Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia registered 309 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the lowest since Jan. 3, bringing the national tally to 462,406, the country's health ministry said Monday.

Meanwhile, no more COVID-19 related deaths were recorded in the past day, and the country's death toll remains at 2,087, it said.

So far, 66.8 percent of the country's 3.4 million people have received two COVID-19 vaccine doses, while more than 1 million people over 18 received one booster.

The country started to administer a voluntary fourth shot in January, and over 96,100 people have received it.

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's new social media venture, Truth Social, launched late on Sunday in Apple's App Store, potentially marking the former president's return to social media after he was banned from several platforms last year.

The app was available to download shortly before midnight ET and was automatically downloaded to Apple Inc (AAPL.O) devices belonging to users who had pre-ordered the app.

Some users reported either having trouble registering for an account or were added to a waitlist with a message: "Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist."

The app has been available for people invited to use it during its test phase, Reuters previously reported.

Trump was banned from Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), Facebook (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, after he was accused of posting messages inciting violence.

Led by former Republican U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the venture behind Truth Social, joins a growing portfolio of technology companies that are positioning themselves as champions of free speech and hope to draw users who feel their views are suppressed on more established platforms.

So far none of the newer companies, which include Twitter competitors Gettr and Parler and video site Rumble, have come close to matching the popularity of their mainstream counterparts.

"This week we will begin to roll out on the Apple App Store. That's going to be awesome, because we're going to get so many more people that are going to be on the platform," Nunes said in a Sunday appearance on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo".

"Our goal is, I think we're going to hit it, I think by the by the end of March we're going to be fully operational at least within the United States," he added.

Truth Social's app store page detailing its version history showed the first public version of the app, or version 1.0 was available a day ago, confirming a Reuters report. The current version 1.0.1 includes "bug fixes," according to the page.

DRUMMING SUPPORT

On Friday, Nunes was on the app urging users to follow more accounts, share photos and videos and participate in conversations, in an apparent attempt to drum up activity, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Among Nunes' posts, he welcomed a new user who appeared to be a Catholic priest and encouraged him to invite more priests to join, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.

Even as details of the app begin trickling out, TMTG remains mostly shrouded in secrecy and is regarded with skepticism by some in tech and media circles. It is unclear, for example, how the company is funding its current growth.

TMTG is planning to list in New York through a merger with blank-check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O) (DWAC) and stands to receive $293 million in cash that DWAC holds in a trust, assuming no DWAC shareholder redeems their shares, TMTG said in an Oct. 21 press release.

Additionally, in December TMTG raised $1 billion committed financing from private investors; that money also will not be available until the DWAC deal closes. read more

Digital World's activities have come under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to a regulatory filing, and the deal is likely months away from closing.

Reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco and Helen Coster in New York; Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Lincoln Feast

Mongolia’s government has announced a ‘comprehensive’ plan to help its economy rebound from the shock of the pandemic, but it contains no policies designed specifically to reduce poverty, Ariun-Erdene Bayarjargal writes.

Though pandemics do not ‘die’, COVID-19 is likely to fade away from central focus in 2022. As the world transitions into post-pandemic life and into a new normal, policymakers are now looking at recovery options for economies hit hard by the pandemic. Mongolia is no exception.

Mongolia’s economy contracted by 5.3 per cent in 2020, the largest decline in last two decades, but a strong return on exports helped the economy to rebound in the first half of 2021.

High commodity prices, particularly of mining products, in the world market led to a positive balance of trade despite raw volume of exports decreasing. The International Monetary Fund’s Mongolia outlook indicates growth is expected to be 7.5 per cent in 2022.

Alongside this expectation of strong growth, though, is inflation. Supply-chain disruption induced by border closures caused annual inflation to reach 13.4 per cent as of December last year, and hikes in food and fuel prices have also contributed to inflation.

Consequently, the Bank of Mongolia has shifted to a tighter monetary policy, raising its policy rate by 0.5 points from its historic low level of six per cent at the end of January and increasing reserve requirements.

In terms of vaccines, the government of Mongolia managed to secure vaccines for its population by taking an advantage of its proximity to two large vaccine-producing countries in China and Russia.

