Has court breached former Prime Minister’s parliamentary immunity? www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Days of campaigning for the 2020 parliamentary election of Mongolia where a total of 606 candidates from political parties and coalitions and independent candidates are running in, are about to come to an end.

What has aroused concerns during this legislative election is that a handful of candidates now has to campaign while being held in custody. The court has issued arrest warrants for candidates who had already received their candidacy cards in the middle of the ongoing election campaigning, including former Prime Minister, Member of Parliament J.Erdenebat, former MP N.Nomtoibayar, candidates Kh.Bat-Yalalt, D.Ganbold, S.Bayartsogt and B.Byambasaikhan.

The public has been taken aback by these unprecedented measures that have never happened in the democratic and political history of Mongolia. Because without consent from the General Election Commission, it is legally prohibited to conduct a criminal investigation and apprehend or detain any candidate who is approved to run for Parliamentary elections.

The lawyers of the candidates who have been put under arrest during their campaigning for the upcoming election all claim that the arrests have violated the law. In particular, the question arises as to whether the court has breached the Parliamentary immunity by arresting MP and former PM J.Erdenebat, whose immunity has not been removed, (In accordance with the Law on State Great Khural of Mongolia, the mandate of a member of the State Great Khural shall expire when newly elected members of the State Great Khural are sworn in) only as per the decision by Sukhbaatar District Criminal Court in Ulaanbaatar city, without having any parliamentarian decision if his immunity should be revoked.

It is against the law to arrest members of parliament unless they are caught in the act of committing a criminal act. If a parliamentary member is needed to be investigated for crimes, the prosecutor’s office shall submit their request to the parliament to have the parliamentary immunity of the member waived. However, in this case, the issue whether the immunity of parliament member J.Erdenebat should be lifted or not had not been discussed by the State Great Khural (parliament), and he was arrested without even the consent from the General Election Commission, central election body in charge of organizing this election.

Therefore, Parliament Speaker G.Zandanshatar described this situation as an act of rude breach of valid and effective laws of the independent country with parliamentary system, and has demanded from all relevant judicial organizations and judges an immediate stop to the illegal action of violating the parliamentary immunity and the right to be elected of the citizen of Mongolia J.Erdenebat as this act committed by the court and judges are violating the Constitution of Mongolia, Law on State Great Khural and Law on Parliamentary Election.

Moreover, the Human Rights Commission has also issued a statement on this matter, reminding that the arrest during the election will be followed by negative consequences as democracy and human rights situation in Mongolia would be unfavorably evaluated by international community and the commission demanded to put an end to the illegal act.

More candidates imprisoned ahead of Mongolian parliamentary election www.news.mn

Earlier yesterday (18 June), a Mongolian court decided to detain three more candidates in next week’s parliamentary election. The trial of former PM S.Bayar and other six people started at the Ulaanbaatar’s Chingeltei, Sukhbaatar and Bayanzurkh Criminal Court this morning at 09.00 a.m. The court has imprisoned former Finance Minister S.Bayartsogt who is standing as the parliamentary candidate for the Selenge Province, D.Ganbold from Khuvsgul and B.Byambasaikhan from Darkhan-Uul provinces until 22 June two days before polling day.

Mongolia ranked 61st out of 63 countries in World Competitiveness Ranking www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Swiss-based IMD World Competitiveness Center has released “World Competitiveness Annual Report 2020.” According to the report, Mongolia has been ranked 61st out of 63 selected countries. In particular, Mongolia was listed at 59th by economic performance, 53rd by government efficiency, 57th by business efficiency and 62nd by infrastructure respectively.

Fossils from Mongolia, Argentina show some dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have unearthed the first fossils of soft-shelled eggs laid by dinosaurs - two disparate species from Argentina and Mongolia - in a discovery suggesting that the earliest dinosaurs produced such eggs before some lineages turned to hard shells.

After 65 Years, a Wild Ass Is Back in Eastern Mongolia www.atlasobscura.com

WHEN A RAILWAY WAS LAID across Mongolia’s vast expanse, it cleaved the country in two. Constructed in the mid-20th century as a conduit through the Gobi Desert, the rail stretches from southern Russia into northeast China. But the railroad was, of course, built for humans. Which means its builders overlooked how it would affect other species, including the ungulates of the region—most notably Mongolia’s khulan.

Once the track was laid, the damage was done. The khulan, a Mongolian subspecies of the onager, or Asiatic wild ass, soon vanished from the country’s harsh eastern steppe, through which the railway runs.

Back then, in the 1950s, Mongolia “was nearly Terra Incognita,” says Kirk Olson, the Mongolia conservation director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), via email. “The Gobi-Steppe dwarfs the Serengeti ecosystem in size. The [Mongolian] ecosystem has been defined by the boundary of the range of khulan and Mongolian gazelles.”

