April 4 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's National Emergency Management Agency on Monday issued a warning of forest and grassland fires.

There is a high risk of wildfires this spring due to the dry and windy weather in most parts of Mongolia, the agency said, warning the public to prevent possible wildfires.

Four wildfires were reported in the country over the weekend, burning over 25,000 hectares of forest and grassland, according to the agency.

People's negligence was the main cause of these wildfires, it said, urging citizens not to make open fires or throw cigarette butts on the ground

Slovakia will pay for Russian natural gas in rubles if that’s what it takes to keep the commodity flowing, Slovak Economy Minister Richard Sulik has said on national television.

“If there is a condition to pay in rubles, then we will pay in rubles,” Sulik said. He stressed that Russian imports account for roughly 85% of all Slovakian gas supplies, so the country’s authorities will remain pragmatic on the issue.

“We cannot be cut off from gas,” Sulik emphasized, urging the rest of Europe to jointly seek a solution.

Nearly all of the countries of the European Union, of which Slovakia is a member, slapped Russia with economic sanctions over the past month, jeopardizing Russia’s ability to receive payments from trade partners in the European currency. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week signed a decree introducing a new ruble gas payment mechanism.

Although it is viewed by some as going against existing gas contracts, the mechanism does not imply a change of the currency of payment. It enables buyers to open ruble accounts with Russian Gazprombank to facilitate the transfer of European companies’ payments to Russian suppliers.

According to Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, “de facto nothing will change for European companies… They will pay, as they used to, in euro, the same currency that is indicated in the contracts,” but the seller, Russia’s major gas exporter Gazprom, will be able to receive the funds in Russia’s national currency. Despite extensive explanations, however, many Russian buyers found themselves puzzled by the change. The initial reaction was mostly one of protest, with countries claiming they would not pay for gas in rubles. However, it appears that this will not be necessary at all.

The Slovakian economy minister, along with a number of other European politicians, said the situation calls for diversification of suppliers. But he said this may take years, while Slovakia has only two months to solve the current problem with fuel purchases.

April 3 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia has reported 65 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Asian country to 469,669, according to a statement released by the country's health ministry on Sunday.

Meanwhile, no new deaths from COVID-19 were reported in the past day, and the country's death toll has remained unchanged at 2,108.

In addition, there are a total of 1,052 active COVID-19 cases across the country.

Life has returned to normal in Mongolia due to high vaccination coverage and declining daily infections, with about 100 cases registered countrywide since mid-March.

Almost 67 percent of the country's population of 3.4 million have received two COVID-19 vaccine jabs, 1,032,876 people have received a third dose, and nearly 115,185 have received a voluntary fourth shot.

The Asian country has resumed in-person classes for all educational institutions and fully opened its borders to foreign tourists, who are no longer required to have a PCR test or be quarantined.

Lithuania’s government said on Saturday that it has halted all purchases of Russian natural gas, making irrelevant President Vladimir Putin’s demand that all “unfriendly states” pay for the fuel in rubles amid heavy sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

“In these circumstances, Russia’s demand to pay for gas in rubles is meaningless, as Lithuania no longer orders Russian gas and no longer plans to pay for it,” the Lithuanian Energy Ministry said in a statement.

Lithuania is first among the EU countries traditionally supplied by Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom to completely wean itself off imports from Moscow, Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys claimed. “This is the result of a multi-year, coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,” he said.

The ministry said that Lithuania’s gas distribution network has been operating without any supplies from Russia since Friday, which was Putin’s deadline for payment in rubles. The move came in response to “Russia’s energy blackmail” and the conflict in Ukraine, according to the statement.

Putin’s demand required buyers to open ruble accounts in Russian banks through which to pay for their gas. “If such payments aren’t made, we will consider this a failure by the client to comply with its obligations,” he said on Thursday. In response, Germany and Austria activated emergency plans for potential gas rationing.

All of Lithuania’s gas supplies now come through the Klaipeda LNG import terminal on the country’s Baltic Sea coast. The terminal has bookings for three large cargoes to arrive each month, the Energy Ministry said, and gas can also be provided through links with Latvia and Poland if necessary.

Russia supplies about 40% of the gas used by EU nations and around one third of their oil. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called for EU members to cut off both gas and oil imports from Russia. “Europe must stop buying Russian gas and oil because the Kremlin regime uses this money to finance destruction of Ukrainian cities and attacks on peaceful civilians,” Nauseda told reporters on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that it would be impossible for some countries, including his, to replace gas supplies from Russia. On top of that, Federation of German Industries President Siegfried Russwurm said on Thursday that German industry would “collapse” if it were cut off from Russian gas.