By the end of January 2022, over 60 per cent of the adult population had received at least one dose of a vaccine. However this vaccination rate, which is among the highest for lower-middle income countries, has not translated into socio-economic normality, and difficult economic conditions continue to affect the livelihoods of many Mongolians.

Like many other countries, in 2020 the government adopted a generous set of fiscal measures to ease the impact of the pandemic on households. These steps included quintupling child allowance money, doubling food stamp allowance, and substantially raising social welfare payments for the vulnerable.

The total size of the package including tax exemptions and support to small and medium businesses reached 7.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in total by August 2020.

Further lockdowns caused income losses to households and firms in 2021, and the government continued the relief package by distributing a cash handout of 300 thousand Mongolian Tögrög (US$104) to every citizen, costing the budget equivalent to 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Overall, 2.4 million people received social assistance, with child allowance money making up 49.6 per cent of assistance received. Of households affected by economic shocks related to COVID-19 pandemic, those employed in low-skilled and/or informal sectors, those with limited economic security, and those living just above the national poverty line were disproportionately impacted and remain at a high risk of falling into poverty.

One micro-simulation analysis by the World Bank indicates the poverty rate could have increased between 5.4 and 7.9 percentage points compared to the pre-COVID-19 projections in the absence of the government’s mitigation policy.

Although these relief programs helped many households retain their income, their rapid withdrawal could create significant difficulties in the wake of increasing inflation. The challenge Mongolia faces now is that it has limited fiscal capacity but must continue supporting its people as the economy recovers. On top of this, further expansionary fiscal policy could lead to currency pressures, exacerbating inflation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the structure and conditions of Mongolia’s labour market. The country’s labour force participation rate is more than two percentage points below 2019 levels as of the third quarter of 2021.

More on this:India’s road to recovery

The service sector, which employs the largest share of workers on casual basis of any industry, was hit hard by the pandemic and the recovery has been slow due to mobility restrictions. Job losses were inevitable in a sector where workers were mostly ineligible for social security payments and other benefits, like paid leave.

This has made marginal income losses even larger among the poor. Women were affected disproportionately too, as they make up the majority of workforce in the service sector, and many were forced out of the labour force to care for children during lockdowns.

Studies have shown that the poor are more vulnerable to unemployment and inflation shocks than the rich, and Mongolia’s situation is no different. There is no doubt the pandemic has exacerbated the vulnerability of certain groups and widening inequality in the country.

Mongolia, like other countries, is shifting from policies focused on short-term economic relief towards accelerating recovery and building resilience. The parliament of Mongolia announced its plan, dubbed the ‘New Revival Policy’, at the end of December 2021, in addition to a four-year plan approved by the government in February 2021.

It focuses on medium-term development issues and outlines improving labour force participation, but it contains a glaring omission – a concrete plan for reducing poverty.

The ‘comprehensive plan’ will cost roughly $3.4 billion, or approximately a quarter of the country’s 2020 GDP in current prices.

The New Revival Policy is on top of this plan and extends this amount to more than $30 billion in the long run. With the government’s yearly revenue in 2021 reaching only $5 billion, it is not at all certain where the fiscal space to finance these programs is coming from in the long term.

While the plan does address issues related to improving youth employment and skills development, along with supporting small and medium businesses, it isn’t acceptable for there to be no specific action outlined for tackling poverty and inequality.

Of course, the government must adopt an integrated and fiscally viable approach to boost medium-term economic prospects and job creation, but it also needs to take specific action to tackle the socio-economic issues facing the Mongolian people, and poverty and inequality are the biggest of these problems.

The onset of humid conditions around 1200 BCE in the area of modern-day Mongolia appears to have been a key driver in the expansion of the great equestrian empires of the Eastern Steppes, researchers report.

The repeated expansion of East Asian steppe cultures has been a key driver of Eurasian history.

The rise of transcontinental, pastoral empires linking eastern and western Eurasia across the steppes had a tremendous transformative effect on human societies, facilitating the spread of people, goods, and ideas — as well as domestic animals, plants, and catastrophic disease.

