On April 30, 2021 - ArdCoin, Mongolia's first and currently the only cryptocurrency, is being listed on Bittrex Global, a world-class crypto-exchange. Founded in the USA, its international exchange services operations are based in Liechtenstein. Out of the 4,200 cryptocurrency projects listed on CoinMarketCap, ArdCoin has already penetrated the top 500.

Currently, ArdCoin is listed on its native virtual assets exchange DAX.mn, international crypto-exchange STEX.com, and on leading crypto tracking platforms such as CoinMarketCap, Blockfolio, and CoinGecko. People can log in to these platforms from anywhere to research ArdCoin or exchange their ArdCoin for local currencies.

Mongolians will be able trade in the global market at the most realistic market rates and have access to an unlimited fund. Following this global exposure, major international organizations will recognize ArdCoin, and the inflow of foreign currency to Mongolia will undoubtedly have a significant impact on reviving the economy.

Ard Bit LLC is a fully owned subsidiary of Ard Financial Group. Ard is a diversified financial services holding company with the overarching goal of increasing its shareholders’ equity through investing in and developing leading financial services and technology companies.

The investment portfolio of the Ard Holdings consists of companies such as Ard Insurance, Ard Credit, Ard Securities, Ard Life, Ard Assets, Ard Management, Ard Bit, TenGer Systems, MEC Partners (ardshop.mn), Mongol Post, Ard Holdings International, Ard Leasing, Ard Properties and Ard Realty. Ard App, Ard Fintech, ArdCoin, ArdCash, CryptoNation, Ard Digital Bazaar and Digital Assets Exchange are proprietary digital products based on artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

Source: Ard Holdings

After months of hype and warring words, Epic Games is about to get its day in court with Apple.

The trial begins on Monday - and is one of the most important in Apple's history.

Apple boss Tim Cook will be giving evidence, the first time he's given testimony at a trial.

At stake is the future of the App Store and the amount it charges developers - a wildly lucrative money spinner for the company.

In August last year, Epic Games laid a trap for Apple.

Its hit game Fortnite implemented its own in-app payment - bypassing Apple's 30% charges.

Apple promptly kicked Epic Games off the App Store.

But Epic Games was waiting for just that.

It slapped Apple with a 65-page lawsuit - and had even prepared a high production video, a spoof of Apple's iconic 1984 advert for the Apple Mac.

Their argument is simple: that Apple's control over the App Store is anti-competitive.

It believes that developers should be able to make apps for smartphones without having to pay large sums to Apple (and to Google for Google Play purchases).

Spotify, Match and Tile are just a few of the many companies that have also claimed Apple's charges are unfair.

Apple is estimated to have made hundreds of millions of dollars from Fortnite alone in charges.

Epic Games' big argument is: if they don't want to pay, then where else do they go to sell their products?

Epic Games has tried to sell Fortnite away from these two stores. It tried to "sideload" the app on Android phones - to try and avoid Google's own 30% charge. However, not enough people downloaded it away from Google Play.

Epic Games' reluctant conclusion: if you want to make games for smartphones you have to be on either the App Store or Google Play.

'Apple Tax'

But unwilling to lie down and accept the charges - which it calls an "Apple Tax" - Epic Games decided to sue Apple instead.

Worryingly for Apple, many of its App Store critics come from across the political divide.

In a Senate hearing two weeks ago, Apple's Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer was grilled by lawmakers. Politicians of all stripes - usually so divided on policy - were united in their attacks on Apple.

Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal and Republicans Mike Lee and Josh Hawley all took up similar lines of questioning.

Senator Klobuchar said that Apple's App Store was a "literal monopoly".

Epic Games has timed the lawsuit perfectly.

The key question the judge will have to answer is whether Apple's App Store is an "essential facility", a sort of public utility that no one company should control.

Matt Stoller, an anti-monopoly campaigner, believes so.

"Everybody knows that Apple is in charge of what should be public rights of way. It would be easiest if the judge just rules in favour of Epic [Games], that would fix it," he says.

Apple can afford good lawyers though. So what's Apple's defence?

Firstly, Apple says it invented the App Store and as a private company it can charge what it wants.

It also says the 30% charge to developers is the industry standard for gaming, and competes not just with Google Play but with Microsoft, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo.

'Hand wavy'

Influential tech blogger John Gruber says Apple has a point.

"In terms of the actual split, 70/30 is pretty standard across the board. One of the things that really stands out about Epic Games' argument is that they have no complaint whatsoever. It's all very hand wavy, and very much a PR argument, not a legal one."

Apple also says that its payment system is fair to smaller developers. It says 83% of apps and 76% of games on the App Store are free - developers pay no commission.

