Facebook loses two of its top execs www.cnn.com

New York (CNN Business)Facebook is losing two of its top execs a week after laying out plans to reposition itself as a "privacy-focused" social network.

Corruption rate remains high among tax authorities www.zgm.mn

The Asia Foundation, Independent Agency Against Corruption (IAAC), and Authority for Fair Competition and Consumer Protection (AFCCP) hosted a Fair Competition and Corruption discussion at the Blue Sky hotel yesterday. The discussion was based on a study of corruption in the business environment. According to the survey that is being conducted for the seventh year, corruption in the business environment is likely to decline in Mongolia. However, due to professional control and licensing, corruption in customs and taxation institutions is not decreasing.

World Bank delegation in Mongolia www.news.mn

Head of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the State Budget, MP B.Choijilsuren today met with a delegation headed by Deepak Mishra, a specialist from the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment (MTI) Global Practice Division.

PM meets with Vice President of South Sudan www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh met with J.Igga, Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan.

Turquoise Hill announces financial results and review of operations for 2018 www.turquoisehill.com

Turquoise Hill Resources today announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2018. All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated.
“Oyu Tolgoi delivered strong operational results in 2018,” said Ulf Quellmann, Turquoise Hill’s Chief Executive Officer. “For the year, Oyu Tolgoi achieved an industry-leading safety performance and benefitted from processing higher-gold grade ore, which resulted in us exceeding copper and gold production guidance. Increased gold production, along with higher average copper prices for the year, led to a more than 25% increase in revenue and more than 11% increase in operating cash flow over 2017.
“Underground development continued to progress during 2018 with more than 10 equivalent kilometres completed by year end. As can occur in a project of this size and complexity, mine manager Rio Tinto has identified challenges with the location of some ore passes on the footprint. We acknowledge Rio Tinto’s proactive approach to maintaining the highest level of infrastructure stability by reviewing the location of these ore passes. The impact of these changes will be reflected in the definitive estimate review, which is expected to be complete towards the end of the year.
“Oyu Tolgoi is a world-class asset with a best-in-class workforce. Turquoise Hill is a tremendous opportunity to invest in a copper and gold producer with a direct participation in the world’s next Tier 1 copper asset.”
HIGHLIGHTS
Full year 2018
 Oyu Tolgoi achieved an industry-leading All Injury Frequency Rate of 0.16 per 200,000 hours worked for the year ended December 31, 2018.
 On December 31, 2018, Oyu Tolgoi and the Government of Mongolia signed the Power Sector Framework Agreement providing a pathway forward for a Tavan Tolgoi-based power plant.
 Copper production of 159,100 tonnes for 2018 increased 1.1% over 2017 and exceeded guidance by 2.6%.
 Gold production of 285,000 ounces in 2018 increased 150.0% over 2017 and exceeded guidance by 1.8%.
 Mill throughput for 2018 decreased 5.9% over 2017 due to increased processing of harder Phase 4 ore throughout
the year.
 Revenue of $1.2 billion in 2018 increased 25.6% over 2017 due to the significant increase in gold sales, a 5.0%
increase in copper sales volumes and the impact of higher average copper prices.
 For 2018, income of $394.3 million increased 255.4% over 2017 reflecting the significant increase in gold revenue and reduced unit costs of production driven by higher head grades and recoveries.
News Release
March 14, 2019
Turquoise Hill announces financial results and review of
operations for 2018
Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. Suite 354-200 Granville Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 1S4
Telephone + 1 604 688 5755
Toll Free + 1 877 288 6975
turquoisehill.com
2
 For 2018, Oyu Tolgoi’s cost of sales was $2.25 per pound of copper sold ($2.32: 2017), C1 cash costs of $1.59 per
pound of copper produced ($1.92: 2017) and all-in sustaining costs of $2.20 per pound of copper produced ($2.39:
2017)1
.
 For 2018, mining costs1 per tonne were $2.13 ($1.51: 2017), milling costs1 per tonne were $7.11 ($6.36: 2017) and G&A costs per tonne were $3.03 ($2.93: 2017).
 Total operating cash costs1 of $817.1 million for 2018 increased 14.8% over 2017 due to higher freight and royalty costs, a reduction in costs capitalized as deferred stripping as well as higher fuel and power costs.
 During 2018, underground lateral development advanced 10.3 equivalent kilometres, a 68.9% increase over 2017.
 Underground expansion capital for 2018 was $1.2 billion, meeting the upper-end of the Company’s guidance.
 During 2018, Oyu Tolgoi completed the sinking and commissioning of Shaft 5

Please review the full version at https://www.turquoisehill.com/…/turquoise_hill_announces_fi…

UK helping Mongolia with energy innovation www.news.mn

With the cooperation of the British Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, a “Smart Energy Forum” was organized by the Energy Ministry of Mongolia. The forum took place at Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier today (14 March). British experts made presentations on smart energy systems, energy tanks, hydro as well as solar power stations.