In the mid-20th century, the northern stretches of the country housed an eclectic assortment of nomadic herders, remote villages (some of which would soon host train stations), and, of course, the denizen species of the desert—khulan among them. But with the arrival of people, coming through in (relatively) large numbers, the khulan took leave.

“What seems to have occurred is that when the corridor fencing was put in place to keep livestock and people off the tracks (and probably also to prevent vehicles from trying to drive across), the khulan were no longer able to move freely,” Olson says.

A staple species of the steppe ecosystem, the khulan—a tawny, quarter-ton cousin of the donkey—found itself without 6,500 square miles of land on which it used to roam.

“It was often explained to me by some of the older herders when I was first working in Mongolia that [Soviet] soldiers would hunt khulan with great intensity,” says Olson. “The combination of hunting pressure and harassment, herders occupying natural water sources, and the completion of the railroad were likely all interacting to cause their disappearance from the east.”

But with scant field research at the time, Olson says, it’s hard to say for sure. One thing is certain, however: The last time a khulan was reported crossing the tracks was in 1955.

Until now. On March 16, a khulan was seen for the first time in 65 years, about 500 miles from Ulaanbaatar.

Since then, the WCS team has removed a small section of wire fencing from the concrete posts on either side of the tracks, creating a 2,300-foot gap in the hope of opening a wildlife corridor for the diverse species in the area. Herds of Mongolian gazelles began bounding across in no time, but the khulan were more skeptical—until one individual cautiously made the first steps back eastward.

It was a momentous event that happened far more quickly than the team had expected—“a result that could be compared to throwing a dart and hitting the bullseye from [65 feet] back,” Olson says.

It remains to be seen how these ungulates will adapt to their former territory. But one small hoofstep for the khulan certainly represents a larger step for this long-lost species of the steppe.

Mongolian troops arrive in Moscow to partake in Victory Day Parade www.montsame.mn

A military contingent of the Armed Forces of Mongolia, who will participate in a military parade to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, arrived in Moscow city on June 14, by Il-76 aircraft of aerospace of the Russian Federation.Since Mongolian troops have been diagnosed with no infection of COVID-19 with three times repeated tests, they started their training at a sanatorium at the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Charter flight brings 257 transit Mongolians from S.Korea www.montsame.mn

On June 17, at 17:48, a charter flight of the MIAT Mongolian Airlines in route Seoul – Ulaanbaatar landed at Chinggis Khaan International Airport in Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia halts uranium exploration in Dundgobi www.news.mn

Mongolia has halted uranium explorations in three soums (districts) of the Dundgobi Province after the Gurvansaikhan Company failed an inspection conducted by a working group from the Metropolitan Professional Inspection Department and nuclear and radiation experts. It was discovered that the company had not completed safety standards for preventing against nuclear and radiation leaks. Therefore, the mining company has lost three uranium exploration licenses in the Ulziit, Bayanjargalan, Gurvansaikhan, and Undurshil soums of the province.

The Fall of a Titan www.news.mn

Young Mongolian wrestler E.Oyunbold from the eastern Khentii province has been banned from competitions for two years following a doping scandal. Therefore, his victory in the traditional wrestling at last Naadam festival was cancelled and his title of Titan was revoked. Today (17 June) Ulaanbaatar City Primary Court finally held the trial over E.Oyunbold’s doping case.

John Bolton: Trump sought Xi's help with re-election www.bbc.com

US President Donald Trump tried to get China's Xi Jinping to help him secure re-election, ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton's new book says.

Mr Bolton says Mr Trump wanted China to buy agricultural produce from US farmers, according to details of the forthcoming book previewed by US media.

He also says Mr Trump "remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House".

The Trump administration is trying to block the book from hitting shelves.

But on Wednesday night, the Department of Justice sought an emergency order from a judge to stop the book's release.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, said in a statement: "Tonight's filing by the government is a frivolous, politically motivated exercise in futility."

It said hundreds of thousands of copies of the book have already been distributed around the world and the injunction would accomplish nothing.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump called in to a Fox News programme and said of Mr Bolton: "He broke the law. This is highly classified information and he did not have approval."

"He was a washed up guy," the president added. "I gave him a chance."

The foreign policy hawk joined the White House in April 2018 and left in September the following year, saying he had decided to quit as national security adviser. President Trump, however, said he had fired Mr Bolton because he disagreed "strongly" with him.

On one hand, the account John Bolton offers in his new book should seem somewhat familiar.

This is hardly the first time a former adviser or anonymous current aide to Donald Trump has offered anecdotes about a president seemingly uninterested in the details of governing and uninformed on basic issues of foreign policy. For nearly three-and-a-half years, there have been plentiful stories about a White House rife with backbiting and internal power struggles.