And they say that although their top rate charge is 30%, most developers pay no more than 15% in charges.

Apple argues it also oversees an App Store vetting process, making sure the Apple ecosystem isn't compromised by dodgy apps. That costs money.

However it's thought the amount that Apple spends on this process is a tiny fraction of the amount it receives from developers. Critics like Matt Stoller also question how effective Apple's vetting procedures are.

"There are all sorts of apps that have scams that Apple doesn't catch. So their arguments about safety and security are sort of nonsense," he says.

'The risk is high'

So what are Apple's chances? John Gruber thinks they're good.

"I do think that on legal grounds, Apple is in a very good position. But the risk is very high because [if they lost] it would disrupt the whole business model of the app store".

Matt Stoller says that antitrust cases are notoriously hard to predict.

"Antitrust law, as it's practiced in the US, is a complete mess. So we have no idea. The law basically depends on what the judge had for breakfast."

The trial is expected to conclude in the last week of May. However, even if Apple wins, the fight over how Apple runs its App Store will rage on.

James Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.

Mongolia's national count of COVID-19 cases rose by 1,185 to 38,470 in the past 24 hours, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Sunday.

Apart from one imported case, all the other new infections were locally transmitted, mostly detected in the country's capital Ulan Bator, the NCCD said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Mongolia's total death toll reached 126 with two new fatalities, and 1,026 more people were newly discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 21,707, according to the center.

The Asian country launched a national vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in late February, with the aim of covering at least 60 percent of its population of 3.3 million. Over 887,200 people have been vaccinated against the virus in Mongolia so far. Enditem

The Government of Mongolia today, April 30, decided to provide USD 1 million as humanitarian assistance to help India deal with a massive surge in COVID-19 cases in the country.

On Monday, Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene met with Ambassador of India to Mongolia Mohinder Pratap Singh and conveyed a letter of solidarity and support to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“India is regarded Mongolia’s spiritual neighbor and an important strategic partner. The two countries have been providing reciprocal support for each other and elevated their diplomatic ties to Strategic Partnership in 2015. In February 2020, Mongolia received its first 150,000 doses of vaccine against COVID-19 from India as an aid from the Indian Government, and an oil refinery is under development in Mongolia with soft loan from India. While Mongolia and India are maintaining a relationship in a wide range of areas of economy, society, culture and education, the two nations are holding talks on coal exports.” reports the Cabinet Press Office.

On April 29, Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene held a consultative meeting with members of the working group in charge of drafting frameworks for the Sovereign Wealth Fund and Unified Accumulation Fund. Mongolia currently has the Future Heritage Fund and Fiscal Stability Fund.

Deputy Minister of Mining and Heavy Industry O.Batnairamdal introduced a proposed Development Fund, which will help to diversify priority economic sectors, improve competitiveness with investment in infrastructure, increase jobs and create a wealthy middle class with earnings.

The Development Fund will be operated in coordination with the Future Heritage Fund and the Fiscal Stability Fund with a view to creating a Sovereign Wealth Fund system.

The Unified Accumulation Fund aims to establish the proper management of the Social Insurance Fund, bring the fund to a loss-free level, establish an independent social insurance system, and source the pension reserve fund from mineral resource income and subsidized mortgage funding.

Minister of Labor and Social Welfare A. Ariunzaya introduced a proposed policy on a gradual transition to a system of providing all citizens with comprehensive education, healthcare, pensions, housing, and social security through the Unified Accumulation Fund.

The working group members were instructed to revise their drafts, incorporating more proposals and suggestions, and present them back to the Cabinet.

Australia will review the 99-year-lease of a commercial and military port in its north to a Chinese firm, the Sydney Morning Herald reported late on Sunday, a move that could further inflame tensions between Beijing and Canberra.

Defence officials are checking if Landbridge Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, should be forced to give up its ownership of the port in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, on national security grounds, the newspaper said.

Australia's national security committee has asked the defence department to "come back with some advice" on the lease and the review is underway, Defence Minister Peter Dutton was quoted as saying in the report.

The defence department, the Australian offices of Landbridge and the Chinese embassy in Canberra did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Landbridge, which has close ties to the Chinese military according to media reports, won a bidding process in 2015 to operate the port in a deal worth A$506 million ($390 million).

The decision raised eyebrows in the United States as the port is the southern flank of U.S. operations in the Pacific. Australian media reported that then President Barack Obama expressed anger at then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for not having informed him of the deal.

Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would act on the port's ownership if national security concerns were raised.

Australia overhauled its foreign investment laws almost a year ago, giving the government the power to vary or impose new conditions on a deal or force a divestment even after it has been approved by its Foreign Investment and Review Board.

