Gold, oil soar, shares slip as U.S. and Iran trade threats www.reuters.com

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A gauge of Asian shares was toppled from an 18-month top on Monday as heightened Middle East tensions sent investors scurrying for the safety of gold, which hit a near seven-year high while oil jumped to four-month peaks.

US announces countrywide ban on flavoured e-cigs www.bbc.com

The US has announced a countrywide ban on some e-cigarette flavours amid concerns about vaping among teens.

Forex reserves in Mongolia reach high record in 2019 www.menafn.com

The central bank of Mongolia said on Thursday that the foreign exchange (forex) reserves in Mongolia have reached a high record in the previous year of 2019.

China drops tariffs on hundreds of Pakistani products as wide-ranging trade agreement takes effect www.rt.com

A newly implemented deal between Beijing and Islamabad will eliminate tariffs on hundreds of products, a move which is expected to provide a billion-dollar boost to bilateral trade.
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA)–II, which started on Wednesday, will waive or ease 75 percent of tariffs imposed by each country, over a period of 15 years. Beijing will immediately drop tariffs on more than 300 Pakistani exports, including textiles and garments, seafood and leather.

China copper outlook brightens with miners likely to shine most www.bloomberg.com

Chinese copper stocks are returning to favor as the outlook for demand brightens, with a late spurt delivering the best annual gain in half a decade for the largest, Jiangxi Copper Co.

What has ailed copper for most of the year largely dissipated last month as the U.S. and China closed in on an interim trade deal that will steady the global economy, and as Chinese data demonstrated that growth in the top producer and consumer of the metal is stabilizing.

The benchmark London price, a barometer for the broader economy because of the metal’s wide usage in construction and power transmission, ended last week with a sixth consecutive gain, its best run in over two years. China’s manufacturing purchasing managers index, meanwhile, showed a second straight month of expansion in December.

Still, recent gains in the stocks may deter some investors, and the winners aren’t clear-cut. The prospects for miners that dig up ore could be healthier than for the smelters refining the metal, which are burdened by overcapacity and weak margins. Many of China’s big copper firms are active in both areas. While the smelting industry has signaled it will cut output this year to rescue treatment fees that have sunk to near seven-year lows, it’s the producers of the raw material that may be best placed to benefit from resurgent demand.

Stocks such as Jiangxi Copper, China’s no. 1 smelter and second-biggest miner, still have room to rally, said Wang Chen, a partner at XuFunds Investment Management Co. in Shanghai. “Copper prices have fallen to near cost and the downsides are limited,” he said. “Easing trade tensions and global monetary loosening are also going to boost demand and prices of the metal.”

Goldman Sachs commodities team is most bullish on copper for 2020, one of a cluster of banks that expects great things from the metal. After barely rising in 2019, Citigroup predicts that Chinese copper consumption will increase 2.6% next year, powered by gains in grid investment and demand from autos.

“The global economy is rebounding amid monetary easing, boosting demand for raw materials including copper,” said Yang Kunhe, an analyst at Pacific Securities Co. “Chinese PMIs are also bottoming out as anti-cyclical measures are working. There is still big room for stimulus. All these will benefit copper demand and prices.”

Yang recommends the mainland listings of miners including Jiangxi Copper, Zijin Mining Group Co. and China Molybdenum Co. He prefers them to pure copper smelters such as Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co., which are suffering from low profitability because the global supply of raw material can’t keep up with the country’s vastly expanded processing capacity.

Zijin Mining, also a big gold producer, is the most heavily favored by analysts, with 91% surveyed by Bloomberg holding buy ratings. Tongling Nonferrous is at 83% and China Moly at 60%, with Jiangxi Copper bringing up the rear on 47%.

Zijin Mining declined to comment. Spokesmen for Tongling Nonferrous and China Moly said they couldn’t immediately comment. A spokesman for Jiangxi Copper couldn’t be reached for comment.

Jiangxi Copper will also see significant returns from its interest in the Cobre Panama mine, part of its first overseas acquisition announced last month, according to Essence Securities Co. The broker has a buy on the stock, with a six-month target of 18.8 yuan, 11% higher than its end-year close.

Cautionary voices include Xiong Qi, the deputy head of research at Windsor Capital Management Co. in Beijing. “I am not comfortable chasing the rally in cyclical stocks including copper, lithium and cobalt,” he said. “They have surged a lot already and prices may face corrections.”

Mongolia’s economic growth surpasses ADB’s forecast www.news.mn

The Mongolian economy grew around 7.3 percent year on year in 2019, compared to 1.2 percent in 2016, said Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh in his New Year’s message.

How much do Mongolians spend on food during New Year? www.news.mn

Mongolians spend money mostly on food products during the New Year celebration.

Commercial banks told to halt lending for pensioners www.montsame.mn

Each coal seam of Tavantolgoi deposit contains methane gas www.montsame.mn

This dad took his son to Mongolia just to get him off his phone www.bbc.com

How do you get a teen to put down their phone and talk to you? Jamie Clarke went all the way to Mongolia to find out.