The Mongolian steppe was first occupied by pastoral people around 3000 BCE, when early herders appear to have migrated to the region from western Asia.

Around 1200 BCE, domestic horses were used first for transport by mobile herders and other Bronze Age culture groups.

The emergence of a horse culture changed mobility for the steppe cultures, leading to the rise of important nomadic societies such as the Xiongnu, from around 200 BCE to 100 CE, and the Great Mongol Empire, which rose to global dominance under Genghis Khan in the early 13th century CE.

For these pastoral empires, extensive and productive grasslands provided the engine for both economic and political power.

However, in the dry and harsh steppes of eastern Eurasia, minor climate variations can have large impacts on the water balance, biomass production, and ecosystem carrying capacity.

The close coupling between precipitation, temperature and domestic animal productivity gave rise to the hypothesis that climate changes may have played an important role in the way human history unfolded in Central Asia.

Researchers, writing in the journal Scientific Reports, noted that while climate is proposed as an important driver of these poorly understood cultural expansions, paleoclimate records from the Mongolian Plateau can be difficult to interpret.

The study team used a combination of geochemical analyses and comprehensive radiocarbon dating to establish what they describe as the first robust and detailed record of paleohydrological conditions for the Lake Telmen region of Mongolia, covering the past 4000 or so years.

Analysis by Julian Struck and his fellow researchers showed that humid conditions coincided with solar minima – the part of the 11-year solar cycle when sunspot and solar flare activity is at a minimum.

Careful comparisons with archaeological and historical records suggest that solar minima led to reduced temperatures, less evaporation, and higher biomass production across the vast semi-arid grasslands of eastern Eurasia, expanding the power base for pastoral economies and horse cavalry.

The sustained humid conditions that arose likely enabled the expansion of fertile grasslands, allowing people to raise larger numbers of livestock and horses for both meat and dairy production.

While smaller herds are more vulnerable to loss from disease, predation, or weather, larger herds often prove more resilient.

The researchers said periods of environmental productivity appear to have encouraged the formation of larger steppe social networks.

As the key engine of pre-industrial transport and warfare in Eurasia, horses directly impacted the military and transport capacity of steppe societies, while long military campaigns also often required grazing areas for other livestock.

“Together, these and other factors likely helped create an uncommonly close causal link between environmental dynamics and sociopolitical developments in the Mongolian grasslands,” they said.

The onset of humid conditions around 1200 BCE coincided with drastic social changes across central Mongolia, including the first emergence of a horse culture and evidence of widespread social integration across the eastern steppe.

In contrast to earlier pastoralists, who were apparently constrained largely to mountain margins, the late Bronze Age herders in the area made use of the open grasslands and desert regions.

At some sites, hundreds or even thousands of horse burials testify to the expanded ecological and social significance of horses.

“The epicenter of this dramatic emergence of horse culture appears to have been central Mongolia,” they said, “with large funerary and monument complexes emerging in the Khangai Mountain Range.

“Our results suggest that the expansion of the region’s first culture, which spread as far as Trans Baikal, Tuva, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, and China, was supported by wet conditions driven by a solar minimum.”

While the grand solar minimum from 800 to 600 BCE, coupled with a known weakening of the North Atlantic Oscillation – a weather phenomenon over the North Atlantic – was associated with a general climate and environmental crisis triggering human migrations and the collapse of cultures in parts of northern Europe, the study found the opposite in Mongolia.

Instead, there was an increase in effective ecosystem moisture and positive socio-environmental impacts because of better growing conditions, and an expansion of fertile grasslands.

It was during the grand solar minimum that key social changes and the emergence of the first integrated pastoral empires took place during a prolonged period of humid conditions.

Mongolia witnessed an expansion of the Slab Burial culture that yielded the first direct evidence of riding tack, and royal equestrian burials. The earliest evidence for horsemanship appears in the archaeological record at Arzhan, in Tuva, and early mounted Scythian groups spread westward out of interior Asia.

