Construction" LLC)

Equipment Manager (Digital Concept LLC)

Chief technologist of food production (Digital Concept LLC)

Head of Food Production (Digital Concept LLC)

Human resource manager (Digital concept LLC)

Payroll Manager (Digital Concept LLC)

Senior Training Manager (Shunkhlai LLC)

Director of Human Resources (Digital Concept LLC)

Legal advisor (Digital Concept LLC)

Cleaning service worker (SD service LLC)

Erdene Resource Development Corporation (TSX: ERD) has expanded known mineralisation at the Ulaan SE discovery to the west and at depth with the Q2 2022 drill programme located 300 metres west of the construction ready Bayan Khundii Gold Project in southwest Mongolia.

This programme also intersected an interpreted high-grade, gold bearing “feeder” structure. Follow-up exploration at Ulaan SE is currently underway.

Highlights

UDH-53 returned high-grade mineralization within a projected feeder zone, including 2 metres of 24.9 g/t gold within 27 metres of 3.47 g/t gold

UDH-52, 60 metres SSE of UDH-53, intersected a wide zone of mineralisation – 189 metres averaging 0.8 g/t gold

Mineralization at Ulaan SE has been traced over a 200 metre strike, to a depth of 450 metres, that remains open to the west and at depth; highlights of Q2 drilling include:

UDH-35 included the highest average grade intersection to date at Ulaan SE

Intersected 23 metres of 13.7 g/t gold within 41 metres of 8.1 g/t gold, beginning 187 metres downhole

UDH-21, including the hole extension, returned one of the thickest gold zones in the Khundii District

Intersected 335 metres of 1.1 g/t gold, beginning 115 metres downhole, ending in mineralization

Includes 27 metres of 8.7 g/t gold, within 77 metres of 3.2 g/t gold

UDH-36 intersected 179 metres of 1.2 g/t gold, beginning 72 metres downhole

Includes several one-metre, high-grade intersections, ranging from 10-33 g/t gold, and ending in mineralization at 350 metres

“Ulaan drilling has returned very high grade zones in the feeder structure as well as exceptionally thick zones of mineralisation, exceeding 300 metres, which remain open, in the core of the discovery,” President and CEO, Peter Akerley, said.

“This newest Khundii District discovery is interpreted as the western extension of the Bayan Khundii deposit, demonstrating the resource expansion potential from deeper exploration in the District.

“In the past week, we launched a follow-up exploration program. The outcome of this programme as well as the results from the recently completed regional reverse-circulation (RC) programme, will focus our exploration work for the balance of 2022.

“We are confident that we are well on our way to achieving our two million ounce gold equivalent resource target by the end of the year.”

For further information please visit: https://erdene.com/

At least six child jockeys have died during horse races in Mongolia so far this year, the country's Authority for Family, Child and Youth Development said Tuesday.

The statement came after a 10-year-old girl jockey died during a horse race in Tuvshinshiree soum of the eastern province of Sukhbaatar on Monday.

Many small and large horse races are held throughout the year in Mongolia. During the horse races, over 290 child jockeys have been seriously or slightly injured, the authority said.

By law, the minimum age of child jockeys is eight years old. However, the rule is not applied to all horse races in the country.