China becomes world's biggest importer of rare earths – analysts www.mining.com

China, the world's top producer of rare earth elements, last year also emerged as the biggest importer of the group of minerals used in everything from ceramics to consumer electronics, analysts said on Wednesday.

Boeing 737 Max aircraft grounded 'until May at least' www.bbc.com

All Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft will remain grounded at least until May after the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said.

The aircraft will not fly until a software update can be tested and installed, the US regulator said.

Sunday's crash, shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa, killed 157 people from 35 nations.

It was the second crash involving a 737 Max in six months.

Some people have pointed to similarities between the incidents, with some experts citing satellite data and evidence from the crash scene as showing links between Sunday's disaster and October's crash in Indonesia of the Lion Air jet that killed 189 people.

US Representative Rick Larsen said the software upgrade would take a few weeks to complete, and installing it on all the aircraft would take "at least through April".

The FAA said on Wednesday that a software fix for the 737 Max that Boeing had been working on since the Lion Air crash would take months to complete.

Meanwhile, investigators in France have taken charge of the crashed Ethiopian Airlines aircraft's black boxes as they attempt to uncover what caused the Boeing 737 Max disaster.

The Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) received the flight data and cockpit voice recorders on Thursday.

The first readings could take days, but a lot depends on the boxes' condition.

Regulators across the world continue to ground the Boeing aircraft.

On Thursday, Russia, Japan and Tunisia banned the jet from their airspace. Late on Wednesday, the FAA told the country's airlines to ground their fleets, but was criticised for not doing it sooner.

Possible similarities between the accidents, focussing on the aircraft's anti-stall system, have shocked the aviation industry and raised questions over Boeing's, and the FAA's, insistence earlier this week the the Max 737 was safe to fly.

In addition to Max aircraft in service, about another 5,000 are on order from airlines. Garuda Indonesia said there was a possibility it would cancel its 20-strong order for Max jets, depending on what the FAA does.

A BEA spokesman said he did not know what condition the black boxes were in. "First we will try to read the data," the spokesman said, adding that the first analyses could take between half a day and several days.

There have been reports, including by Reuters, that there was a tussle over which safety authority would take the lead in examining the black boxes.

Reports said Germany was initially asked to conduct the analysis because Ethiopian Airlines had been unhappy at the way the Paris-based organisation had investigated a crash in Lebanon in 2010.

Britain and the US both have highly-respected crash investigation agencies.

First, the state of the recorders themselves. They are contained in very robust housings designed to withstand tremendous forces, and they are placed in the rear of the aircraft where they may be sheltered from the worst effects of an impact.

Nevertheless, they can still be damaged, particularly by intense fire. The investigators will need to extract the memory modules, basically circuit boards covered with memory chips, and carry out any necessary repairs.

The modules are designed so that information is spread across a series of chips. If one part is damaged, there should still be useable information elsewhere.

Once downloaded, the data also has to be read. Surprisingly, it is not recorded in a standard form - so investigators will need to know how to make it useable. That will need input from the airline itself.

If all goes well, the investigators will have access to thousands of pieces of data about the aircraft - not only what was going on on the fatal flight itself, but also on previous journeys.

They will also be able to hear what was going on in the cockpit, what the pilots said to one another, and if any audible warnings were sounding.

All of that should go a long way towards establishing the immediate causes of the accident - and finding out whether there really were common factors with the Lion Air crash.

Toxic air tears apart families in Mongolia www.france24.com

In the world's coldest capital, many burn coal and plastic just to survive temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees -- but warmth comes at a price: deadly pollution makes Ulaanbataar's air too toxic for children to breathe, leaving parents little choice but to evacuate them to the countryside.

This exodus is a stark warning of the future for urban areas in much of Asia, where scenes of citizens in anti-pollution masks against a backdrop of brown skies are becoming routine, rather than apocalyptic.

Ulaanbaatar is one of the most polluted cities on the planet, alongside New Delhi, Dhaka, Kabul, and Beijing. It regularly exceeds World Health Organisation recommendations for air quality even as experts warn of disastrous consequences, particularly for children, including stunted development, chronic illness, and in some cases death.