The Ukraine war has led the World Trade Organization (WTO) to cut its global trade growth forecast for this year.

The previous 4.7% growth forecast has been cut to 2.5% due to "the impact of the war and related policies", said WTO boss Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The cut is also linked to continuing global supply chain problems that started as a result of the pandemic.

She said disruptions would make food more costly, saying "my worry is that we have a food crisis that is brewing".

Dr Okonjo-Iweala told the BBC that although Russia and Ukraine only make up about 2.5% of global merchandise exports, they "are very, very significant in certain sectors".

"The first worry, of course, is for the people of Ukraine, who are being displaced [and] not having enough food to eat," she said.

She added the global economy was "going to suffer some severe consequences", and said poorer countries would particularly feel the impact of the shortages, and "the supply constraints on food".

Supplies of many food products including wheat and corn have been affected following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Industry groups have warned the EU faces a shortage of sunflower oil. In total, 46.9% of global exports come from Ukraine and 29.9% from Russia according to S&P Global, but with Ukraine's ports closed it is struggling to export it.

"I'm truly worried about looming hunger, particularly in poor countries that can least afford it," Dr Okonjo-Iweala warned.

Using Africa as an example, the former Nigerian finance minister said 35 of 55 countries there imported wheat and other grains from Russia and Ukraine and 22 imported fertiliser.

"Work being done by the African Development Bank now shows that in many countries, food prices are rising by 20% to 50% already," she said.

However, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said she was hopeful there were solutions to the supply problems.

She said in the short term countries could be "changing our dietary tastes" to eat more homegrown products.

She added in the longer term Africa was investing in "heat tolerant varieties of wheat and other crops" as it adapts to climate change.

As well as food prices surging, the cost of other commodities have hit record highs amid concerns the war and economic sanctions on Russia will lead to supply disruptions.

Russia's mining industry is hugely important for many substances such as palladium, where it is responsible for 40% of global production of the metal that is essential for carmakers.

Even before the war in Ukraine, the pandemic had caused a mismatch between supply and demand in many industries which pushed prices up, and the International Monetary Fund has warned that soaring inflation will reduce global economic growth this year.

"In the short to medium term, I think that we are going to see these inflationary pressures continue," Dr Okonjo-Iweala said.

Trade battle with Russia

Trade has become a key tool many countries have used to pressure President Vladimir Putin over his decision to invade Ukraine.

Ukraine has cut economic ties with Russia and led calls for it to be suspended from the WTO because of the war. However no country has ever been expelled from the WTO, something the Director-General said is "not an easy thing to do".

She says there is no mechanism to kick Russia out despite some leading international trade lawyers disagreeing.

When it is strategically designed, media development can have a positive impact on a country’s political and legal environment. An example is Mongolia, where DW Akademie’s engagement has been very successful.

Mongolia started the peaceful transition to parliamentary democracy in 1990, as the Soviet bloc was disintegrating. An unprecedented media boom came next. Today, the nation of 3.2 million people has more than 450 broadcasting channels and print periodicals.

According to Reporters without Borders (RSF – Reporters sans Frontières), the international non-governmental journalists’ organisation, almost 75 % of these media operations are controlled by politicians or people with close ties to politicians. Typically, the outlets serve a political agenda. The way they mix reporting and propaganda can be quite problematic.

The mission of DW Akademie

DW Akademie is Germany’s biggest media development organisation. Its work is geared to promoting the human rights both to access information and express one’s views freely (see Jörg Döbereiner on www.dandc.eu). These rights are spelled out in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. DW Akademie works on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry for economic cooperation and development (BMZ – Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und Zuammenarbeit), but also gets assignments from the German Foreign Office, the European Commission and other donor institutions. It runs projects in about 50 developing countries and emerging markets.

Editorial independence was the core topic of DW Akademie’s long-term project in Mongolia from 2013 on. In cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is close to Germany’s Social Democrats, the DW Akademie also helped to establish the Media Council of Mongolia (MCM) in 2015. The MCM is a private institution for the self-regulation of the media sector; it follows the European model. “A dream came true,” says Gunjidmaa Gongor. As co-founder of the MCM, she is currently its director. In her eyes, action had to be taken to safeguard professional ethical standards and media work because too many journalists were willing to support PR campaigns or suppress news when bribed to do so.