From this first expansion of horse culture, the prolonged humid conditions in central Mongolia supported the convergence of Mongolia’s first united pastoral polities (organized societies).

“The Xiongnu Empire thrived particularly between 200 BCE and 100 CE, when climate conditions were also predominantly humid at Lake Telmen and Lake Khar Nuur.

“Extensive fertile grasslands favored pastoralism, while this period also saw the adoption of agriculture, the establishment of village-like settlements, increased gene flow with East and Central Asia, and extensive trade relations were established as far as the Mediterranean.”

Complemented by new military and organizational techniques, climatic and environmental conditions favorable for animal pastoralism enabled the Xiongnu to form a large and powerful politically structured empire.

“This prolonged period of favorable climate-human interaction seems to have persisted across the early first millennium CE.”

The authors noted that humid conditions were no guarantee of persistent political stability, as some important groups rose and fell in the Mongolian steppe.

However, after the Xiongnu state failed around 100 CE, both the Rouran Khaganate (around 400 CE) and the first Turkic Khaganate (around 550 CE) formed during periods of favorable grassland conditions in central Mongolia.

This run ended with the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age – a long-lasting northern hemisphere cooling period around 600 CE.

The record shows a distinct decline in the evaporation index during this period, likely indicating cooler conditions at Lake Telmen, indicating dryer conditions and the development of a cold steppe during this period.

“Just as solar minima appear to have been crucial to the first formation of pastoral empires, solar maxima may have had a disruptive effect on social integration in ancient Mongolia,” they said.

“Very harsh and long winters seem to have caused high livestock mortality, an increase in warfare activity, famines, and cultural re-organization during the Late Antique Little Ice Age.”

Based on the records, dry climate conditions prevailed in central Mongolia during the warmer Medieval Climate Anomaly. Conditions remained unfavorable until the end of this period around 1300 CE.

Under these conditions, failing grassland biomass may have undercut the economic and social power base of the first Turkic Khaganate, and contributed to its disintegration around 603 CE, they said.

During subsequent centuries, Mongolia cycled through a comparatively tumultuous period of political instability, they said, interspersed with periods of domination by external powers like the Tang and Khitan states.

“Our record supports previous arguments that moisture balance also played an important role in the emergence and success of the largest pastoral empire — the Great Mongol Empire of Genghis and Khubilai Khan,” they wrote.

Their research showed a shift to humid conditions since 1100 CE and a positive effective moisture balance around 1300 CE.

“This likely favored the union of nomadic tribes under Genghis Khan and the formation of the Mongol Empire, which began during the early 13th century and reached its greatest spatial extent during the late 13th through the mid-14th century.”

Changes in solar radiation ultimately played an important role in controlling the regional climate around Lake Telmen over the past 4000 years, they concluded.

“We have shown that even small changes in temperature and precipitation have a huge impact on the effective ecosystem moisture balance and thus, biomass production and the expansion of fertile grasslands.

“This apparent causal link between favorable climate conditions and positive socio-environmental impacts for herding cultures in the Mongolian steppe likely had tremendous impact on the broader trajectory of human history in Eurasia, as the cyclical emergence of pastoral cultural networks and empires helped to forge some of the first pan Eurasian trade networks, spreading goods, plants, and animals, people, ideas, and even catastrophic pandemic disease.”

Given the findings, the researchers voiced the view that the near-future consequences of global warming will put the ecosystems and livelihood of the pastoral population in Central Asia at great risk.

Mongolia has already experienced a 2°C temperature increase since 1963. Previous studies have shown a rapid loss of lakes, melting mountain ice, persistent soil moisture deficits, more droughts and heavy rainstorms.

“Increased rainfall may not counteract the impact of rising temperatures. Instead, rainfall may exacerbate ongoing land degradation as these short-term heavy rainstorms exceed the soil’s infiltration capacity and cause surface runoff, soil erosion, and even floods.”

It is uncertain whether and how modern pastoralists will adapt to the future climate, they said.