Mr Bolton's book goes beyond this well-trodden ground, however, in painting a broad portrait of a president willing to bend foreign policy to advance his domestic and personal political agenda. This was the heart of the impeachment case congressional Democrats made against Trump in January.

Mr Bolton confirms their allegations that the president wanted the withholding of military aid to pressure Ukraine to provide damaging information about Democratic rival Joe Biden. Mr Bolton adds that Trump's dealings with China were also done with an eye on his re-election, and that he repeatedly intervened to assist friendly autocrats around the world.

Republicans suggest this is all the work of a disgruntled employee trying to sell books, while Democrats are already growling that Bolton should have volunteered these bombshells during the impeachment proceedings. That ship has sailed, of course, but Bolton's book can still have a bite, distracting a presidential campaign struggling to find its footing less than five months before election day.

What does Bolton allege about the meeting with Xi?
The allegations refer to a meeting between President Trump and President Xi at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in June last year.

The Chinese president had complained that some US critics of China were calling for a new cold war, Mr Bolton said in an extract from the book published in the New York Times.

"Trump, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election [in 2020], alluding to China's economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," Mr Bolton said.

"He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome."

When Mr Xi agreed to make discussions on farm products a priority in trade talks, Mr Trump called him "the greatest leader in Chinese history".

Speaking on Wednesday evening, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer disputed Mr Bolton's account, saying the request for help with re-election "never happened".

Mr Bolton also mentions an earlier conversation at the summit's opening dinner, in which they discussed the building of camps in China's western Xinjiang region.

Mr Trump said the construction should go ahead as it was "exactly the right thing to do".

China has detained about a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the camps for punishment and indoctrination.

The Trump administration has been publicly critical of China's treatment of Uighurs, and on Wednesday the president signed legislation authorising US sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang province.

Mr Trump's Democratic challenger in this November's election, Joe Biden, said in a statement about the book: "If these accounts are true, it's not only morally repugnant, it's a violation of Donald Trump's sacred duty to the American people."

Why has Trump's niece written a damning memoir?
What does Bolton say on Ukraine?
Mr Bolton says the impeachment inquiry into the president might have had a different outcome this year if it had gone beyond Ukraine and investigated other instances of alleged political interference.

In January, President Trump was impeached for withholding military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into starting a corruption investigation into Mr Biden and his son Hunter.

The president denied the wrongdoing and was acquitted after a two-week trial in the Republican-controlled Senate in February, which did not include any witnesses.

Mr Bolton - who was criticised by Democrats for declining to testify to the hearings - does not discuss in the book whether he thinks that Mr Trump's actions on Ukraine were impeachable.

The publication contains a number of other explosive allegations:

'Oh, are you a nuclear power?'
Among other things, Mr Trump is alleged to have been unaware that the UK was a nuclear power.

Britain's atomic deterrent came up during a meeting with Theresa May in 2018, when it was mentioned by one of the then-prime minister's officials.

According to the book, Mr Trump said: "Oh, are you a nuclear power?" Mr Bolton said he could tell it "was not intended as a joke".

Mr Trump also once asked his former chief-of-staff John Kelly if Finland was part of Russia, writes Mr Bolton.

Invading Venezuela would be 'cool'
Mr Trump said invading Venezuela would be "cool", according to the book, and that the South American nation was "really part of the United States".

But he was less enthusiastic about another invasion. Of the Afghanistan conflict, Mr Trump is quoted in the book as saying: "This was done by a stupid person named George Bush."

Mr Bolton writes that in a May 2019 phone call Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled off a "brilliant display of Soviet-style propaganda" by likening Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, which "largely persuaded Trump".

Mr Putin's objective was to defend his ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Mr Bolton writes. In 2018, Mr Trump labelled the leftist Mr Maduro a dictator and imposed sanctions, but he clung to power.

In an interview with ABC News to be broadcast in full this Sunday, Mr Bolton says of Mr Trump: "I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle."

'This is a bad place'
Mr Bolton writes that many of the president's closest aides privately disparaged him.

When he arrived at the White House, Mr Bolton said Mr Kelly warned him: "You can't imagine how desperate I am to get out of here. This is a bad place to work, as you will find out."

During Mr Trump's 2018 meeting with North Korea's leader, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo passed Mr Bolton a note about the president that said: "He is so full of shit."

He writes that Mr Pompeo, often described as a Trump loyalist, was among aides who considered resigning in disgust in frustration at working for the president.

Mr Bolton writes that the president "saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government."

Journalists should be 'executed'
According to Bolton's account, during a 2019 meeting in New Jersey Mr Trump said reporters - some of whose organisations he often describes as fake news - should have to disclose their sources or face imprisonment.

"These people should be executed. They are scumbags," Trump is quoted as saying.