The MCM adopted a national ethics code and established a complaint mechanism. It appointed journalists, owners of media houses and representatives of civil society to its ethics commission, which has dealt with 500 complaints since 2015. Its decisions are public – and well argued.

Police officers assessing media work

There have been unplanned side effects. In 2017, Mongolia’s parliament decided that insults and other so-called honour delinquencies are misdemeanours which the police should prosecute. The implication was that police officers were suddenly assessing journalists’ criticism of people with great influence. This was outrageous, says Gongor. She points out that police officers are not qualified to weigh the personal rights of powerful people against the fundamental freedom of speech.

The MCM expressed its opposition to this rule in very clear terms. Two years later, the law was changed again, which showed that the MCM had become an important player in the public arena.

In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was some backsliding in regard to press freedom. The government made it illegal to rely on non-governmental sources in the coverage of the crisis. For the first time since 1990, something like censorship happened. The MCM documented cases and spoke out against them in a series of official statements.

The good news is that the MCM and the DW Akademie launched a project to resolve this conflict in early 2021. It relies on funding from the BMZ’s Global Crisis Initiative. Today, new “Crisis Communication Chapter” allow journalists, governmental experts and civil-society organisations to test new channels and formats of crisis communication. On this basis, free speech and press freedom can be safeguarded in future crisis.

Sheila Mysorekar is a freelance journalist and a senior consultant for DW Akademie.

sheila.mysorekar@dw.com

On April 1, 2022, Director-General of the Department of Policy Planning of the Foreign Ministry Miao Deyu met with Mongolian Ambassador to China Tuvshin Badral.

Director-General Miao Deyu introduced China's policies and ideas on promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and a new type of international relations in light of the current international situation. He also exchanged in-depth views with the other side on China-Mongolia relations and related issues of common concern. Ambassador Badral thanked the Chinese side for its in-depth introduction and expressed his readiness to maintain close communication with the Chinese side to further deepen exchanges and cooperation in the field of foreign policy and promote all-round and in-depth development of Mongolia-China relations.

On March 31, Deputy Prime Minister S.Amarsaikhan received the executives of Exim Bank of India and Engineers India Limited, the consultation company in charge of providing services for the management of the oil refinery construction project.

The meeting was also attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of India to Mongolia M.P.Singh.

The sides highlighted how the price of materials and their transport fees have increased due to the current situation, creating significant challenges in continuing onto the next stage of the project.

During the meeting, Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry G.Yondon said, “I am confident that works for the historic project being implemented by our two countries will be completed on time. The refinery’s construction work is being carried out as planned. Thus, I am putting forth a suggestion to urgently complete the process to select bidders, and continue to implement the project without losing any time.”

Deputy Prime Minister S.Amarsaikhan said, “The Government of Mongolia is paying special attention to the project being jointly implemented by the two countries. Thus, I believe that the pressing issues will be urgently resolved. It needs to pay attention to the estimation of potential risk and costs and the greater use of the workforce and materials available in Mongolia.”

The sides agreed to further discuss the matter at another meeting.

The global copper industry needs to spend more than $100 billion to build mines able to close what could be an annual supply deficit of 4.7 million tonnes by 2030, Erik Heimlich, head of base metals supply at CRU said this week.

Speaking at the 2022 CRU World Copper Conference held in Santiago, Chile, the analyst said the supply gap for the next decade is estimated at six million tonnes per year, as the clean energy and electric vehicles sectors ramp up.

This means the world would need to build eight projects the size of BHP’s (ASX: BHP) Escondida in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine, over the next eight years. Such task, Heimlich said, seems questionable – “possible” rather than “probable”, given the bigger scale developments required and the fact that about half the projects in the pipeline are greenfield.

“Historically, the completion rates of these projects have been low. A large share of the greenfield possible projects in 2012 remain under-developed so there are questions about the ability to respond to the supply gap in an efficient and timely manner,” he said, as reported by Mining Journal.

Some major copper mines have come online in the last three years. First Quatum’s (TSX: FM) Cobre Panama achieved commercial production in September 2019. The asset is estimated to hold 3.1 billion tonnes in proven and probable reserves and at full capacity can produce more than 300,000 tonnes of copper per year.

Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN), began copper concentrate production at its Kamoa-Kakula project in the DRC in May last year, achieving commercial production in July.

Anglo American (LON: AAL) mined first ore at its Quellaveco mine, located in the Moquegua region of Peru, in October 2021. The asset is expected to reach commercial production by mid-2022, generating between 120,000 and 160,000 tonnes of copper this year, and 300,000 tonnes annually for the first 10 years at full production.