Relations between Australia and China deteriorated after Canberra last year called for an international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, prompting trade reprisals from Beijing.

($1 = 1.2962 Australian dollars)

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A new study by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) found that 3.3 million jobs could be created across the world over the next five years thanks to major industry expansion.

The figure includes direct jobs in onshore and offshore wind. It also covers the sector’s entire value chain: installation, manufacturing, project planning and development, operation and maintenance and decommissioning. Those roles would service an industry forecast to install an extra 470 gigawatts (GW) of onshore and offshore capacity between 2021 and 2025, the GWEC said.

The majority of the jobs will be created in high growth wind markets including China, US, India, Germany, UK, Brazil, France, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, and Taiwan.

“The wind industry has a strong track record of creating high-quality and long-term jobs and reviving communities through an array of industrial opportunities,” said CEO of GWEC Ben Backwell. “As the world still reels from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments must look to the wind sector as a key industry to create the jobs they need to get their economies back on track,” he added.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, with 751 GW of wind power capacity already installed, the industry has generated nearly 1.2 million jobs globally to date. The world’s leading wind energy countries are home to hundreds of thousands of direct jobs in the wind industry. A global survey by GWEC Market Intelligence showed that as of 2020 there were approximately 550,000 wind energy workers in China, as well as 260,000 in Brazil, 115,000 in the US and 63,000 in India.

“As the world recovers from Covid-19, it is crucial that no one gets left behind. The wind sector is well-placed to be a driver of a just transition, with offshore wind in particular offering a response to labor market disruption in the offshore oil and gas and marine engineering sectors,” said Joyce Lee, Head of Policy and Projects at GWEC.

For the US to move away from coal, it is important to leverage the social cost of carbon as a tool for making key government decisions about coal mining and cleanup while remaining mindful of environmental justice and coal communities as the transition to other sources of electricity pans out.

This is according to Mark N. Templeton, director of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, whose essay “Accelerating and Smoothing the Transition Away from Coal” is part of a recent book titled The US Energy and Climate Roadmap, published by the UC’s Energy Policy Institute.

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According to Templeton, despite positive sentiment towards renewables, it is important for people to recognize that coal still makes up about a quarter of US electricity generation, that it is projected to make up about 15% of power in 2050 and that 40% of the coal mined in the country is extracted from federal land.

This means that there are people still employed in this sector – a little over 50,000 – and that abrupt measures can have a significant impact on families and communities, particularly in small towns where mines tend to be major sources of wages.

“We have an obligation to work with coal communities and help them through this transition,” Templeton said in a media statement. “One thing I’ve suggested is that there might be opportunities to leverage the geography of coal: Abandoned mines, which have associated cleanup and reclamation needs, are often located close to where the workers are already, so former miners could potentially be employed in making sure that those sites are dealt with safely and responsibly. Cleaning up abandoned mines also helps to ensure that those communities have clean water in the future.”

In the expert’s view, it is also important for Congress to urgently consider shoring up and expanding the use of the Abandoned Mine Land fund to cover more recent and future mine closures. He points out that, at present, the fund does not have enough money to deal with the most severe environmental damages that can occur from coal mining.

“We also need to make sure that coal companies who are at risk of bankruptcy are required to secure financial assurance from independent entities outside of the industry for their environmental liabilities so that if the coal companies go bankrupt, funds will still be available to pay for cleanup costs,” Templeton said.

The social cost of carbon

Based on previous work by Michael Greenstone, director of the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, Templeton suggests that the US federal government should set and use an appropriate social cost for carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.

He explained that the social cost of carbon helps agencies incorporate the social and environmental damage inherent in mining and burning coal over the long term. Once the social cost is adopted, it can be factored into environmental cost-benefit analyses.

“For example, if the federal Bureau of Land Management is deciding whether to lease a tract of land in Montana or Wyoming for coal mining, they might make new estimates factoring in the social cost of carbon and find billions of dollars of social impact, potentially prompting them to reconsider,” the lawyer said. “President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency also has an opportunity under the Clean Air Act to set new regulations on coal-fired power plant emissions and to write stricter rules for how coal ash should be handled. Finally, the EPA can do a more proactive job of overseeing state regulatory activity.”

Even though many of these proposals can be accomplished without action by Congress, Templeton points out that new legislation or funding administered through legislation—including the $16 billion that the Biden administration has put into the new infrastructure bill for reclaiming abandoned mines—could also be helpful.

MCC’s Mongolia Water Compact includes collecting and analyzing demographic and household data. In carrying out a survey, one enumerator commented “people are mostly supportive of our survey work because they believe it’s their chance to make their voices heard to policymakers.”