Riding through a remote valley in Mongolia on the back of his motorbike, adventurer Jamie Clarke let the hum of the engine and the wind echo in his mind while his thoughts wandered.

After several hours, he pulled over to shake off his helmet and take a look at the map.

This is what he loved about adventuring - the solitude, the landscape and the feeling of being in charge of your own destiny.

But when his 18-year-old son pulled up right behind him on his own motorcycle, he had a different take on the long ride they had just finished.

For him, being alone in his thoughts was novel and unsettling.

"Oh my God that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!"

Mr Clarke, a lifelong skier, mountaineer and trekker had felt like he was losing touch with his son Khobe, who was always on his phone at their home in Calgary, Alberta.

He blames himself, partly. He has a smart phone just like everyone else, and he enjoyed playing games with his son on his Blackberry when he was small.

"If there's any addiction that we have today as individuals and as a family, we (the parents) perpetuated it," Mr Clarke told the BBC. "They're cool devices, but we began to feel like they were controlling us and not vice-versa."

The issue had come to a head a few years before, when Mr Clarke went with his family to a remote ski lodge for a weekend to celebrate his 50th birthday.

The area had no wi-fi and no cell reception.

"I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone, essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."

Khobe admits that at the time he was angry that he had to go and miserable because without Snapchat or Instagram, he had no idea what his friends back home were up to.

That got his father thinking about the role technology had come to play in his family life - and about how to fix it.

For a long time, he had dreamed of travelling across Mongolia on a bike. Now that his son was older, why not do it with him?

The parents raising their kids on the road
'I wish mum's phone was never invented'
Confessions of a smartphone addict
About a year ago, he proposed it to Khobe. It wasn't an automatic hit.

"I said no pretty quickly," Khobe says.

"But it kind of turned into this fun idea… it became such a thing of preparation that it was very exciting to go do it."

Khobe got his motorcycle licence and the two practiced longer trips. While his father has climbed Everest twice, Khobe had never climbed a mountain so he had to practice that, too.

They left on 28 July, and over the course of the next month travelled more than 2,200 kilometres (1,367 miles) across Mongolia by motorbike, horse and camel.

Although the journey was certainly Instagrammable, they refrained from posting their photos online until after they returned.

Khobe says being away from his phone was a challenge.

"I think the whole time I was pretty consumed by missing my phone," he says. "You realise how boring everything gets. When I'm bored I can just turn on YouTube or watch Netflix. What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs?"

But he also says getting to know his dad was worth it, especially the time they spent off the road in their tents or yurts just cooking and bonding.

"I was surprised that when he's away from a work environment and family that he acts maybe closer my age," he says.

Similarly, Mr Clarke was surprised to learn how mature his son was when they weren't confined to their typical father-son parenting dynamic.

"It helped me see Khobe in a new way. I saw him as a kid who kept leaving his jacket on the table, not cleaning up the dishes," he says. "And I was able to see him step up to being a young man, and I was impressed by how well he was able to perform under pressure."

You don't have to go all to the other side of the world just to bond with your children, says Caroline Knorr, the parenting editor for Common Sense Media, a non-profit organisation that educates parents about media and technology.

"Parents can establish screen-free time zones in the house all year round, but especially around vacations," she says.

She says try and do fun things during unplugged time, like play a game, go for a walk or even watch a movie.

It's easy around the holidays to find yourself reaching for your phone while you're lying around the sofa, but Ms Knorr says it's important to model the behaviour you want your children to adopt.

Parents struggle to handle children's tech habits
A new generation discovers the art of getting lost
"The really important thing is for parents to communicate why that's valuable. Why it's a family value to have unconnected, unplugged time as human beings," she says.

"Say explicitly 'I'm turning off my phone so we can have family time'."

Ms Knorr says it's also important to not demonise technology, or your children for using it.

"I think a lot of time parents become really worried that 'it's the media that's changing my kids' behaviour'," she says.

"But really what is leading that behaviour is a natural normal part of development where kids are becoming interested in pop culture and not as interested in family time."

This natural part of teenagehood is compounded by social apps like Tik Tok and Snapchat, however, which are designed to keep users on for as long as possible in order to make money from advertising.

"It's a double whammy," Ms Knorr says.

Khobe says "tent life" was his favourite part of the trip
Mr Clarke says now that their trip is over, he and his son are trying to apply some of the lessons they learned to their everyday life.

"I've got to realise that technology is valuable and use it, and he's realising how consuming it is. And maybe both of us need to remind ourselves who's in control - you or the app," he says.

Khobe says he's trying to make technology something he "wants to do, not has to do".

"When you're in a group of people and you're supposed to have social interaction time, but everyone's on their phone, that's when I've tried to change my habits," he says.

"It's rude to not give people your undivided attention."