The study team comprised Struck, Marcel Bliedtner, Paul Strobel, William Taylor, Sophie Biskop, Birgit Plessen, Björn Klaes, Lucas Bittner, Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, Gary Salazar, Sönke Szidat, Alexander Brenning, Enkhtuya Bazarradnaa, Bruno Glaser, Michael Zech and Roland Zech, variously affiliated with the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany; the German Research Centre for Geosciences; the University of Trier in Germany; the Dresden University of Technology and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, both in Germany; the University of Bern in Switzerland; the Mongolian University of Life Sciences; the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany; and the University of Colorado-Boulder Museum of Natural History.

Struck, J., Bliedtner, M., Strobel, P. et al. Central Mongolian lake sediments reveal new insights on climate change and equestrian empires in the Eastern Steppes. Sci Rep 12, 2829 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06659-w

Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia recorded 488 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, raising the national tally to 462,097, the country's Ministry of Health said Sunday.

Meanwhile, two more COVID-19 patients died in the past day, taking the national death toll to 2,087, said the ministry.

So far, 66.8 percent of the country's 3.4 million people have received two COVID-19 vaccine doses, while more than 1 million people aged over 18 received one booster.

The country started to administer the fourth shot in January on a voluntary basis, and over 96,100 people have got it.

Nearly ten years ago, when the first edition of the Mongolian Grand Prix had just ended, we met a very young girl at the edge of the Mongolian steppes, on the road to Lake Khovsgol. Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (MGL) was then only a dozen years old and was far from imagining that at the beginning of the 2022 season she would climb the podia of the World Judo Tour twice.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu, bronze medallist in Tel Aviv

"I was messing around with my friends in Murun City and one day we tried judo instead of being all over the place. At that time I didn't really know what it was but I tried and it was fun. Never would I ever have imagined going further."

Yet, further is the great adventure that she is living now. After two participations in 2021, Paris and Baku, where she did not rank, she has just won the silver medal at the famous Paris Grand Slam in early February 2022 and the bronze medal in Tel Aviv, in quick succession, both in the -48kg weight division.

When we see the training conditions of Bavuudorj at the time, we can only admire the progress made. With a white belt that hadn’t yet found meaning for her, she trained in a classroom turned into a dojo, on a torn and patched yellow truck tarpaulin. On the wall was a large poster of the local judo team and pictures of basketball, because the classroom, as crazy as it was and as small as it was, also served as a basketball court.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (second from the left) in Murun City

"I didnt’t know what a tatami was when I started, nor even a judogi. Our coach, Davaadorj Sensei, was teaching us the first basic judo techniques. One day he told us that someone from abroad was coming and that he had a special present for us."

When the IJF experts visited, they actually came with some judogi as part of the Judo in Schools programme and the least that can be said is that Bavuudorj was all smiles. There were good reasons for that. This gift meant a lot to her. Was it this visit, which lasted only a couple of hours, that made her want to go further? She answered that.

Bavuudorj Baasankhuu (second from the left) receiving her new judogi

"I will remember that day forever. It was my first judogi and it was snow white. That is the image that I have in mind. It was after receiving it that I started to consider that maybe judo was something I wanted to get involved with more seriously. A little later I went to the Junior National Championships. It was in the countryside and I was wearing my brand new judogi, of course. I won my first bronze medal. Since then, judo has been a big part of my life."

We could wonder if this judogi was really something that triggered her desire to win, but she confirms it, even if performing was already present in her mind. What is certain is that despite, or perhaps thanks to, the living and training conditions she faced, she now has a will to win that could take her even higher.

Before she continues her journey, we asked her where the judogi is now, "I gave it away. It's a little torn now, but in Mongolia we have that tradition to give away things that helped us to be successful. It brings luck. So I know that the young generation of Murun City will have luck carried on by the judogi I received and it will also bring me luck."

Mongolian medallists in Paris

Her next steps? "The world championships and the Olympics of course." On the tatami in Paris or Tel Aviv, the Mongolian steppes were far away, geographically, but there is no doubt that the wind of the great outdoors was blowing hard in the judoka's mind, bring her body extra strength. 43rd in the world before the Tel Aviv Grand Slam, she will climb a few steps in the rankings for sure. Her journey is only beginning on the international scene and it can now continue with the memory of her younger years and that of her first two podia on the world circuit. Have a beautiful journey Bavuudorj and keep smiling like you did ten years ago and here on the podium.

