China confusion leaves scrap metal stranded overseas www.reuters.com

China is dragging its feet in releasing new codes governing high-grade copper and aluminum scrap imports, leaving scrap metal firms abroad confused and without a clear way into their key market.

Top metals consumer China has carried out an environmental campaign against foreign garbage in recent years, progressively restricting scrap inflows and planning a ban on all solid waste imports by the end of 2020.

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) published new standards for “recycled” copper and aluminum in January after the metals industry successfully lobbied for high-grade scrap to be reclassified as a resource instead of waste – meaning it will not be affected by the ban.

But only days before the new system is due to take effect on July 1, China has not released the customs codes for the materials, leaving foreign and Chinese firms abroad unable to send cargoes and denying China’s manufacturing sector a key source of supply.

“The current situation – without the necessary coordination of all regulators and procedures yet fully established – is a confused fiasco,” said Michael Lion, former Asia chairman of Sims Metal Management.

The reclassification gives some solace to scrap traders after a long-running decline in Chinese imports. Arrivals of copper scrap into China plunged 38.4% and those of aluminum scrap fell 10.9% last year after the country further tightened restrictions on scrap metal from July 2019.

Fabricators use copper scrap to make copper products like wire rods and copper smelters use it to make refined copper.

Aluminum scrap, often in the form of used beverage cans, can be melted down into brick-shaped aluminum ingots, which are then processed into aluminum products used in everything from aeroplanes to cars.

Nowhere to go
Manson Zeng, who runs the CRA Recycling International trading platform in China, estimates there is currently 50-100% more scrap metal than usual sitting in yards in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia, ready for easy shipment to China from July 1.

The companies which prepared in advance for the new Chinese system – by bringing scrap to nearby countries and ensuring it meets the new standards – will either have to remain patient or find another market to sell to.

Budding suppliers and buyers of the new-standard material must first wait for the codes to come out, said Wang Jiwei, secretary general of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association’s recycling branch (CMRA). Without the codes, the material cannot be transported or clear customs.

“Otherwise you will not be able to sign a contract,” he said.

It remained unclear who would be releasing the codes.

When contacted by Reuters, China’s General Administration of Customs referred questions to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which said customs and the SAMR were taking the lead on the new system.

The SAMR did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Insufficient quotas
While qualified companies in China can still import scrap material through quotas periodically issued by the environment ministry, Lion said these would be insufficient to meet lofty Chinese demand particularly for copper scrap.

Firms are having to come up with alternatives. Two aluminum scrap suppliers with stock in Malaysia said they could melt their scrap into secondary ingots which can still get into China, with one saying he could sell domestically instead.

CRA’s Zeng expects the new system to be postponed until the end of the year.

(Reporting by Tom Daly; Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen in Singapore and Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)

Looted Mongolian dinosaur fossils return home with charter flight from USA www.news.mn

A MIAT Mongolian Airlines plane has conducted the first-ever flight from the capital, Ulaanbaatar to the United States, triggering plans for a regular service when the world returns to normal. The flight to Seattle International Airport was a special government-charter with three important tasks: firstly, to provide medical equipment to help the Navajo Nation fight coronavirus, which from the beginning has been successfully managed in Mongolia, with zero domestic cases; secondly, to rescue some 255 nationals who have been stranded in the US since the pandemic struck and ran wild, and, thirdly, to brings home some much older residents – the remains of dinosaurs who roamed the Gobi over 65 million years ago.

Mongolia is famous for its dinosaur remains – not just among palaeontologists, but also with international smugglers; some of the most valuable remains have, as we shall see, ended up belonging to the rich and famous in Beverly Hills.

The fossils, of creatures such as the carnivorous Tarbosaurus Bataar, a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, originally lived in what is now the vast Gobi desert, but in the Cretaceous was a verdant land with rivers and lakes, with different weather patterns – at the time, India had not smashed into the Eurasian Plate pushing up the Himalayas. The area is rich in dinosaur remains and is known by palaeontologists around the world. It was there in the 1920s and 1930s that American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews, known as a prototype Indiana Jones, found the first fossilised dinosaur eggs, and with it proof that dinosaurs were reptiles.

The fossils packed in to the hold of the Mongolian Airlines plane, including two fossilised skulls of Tarbosaurus Bataar, represented the latest success in a decade-long effort to locate and repatriate artefacts.

The non-profit Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs has been working together with both the government of Mongolia and officials through the the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) responsible for the investigation of stolen items.

In 2007, Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage acquired the complete skull of a Tarbosaurus Bataar at a public sale in Beverly Hills gallery – this is one of the two on the plane. It is reported that he paid USD 276,000, outbidding Leonardo DiCaprio for the fearsome object. Little did he suspect that the skull had found its way to the City of Angles by a very murky route.

In June 2014, Mr Cage was contacted by US Homeland Security who informed him that the skull may be the property of Mongolia, which had criminalised the export of dinosaur fossils in 1924. The US authorities have made it clear that the actor did nothing wrong. In 2015, he voluntarily handed over the fossil to US officials for eventual return to Mongolia.

The I.M.Chait Gallery, where Nicholas Cage obtained the skull appears to have unwittingly obtained various treasures from convicted Florida-based palaeontologist Eric Prokopi, who has been described as a “one-man black market in prehistoric fossils.”