Erdene-Bat Naranchimeg watched helplessly as her daughter Amina battled illness virtually from birth, her immune system handicapped by the smog-choked air in Mongolia's capital.

"We would constantly be in and out of the hospital," Naranchimeg told AFP, adding that Amina contracted pneumonia twice at the age of two, requiring several rounds of antibiotics.

This is not a unique case in a city where winter temperatures plunge towards uninhabitable, particularly in the districts that rural workers moved to in search of a better life.

Here row upon row of the traditional tents -- known as gers -- are warmed by coal, or any other flammable material available. The resulting thick black smoke shoots out in plumes, blanketing surrounding areas in a film of smog that makes visibility so poor it can be hard to see even a few metres ahead.

Hospitals are packed and young children are vulnerable, common colds can quickly escalate into life-threatening illness.

- Birth defects -

The situation was so bad that doctors told Naranchimeg the only solution was to send her little girl to the clean air of the countryside.

Now aged five, Amina is thriving. She lives with her grandparents in Bornuur Sum, a village 135 kilometres away from the capital.

"She hasn't been sick since she started living here," said Naranchimeg, who makes the three-hour round trip to see Amina every week.

"It was very difficult in the first few months," she said. "We used to cry when we talked on the phone."

But like many parents in Ulaanbaatar, she felt the move was the only way to protect her child.

The levels of PM2.5 -- tiny and harmful particles -- in Ulaanbaatar reached 3,320 in January, 133 times what the World Health Organisation (WHO) considers safe.

The effects are terrible for adults but children are even more at risk, in part because they breathe faster, taking in more air and pollutants.

As they are smaller, children are also closer to the ground, where some pollutants concentrate, and their still-developing lungs, brains, and other key organs are more vulnerable to damage.

Effects to prolonged exposure range from persistent infections and asthma to slowed lung and brain development.

The risks apply in utero, too, because gases and fine particles can enter a mother's bloodstream and placenta, causing miscarriage, birth defects and low birth weights, which can also affect a child for the rest of their lives.

Researchers are now investigating whether pollution, like exposure to tobacco smoke, has health effects that could even be passed down to the next generation.

- 'Terribly afraid' -

Buyan-Ulzii Badamkhand and her husband need to stay in capital for work, but they have decided to send their two-year-old son Temuulen more than 1,000 kilometres away.

The 35-year-old mother-of-three struggled with the decision, even moving from one ger district to another in the hope her son's health would improve.

But successive bouts of illness, including bronchitis that lasted a whole year, finally convinced her to send Temuulen to his grandparents.

Hours after he arrived, she called her mother-in-law to discuss her son's medicines.

"But my mother-in-law asked me 'does he still need medicine? He isn't coughing anymore," she said.

"I tell myself that it doesn't matter that I miss him and who raises him, as long as he is healthy, I am content."

Respiratory problems are the most obvious effect of air pollution, but research suggests dirty air can also put children at greater risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease later in life.

And the WHO links it to leukaemia and behavioural disorders.

When air pollution peaks in winter, Ulaanbaatar's playgrounds empty and those who are able to are increasingly travelling abroad to wait out the smog.

In desperation, Luvsangombo Chinchuluun, a civil society activist, borrowed money to take her granddaughter to Thailand for all of January.

"We can't let her play outside (in Ulaanbaatar) because of the air pollution, so we decided to leave," she said.

The persistent smog has caused tensions in the city, with those living in wealthier areas blaming the ger residents for the pollution and even calling for the tent districts to be cleared.

But the ger residents say coal is all they can afford.

"People come to the capital because they need sustainable income," said Dorjdagva Adiyasuren, a 54-year-old mother of six.

"It's not their fault," she added.

In a bid to tackle the problem, the local government banned domestic migration in 2017, and a ban on burning coal comes into force from May.

But it is unclear whether the moves will be enough to make a difference.

For Naranchimeg, the problems are serious enough to make her consider whether she wants more children.

She explained: "Now, I am terribly afraid of to give birth again. It is risky to carry a child and what will happen to the child after it is born in this amount of pollution?"

MrPaM: Mongolia has an estimated lithium resource of 203,000 tons www.zgm.mn

According to the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia (MRPAM), Mongolia has two registered lithium deposits and the confirmed resource currently stands at about 203,000 tons. The growing demand for electric vehicles (EV) and smartphones uplifted lithium price in recent years as the mineral is mainly used in lithium-ion batteries and the world resource is relatively low compared to the ever-growing demand. In 2018, the EV sales totaled 2.1 million units and the Bloomberg New Energy finance study expects the indicator to reach 60 million units by 2040.