The Adventurists is a company located in Bristol which calls itself “the planet’s greatest purveyor of chaos and adventure”. What was once a one-man team is now an organisation of over 500 people working on a variety of challenges for budding travellers from all over the world. One of these is The Mongol Rally. “This is 10,000 miles of chaos across mountain, deserts and steppe on roads ranging from bad to not-a-road in a tiny 1000cc car you bought from a scrapyard for £4.60,” The Adventurists said of the road trip. It added: “There’s no backup. There’s no set route. There’s no guarantee you’ll make it to the end. It’s just you, your rolling turd and planet-earth sized bucket of adventure.” So, what kind of adventures await on one of the greatest road trips in the world?

Born and bred in New Plymouth, New Zealand, Hayden was living on the other side of the world, in Europe, and having a beer with a childhood friend of his, when he first heard about the Mongol Rally.

“A good mate of mine from school, called Alistair, mentioned the idea to me and I said yes on the spot – before I really knew what it was about,” he explained.

“The team was just the two of us to start with, and we had others join us later on for portions of the trip.”

Hayden described himself as “the useless one”, while Alistair was “the leader”.

Another who joined the duo for the majority of the trip was a friend of Alistair’s, Holly, who is now Hayden’s wife.

“Alistair asked me if he could bring a friend and told me she was cute,” Hayden explained.

“So naturally I said yes. I had six weeks of intense travelling to get to know her while she was with us on the trip.”

The three of them – and at one time four when another friend joined them for a week – fitted into a Nissan Micra, which they had bought second-hand from London at the start of the trip and painted red.

As there was no set plan for the three adventurists to follow, they chose “the most interesting route we could think of”, going through the following countries: Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Hungry, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Across Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan, Usbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

It was in Kazakhstan that the Nisaan Micra broke down, meaning the team weren’t able to make it to Mongolia and complete the trip.

“We were pretty rough to the little Nissan Micra,” Hayden confessed.

“We had a bit of an unspoken rule on the trip, that if something was a bad idea, we should do it, every time.”

In total, Hayden said the team “had 14 flat tyres, our fuel pump broke off the mounts inside the fuel tank, and when I drove through a bonnet-deep puddle one day an electrical sensor broke, sending us into limp mode”.

“Luckily our team leader was an aircraft mechanic, so I just watched him fix everything while chatting up my future wife,” he added.

Another time, when driving up a remote road off the Pamir Highway, which traverses the Pamir Mountains through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, the Nissan Micra suffered three flat tyres in under 24 hours.

“Once again the locals helped us fix our tyres and gave us a place to stay for the night,” Hayden explained.

“We were entertained with tales of when the locals were in the Opium running business – all in broken English over some local vodka. The hospitality was amazing.”

Since the locals were so warm and welcoming, Hayden and his team rarely felt unsafe throughout the whole trip.

The New Zealander said: “All the people we met along the way were very friendly and were always trying to help us. It’s unbelievable how people with so little can be happy to give so much to help a stranger.

“The least safe we ever felt was when dealing with police and government officials, to be honest.”

The Nissan Micra seemed to be what put the team in danger more than anything else. Hayden went on to describe another car fiasco, saying: “When we started the trip, we had all of our bags stacked high on the roof, but we found the car couldn’t travel over 50mph on the motorways.

“We figured it was because of the wind, and so we tried strapping the bags to the boot to make the car more aerodynamic. We were able to get to 62mph with one simple modification.”

But despite this, the Pamir Highway still proved difficult, and the car “was so low on power, we couldn’t get out of first gear”.

Hayden continued: “While we were going up the final hill we were foot flat, struggling to keep the car moving. If we stopped we would have had to turn around and get another run-up.

“The car started overheating, so I climbed out the window and stood on the bonnet, pouring cold water over the radiator to keep the car cool. It was actually pretty safe because we were going so slowly – it worked a treat and we made it up and over in one go.”