Making public services like water and electricity more affordable and accessible for low income, rural, and marginalized households is a major factor for ensuring social inclusion in MCC’s infrastructure investments. This requires consulting with stakeholders and analyzing demographics and household data to support evidence-based policy decisions.

The Mongolia Water Compact is one example where social inclusion and evidence-based policymaking are front and center. In the Mongolia Compact, social inclusion means keeping water affordable, even as tariffs rise to pay for the needed infrastructure improvements that will address the water shortages that threaten the rapidly growing population of the capital city, Ulaanbaatar (“UB”). Social inclusion also means water service providers and policymakers understand the needs and concerns of all types of households and individuals in the city so that data can inform their decisions.

In UB—home to nearly half of the country’s population— people get water in two ways, which leads to substantially different levels of water consumption depending on where people live. People who live in the central city, generally in apartments, have indoor plumbing and water piped into their homes. People living in “ger areas” outside the center city access drinking water through public water kiosks in their neighborhoods and use outhouses on their land, as well as public bathhouses and laundries. Ger area residents make up more than half of the city’s population and a majority of the city’s poor households. At the same time, despite their numbers, ger area residents consume far less water than apartment households. They also pay more per liter of water than do households connected to the central water and sewer network, despite their lack of connection to the water network. A 2016 study projected that in 2021, ger area residents will consume less than seven percent of the city’s total household consumption of water.

The Path to Social Inclusion

The compact is addressing these disparities by supporting the water regulator and other key policymakers to undertake tariff reform that works to make sure that water remains affordable for all, while also ensuring that people who can pay a cost-reflective price for water do pay. Financial sustainability for the utility will help ensure the long-term sustainability of UB’s water supply. The goal is to generate sufficient revenue for the municipal water utility to cover its true costs of operations, maintenance, and new investments, without exacerbating existing inequalities or generating public perceptions that higher tariffs are unfair.

The compact’s main social inclusion activity has four phases. During the first phase, the Mongolian National Statistics Office (NSO) carried out a willingness to pay (“WTP”) survey of approximately 5,000 apartment and ger area households in UB in September and October 2020. The survey collected data from households about their socioeconomic and water consumption, along with statements willingness to pay for water under future scenarios, opinions about the quality of water and water service, and experiences with billing and payments.

Mr. Amarabal, the Director of the NSO’s Population and Social Statistics Department said, “This survey will be a foundation for many future projects and studies in the water sector…The collaboration between the NSO of Mongolia and the Millennium Challenge Account of Mongolia is a big step to show the public the importance of a research-based decision-making process.” The collaboration is also likely to make the data and the related decision making more credible with the public and policymakers, who can be skeptical of data from private research firms and foreign consultants.

A survey enumerator collects household information from residents in “ger areas” outside Ulaanbaatar as part of the compact’s social inclusion and affordability activity.

After policymakers’ review of the WTP survey findings, expected in summer 2021, the next phase of the social inclusion activity will use the socioeconomic and water consumption data from the WTP survey to assess how affordable different tiers of water pricing are for apartment and ger area households in various income brackets. Researchers will then be able to identify which types of households will face affordability problems at different tariff levels. They will use this data to provide recommendations to policymakers about the design, scope, and budget to initiate a targeted customer assistance program to help low-income customers to pay for water. The third phase of the research will provide policymakers with recommendations for revising the water tariff system in UB, prioritizing both water affordability and the water utility’s financial sustainability. The final phase of the activity will enable MCC to follow-up on the priorities of the utility, regulator, and municipal government.

MCC’s investment in Mongolia aims to prevent a water crisis in UB by creating a sustainable water supply. By focusing on social inclusion from the very beginning of the compact, MCC is providing decision makers with the data to create policies that are more likely to be effective, because they consider the realities of existing inequalities and how that will affect outcomes. The people of UB are telling their water story, and now policymakers have a way to listen.

April 28 (Xinhua) -- All adult residents of Mongolia's capital Ulan Bator will receive the first jabs of COVID-19 vaccines before May 8, the date marking the end of the ongoing national lockdown, Mongolian Health Minister Sereejav Enkhbold said Wednesday.

In addition, the government has planned to offer the second doses of the vaccines to the adults in the city by the end of May, said Enkhbold.

Mongolia has so far registered a total of 33,608 COVID-19 cases, and most of them were detected in Ulan Bator, which is the hardest hit by COVID-19 and home to over half of the country's 3.3 million population.

The full nationwide lockdown, aimed at curbing the steep surge in local COVID-19 cases, took effect on April 10.

The Asian country is planning to vaccinate at least 60 percent of its total population against COVID-19, and 744,564 Mongolians have so far received jabs of vaccines, according to the country's health ministry