Pipeline of hopes

While copper projects are in the pipeline, producers are wary of repeating oversupply mistakes of past cycles by speeding up plans at a time when mines are getting a lot trickier and pricier to build.

Prices for the metal have traded around decade highs, though they fell on Thursday to $10,410 a tonne due to concerns over demand in top consumer China, which is grappling with the worst resurgence of covid-19 cases since early 2020.

Bank of America (BofA) Global Research’s latest report backs CRU’s forecast. According to the bank’s analysts, visibility over the near-term copper project pipeline is good, but activity increases will “come with a wrinkle”.

“Many of the projects currently developed have been in the making for almost three decades, and with exploration activity relatively limited in recent years, supply increases may fade from 2025,” the experts said.

A lump of next decade’s new supply will potentially come from the Reko Diq deposit in Pakistan, as Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX) (NYSE: GOLD) reached a deal last week that ended long-running dispute with the country’s government.

Alcantara Group’s Tampakan project in the Philippines is also expected to contribute closing the global supply gap and so is Seabridge Gold’s KSM project in British Columbia, Canada.

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) is developing a $6.93 billion underground expansion of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia, which has been plagued by delays and costs overruns. First production has been deferred several times and it is now expected in the first half of 2023.

The market is also following closely what SolGold (TSX, LON: SOLG) is doing with its Alpala copper-gold project at the Cascabel property in Ecuador.

The company has yet to publish a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project, but it says that once developed, it would produce an average of 150,000 tonnes of copper, 245,000 ounces of gold and 913,000 ounces of silver in concentrate per year during its 55-year life-of-mine.

Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) might have a chance to see the licence for its $2.4 billion Jadar lithium project in Serbia reinstated if the country’s pro-mining president, Aleksandar Vučić, and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) win the elections this weekend, analysts believe.

The country heads to the polls on Sunday to vote for both president and parliament, with opinion surveys showing that Vučić is likely to win another five-year term and that the SNS is also set to win a majority.

An SNS victory is likely to deal a blow to the environmental movement blossoming in the country since September 2021, Capucine May, Europe Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft said.

Over the past five months, green groups such as Ecological Uprising and Kreni Promeni have used high-profile mining projects — notably Rio Tinto’s Jadar lithium project – as rallying points for their cause, May said.

Protests gained momentum when the government attempted to reform the referendum and expropriation laws in November 2021, which activists saw as easing the way for foreign miners into the country.

“This gave environmental protests an anti-government element and proved to be a unifying force for the historically fragmented political opposition in Serbia,” the Verisk Maplecroft expert noted.

May believes Belgrade’s latest concessions, including pulling the plug on Jadar and leaving expropriation laws unchanged, were part of a political strategy to secure a win on April 3.

“Once re-elected, we expect the SNS will maintain its pro-mining stance,” May said. “The fact that the government has so far refused to consider a potential lithium mining ban in Serbia points in this direction.”

While rather unlikely, there is a chance the SNS will re-issue permits for Jadar, May noted, adding that locals have reported that Rio Tinto continues to buy land in the Western Serbian region, which is rich in jadarite. The new mineral containing lithium and boron was discovered by the Rio’s geologists in 2004.

Vučić’s critics say his popularity is due to his autocratic style of rule, which includes firm control of media and benefits such as employment in state-run firms that they say are reserved for his supporters.

The Verisk Maplecroft analyst believes Serbia’s governance reputation could be affected should Vučić reinstate Rio’s licence for the Jadar project. She predicts such move, while unlikely, would trigger a fresh wave of protests.

Battery ambitions

Rio Tinto had invested $450 million on pre-feasibility and other studies for Jadar as of January this year.

It has also spent years developing technology to economically extract lithium from jadarite and it even shipped a pilot lithium processing plant last year to Serbia in four 40-foot (12 m) shipping containers of equipment.

The Jadar lithium project was slated to be Europe’s biggest mine of the battery metal, with a production of 58,000 tonnes of refined battery-grade lithium carbonate per year, enough to power one million electric vehicles.

Over the past five years, the company has tried expanding its footprint in the battery market. In 2018, it reportedly attempted to buy a $5bn stake in Chile’s Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), the world’s second largest lithium producer.

In April 2021, the miner kicked off lithium production from waste rock at a demonstration plant located at a borates mine it controls in California.

Rio took another step into the lithium market this week, completing the acquisition of the Rincon lithium project in Argentina for $825 million, which has reserves of almost two million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent, sufficient for a 40-year mine life.