Prokopi is connected with an even more elaborate auction, namely that of a whole Tarbosaurus Bataar skeleton in New York city for USD 1 million in 2012. Mongolia’s then Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ts.Oyungerel with the support of President Ts.Elbegdorj filed an injunction and the Prokopi auction was rendered void. After intense negotiations, the complete skeleton of Tarbosaurus Bataar was returned to Mongolia along with other items illegally acquired by Eric Prokopi. It was an important national event and the day of the dinosaur’s return, 18 May 2013 was declared Mongolian Dinosaur Day. Initially, the complete remains, thought to be a juvenile measuring 2.4 metres in hight and 7.3 metres in length, were displayed in a special pavilion on Ulaanbaatar’s Sukhbaatar Square, before being moved to the new dinosaur museum on Victory Square along with other priceless fossils – including dinosaur eggs – which had been housed in the old National History Museum.

It is hoped that the latest repatriated remains, including Mr Cage’s former skull will soon be on public display in Ulaanbaatar.

Members of new parliament receive identification cards www.montsame.mn

June 29, 75 candidates who received the most votes in each of 29 constituencies in the 2020 parliamentary election of Mongolia received their identification card of a Member of the State Great Khural from the General Election Commission. A member-elect from Selenge aimag, J.Erdenebat, who was the Prime Minister of Mongolia in 2016-2017, was unable to receive his card in person as he is currently being investigated under custody.

Yongusil 100: Mongolia and the Korean Security Crisis www.sinonk.com

For Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula – lying at a distance of one thousand miles – has implications that resonate with Mongolian foreign policy across Eurasia.1) Specifically, Mongolia’s balanced ties between the two Koreas has prompted Seoul, Tokyo and Washington to support Mongolia’s so-called third neighbor policy, which is designed to mitigate Ulaanbaatar’s vulnerabilities toward China and Russia.

Mongolia reports one new COVID-19 case www.xinhuanet.com

June 29 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's National Center for Communicable Disease (NCCD) on Monday confirmed one new COVID-19 case, bringing the total to 220.

CCP Moves Against Mongolian Language in Inner Mongolia www.tibet.net

Classes in Mongolian language in areas of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were suspended because of the COVID-19 epidemic. Now, students are told they will never resume, and all teaching will be in Chinese. This is happening in high schools in and around Tongliao City, and is expected to extend to Tongliao Nationalities University and to other areas of the so-called Autonomous Region.

The move should be seen as part of a larger campaign to eradicate Mongolian identity, language, and culture from what the CCP calls “Inner Mongolia,” and most Mongols prefer to call “Southern Mongolia,” believing that “Inner Mongolia” was historically a name created by Chinese colonialism. The main strategy, which was started in Imperial times, is to organize the massive immigration of Han Chinese into the region, where Mongols are now a minority. Some five million Mongols represent 20% of the “Autonomous Region” population. After the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, where at least 30,000 (but according to some, as many as 100,000) of them were killed, they were promised that their cultural identity, religions (Buddhism and traditional Mongolian beliefs), and language will be respected. There were 110,000 primary schools using the Mongolian language in 1980, but more than 80% of them have now been closed, and replaced by schools where children are taught in Chinese.

The Mongolian language spoken and written in the region is a cultural monument. It is still written in the traditional characters, while in independent Mongolia, Mongolian is written in Cyrillic characters, a reminiscence of when the country was a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

There are, also, social and economic problems. Many Mongols in the Autonomous Region are herders, and they often protest when the government grab their pasture land in the name of “ecology.” Often, ecological pretexts disguise the CCP’s intention to seize the land for mining, in a country rich of natural resources. For example, on the morning of June 1, 2020, more than 400 Mongolian herders from the sum (township) Bayan-uul, in Sonid Left Banner (a banner is an administrative unit equivalent to a county) marched toward Lindong , the banner’s capital, after the CCP had grabbed their land in the name of ecology.

Nearly 200 were arrested, and many were pepper sprayed and beaten before being detained. Activists who support these protests also go to jail. On June 5, 2020, the People’s Court of Heshigten Banner of Southern (Inner) Mongolia sentenced two of these activists, Tsogjil and Haschuluu, to eight months and four months in jail respectively. Tsogjil is also an author and social media host. He was previously arrested in 2019 for protesting the detention of Sechenbaatar, a well-known poet and folklorist who struggled to keep alive Mongolian culture in the Autonomous Region. Also in 2019, Lhamjab A. Borjigin was arrested after he published a book collecting testimonies of victims of the Cultural Revolution in the region.

Although less well-known internationally than its counterparts in Xinjiang and Tibet, what happens in Inner (or Southern) Mongolia is also a cultural genocide, the CCP’s attempt to destroy an old and proud culture in the name of “sinicization.” The U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center regularly publishes valuable information about the ongoing ethnocide. It should not be left alone.

Trade and Development Bank, Ulaanbaatar City Bank have merged www.montsame.mn

On June 29, it was announced that out of 13 banks operating in the banking sector of Mongolia, Trade and Development Bank (TDB), the oldest bank with 30 years of history and Ulaanbaatar City Bank (UBCB), another systemically important bank with 21 years of history are officially merging.

Boeing set for critical 737 Max flight tests www.bbc.com

Boeing's bid to see its 737 Max return to the skies faces a pivotal week with flight safety tests expected to begin.

Agreement reached on a preferred long-term power supply for Oyu Tolgoi www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Rio Tinto, who owns 66 percent in Oyu Tolgoi through its 51-percent-owned Turquoise Hill Resources on June 28 issued a press release stating that Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill and the Government of Mongolia have reached an agreement on the preferred domestic power solution for Oyu Tolgoi that paves the way for the Government to fund and construct a State Owned Power Plant at Tavan Tolgoi.

ADB: Sustained Reforms Crucial for Mongolia's Long-Term Growth www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Mongolia can build a more inclusive and sustainable economy by improving macroeconomic management, strengthening human development, increasing international trade, and diversifying the economy by building on the country’s existing knowledge and expertise, including in the mining sector, says a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Diagnostic Study.