In Kazakhstan, the team’s final destination, Alistair “accidentally crashed into a hidden rock”, which ripped the car’s front wheel off.

“We had to tie it back together with ratchet straps to try and carry on,” Hayden explained.

“We only made it another few days of driving before the car completely gave way. We never made it to Mongolia and may have to do the trip again.”

But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Hayden, having described the trip as “a truly unforgettable experience”.

“I have travelled a lot and this is by far the most memorable trip I have done yet,” he said.

The 34-year-old thought back to “one of the most memorable days” in Kyrgyzstan when the team had just made their camp on the side of a mountain, but were told by a group of locals who walked past that “we weren’t allowed to sleep there”.

Hayden said: “We thought we were in trouble, but once they found a translator, it turned out that it was their farm we had stopped on and they insisted we had dinner with them and stayed in their guest house.

“We packed up and followed them to their house for a big feast, lots of vodka and basically a house party. We stayed in an open sided guest house, with views out over the gardens and tried their local breakfast of fresh goat’s milk and butter in the morning. An unforgettable experience.”

But despite the countless issues with the Nissan Micra, the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan was Hayden’s favourite part of the trip.

“Big open mountains, a true feeling of remoteness, super friendly and hospitable locals and just one big adventure,” he recalled.

Climate change is a risk multiplier, threatening to undermine the progress achieved in promoting development over the last few decades. The education sector, however, has been underrepresented in global climate change discussions. Indeed, no single National Adaptation Programme of Action (or the subsequent National Adaptation Plans) in the East Asia and Pacific region highlights the education sector as being at risk. However, in the 2018 climate change negotiations, delegates recognized the importance of including education in the Nationally Determined Contributions of countries, highlighting the increasing significance of exploring the links between education and climate change (UNFCCC, 2018).

The current study was launched by UNICEF with the overall aim of gathering evidence on impacts of climate change on education sector, enhancing awareness and understanding among key stakeholders, enabling cross-country comparison of climate change actions in education, and facilitating sharing of good practices and lessons learned in the region.

The study indicates that climate trends, including more extreme winter conditions (leading to more severe dzuds and greater use of coal which in turn leads to air pollution), heavier summer precipitation (leading to flash floods), and more extreme summers (leading to both more severe droughts and more severe dzuds), all have a significant impact on Mongolia’s education sector. The main impacts include reduced access to education – especially in the harsh, cold winters when roads are impassable or too dangerous, and after flash floods when roads are destroyed – as well as missing school or dropping out of school due to health complications (particularly in winter). These trends result in lower attendance rate, and potentially impact learning outcomes. Livelihood concerns are also widespread with herding families being particularly dependent on favourable weather conditions to make a living and obtain sufficient income to send children to school. In addition to these concerns, schools have also reported insufficient access to water and sanitation facilities, food insecurity and access to energy as important issues that affect students’ well-being during climate-related disasters.

Given the potential for climate change to hamper progress in education, education authorities need to prioritize efforts to ensure universal education through four interrelated activities:

1. Enhancing data and improving the evidence base;

2. Increase strategies to ensure continued education under a climate change scenario;

3. Improve learning to address climate change impacts;

4. Systems strengthening.

Source: UNICEF Mongolia

In January 2022, total sales of stocks reached MNT 37.7 billion, increased by MNT 5.9 billion (18.7 percent) from the previous month and increased by MNT 27.0 (3.5 times more) billion from the same period of the previous year. The number of pieces of traded securities reached 35.4 million, increased by 22.9 million pieces (2.8 times) from the previous month while it is decreased by MNT 25.4 (41.8 percent) million pieces from the same period of the previous year.

In January 2022, the average of indices of the top 20 financial markets was 42447.6 units, increased by 778.8 units from the previous month and increased by 22417.5 units from the same period of 2021.

In January 2022, the total value of joint-stock companies operating at stock markets reached MNT 5.8 trillion, decreased by MNT 171.5 billion (2.9 percent) from the previous month while it is increased by MNT 2.8 trillion (93.3 percent) from the same period of the previous year.

Source: National Statistics Office