Ugii lake is one of the two lakes in Mongolia included in the Ramsar List of Wetlands, the other one is Ganga lake of Sukhbaatar aimag. These lakes provide habitat and food source for rare species of fish, birds and wildlife. However, the lakes are polluted and the ecosystem degrades year by year due to unorganized tourism, overgrazing and human activities. Thus, the Government has issued a resolution on protection of Ugii and Ganga lakes, budgeting a certain amount of money.

MP J.Munkhbat, Ministry of Environment and Tourism officials exchanged views with the locals living around Ugii lake on budget expenditure, protection and improvement of the lake.

Participants of the meeting pointed out that it is necessary to excavate a trench, input and output channels in order to maintain the water quality of Ugii lake. Another problem the lake facing is fishing, the population of fish has significantly reduced in recent years. Therefore, the participants proposed to assess the fish population and prohibit fishing in case of serious decline in fish numbers. Moreover, it is said that the tourist camps around the lake are overloaded, so the locals emphasized the need to conduct research and take actions regarding this issue.

According to the research of 2006, the circumference of Ugii lake is 24.5 km and some 129 species of birds, 15 species of fish and 266 species of plants were found there. About 3000 foreign and domestic tourists visit Ugii lake annually and the number of tourists increases year by year.

A total of nine serious road accidents occurred across the country throughout the Lunar New Year celebrations on Feb. 4-8, the news website ikon.mn quoted the National Police Agency as saying.

Over-speeding, unpermitted overtaking and driver fatigue were the main causes of the accidents, the report said.

Mongolians celebrate the "White Moon festival" with new clothes, family feasts and good wishes. The festival symbolizes the start of spring and the end of a harsh winter.

It is also regarded as a traditional holiday to pay respect to the seniors. Many people travel to the countryside to visit their parents, grandparents and other senior relatives during the festival. Enditem

According to the Council, such reform would encourage additional investment in capital and technology.

“Australia should have strong tax integrity rules that are consistent with OECD best practice. The treatment of debt to fund investment in Australia should be aligned with OECD measures and should not affect legitimate debt, which is critical for Australia as a capital-importing economy,” the report reads.

The industry group also called on the Parliament to ensure tax settings are competitive and to retain the Fuel Tax Credit scheme so that companies operating in remote areas are not penalised for off-road diesel use.

In the document, the MCA urges authorities to modernise Australia’s workplace rules, which would imply removing duplication and red tape to allow local firms to stay ahead of the pack globally. In the organization’s view, there is unnecessary overlap in the requirements put forward by federal and state governments and this causes delays on projects and impacts the workforce.

“Flexibility and choice in employment arrangements will ensure that Australia’s highly paid, highly skilled mining workforce will be able to make the most of opportunities created by technology and new ways of working,” the report states.

The Minerals Council of Australia said it fears that jobs and the sustainability of regional and remote communities will be at risk if legislation related to the workplace is kept the way it is right now.

What is Goldman accused of?
The firm helped raise $6.5bn (£5bn) for the Malaysian development fund, advising on three bond offerings in 2012 and 2013.

Prosecutors allege more than $2.7bn was later embezzled, used to bribe government officials and buy luxury items.

In November, Goldman's lead banker on the deals, Tim Leissner, pleaded guilty in US court to participating in the bribery and money laundering schemes.

Malaysia's attorney general then charged Goldman with helping to "dishonestly misappropriate" money from the fund.

He noted that the $600m Goldman earned for its work was "several times higher" than industry norms.

The firm remains under investigation in the other countries, including the US, and is also facing lawsuits from investors.

What does Goldman say?
Goldman says the Malaysia charges are "misdirected".

It says the firm's compliance officers were deceived about aspects of the deal, including the role of Malaysian financier Jho Low, whom the bank had previously rejected as a client.

But news reports have described the firm's former chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, meeting Mr Low and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Mr Leissner, Goldman's South East Asia chairman until he left the firm in 2016, has said the decision to hide information from Goldman's compliance officers was "very much in line" with company culture.

What penalties could Goldman face?
Malaysian authorities are seeking fines of more than $3bn.

Goldman has warned investors of the risk of "significant" penalties and increased the money set aside for legal liabilities to $1.8bn.

As its legal costs surge, it has also said it will withhold millions due to some of its top executives, including Mr Blankfein, pending the outcome of the probes.

The festival is aimed at promoting the Mongolian culture and traditions, developing winter tourism and attracting both domestic and foreign tourists to the capital city.

The festival program consists of a traditional part, featuring traditional games, a folk concert and a parade of people in national costumes, and a modern segment featuring figure skating, hockey, skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing and dog sledding.

The Mongolian government has been making efforts to develop the tourism sector and promote the country's economic growth.

Oviraptorosaurs were a diverse group of feathered, bird-like dinosaurs from the Cretaceous of Asia and North America. Despite the abundance of nearly complete oviraptorosaur skeletons discovered in southern China and Mongolia, the diet and feeding strategies of these toothless dinosaurs are still unclear. In this study, Lee and colleagues described an incomplete skeleton of an oviraptorosaur found in the Nemegt Formation of the Gobi desert of Mongolia.

The new species, named Gobiraptor minutus, can be distinguished from other oviraptorosaurs in having unusual thickened jaws. This unique morphology suggests that Gobiraptor used a crushing feeding strategy, supporting previous hypotheses that oviraptorosaurs probably fed on hard food items such as eggs, seeds or hard-shell mollusks. Histological analyses of the femur revealed that the specimen likely belonged to a very young individual.

The finding of a new oviraptorosaur species in the Nemegt Formation, which consists mostly of river and lake deposits, confirms that these dinosaurs were extremely well adapted to wet environments. The authors propose that different dietary strategies may explain the wide taxonomic diversity and evolutionary success of this group in the region.

The authors add: “A new oviraptorid dinosaur Gobiraptor minutus gen. et sp. nov. from the Upper Cretaceous Nemegt Formation is described here based on a single holotype specimen that includes incomplete cranial and postcranial elements. The unique morphology of the mandible and the accordingly inferred specialized diet of Gobiraptor also indicate that different dietary strategies may be one of important factors linked with the remarkably high diversity of oviraptorids in the Nemegt Basin.”

Reference:
Sungjin Lee, Yuong-Nam Lee, Anusuya Chinsamy, Junchang Lü, Rinchen Barsbold, Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar. A new baby oviraptorid dinosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (2): e0210867 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210867

During the meeting, Mr. Oyun-Erdene assigned the DBM's authorities to urgently consolidate information on repayments of loans issued by the DBM and the percentage of outstanding loans and report it next Tuesday. Moreover, he said that the Cabinet Secretariat of Government resolves to set up a working group for inspecting repayments of bonds of the DBM.

“Kamoa-Kakula will become the world’s second-largest copper mine with peak annual production of more than 700,000 tons of copper metal,” Ivanhoe founder Friedland said Wednesday at a mining conference in Cape Town.

Friedland announced the findings of an independent pre-feasibility study after Ivanhoe invested $800 million in exploration and development. The capacity of the project’s first phase, producing 6 million tons of ore a year, could later be tripled, the company said. Initial mine grades will average 6.8 percent copper, with production expected to start in 2021.

Ivanhoe’s Congo success follows deals with ties to the government
“Grade is king,” said Friedland, who is co-chairman of Ivanhoe. “Nothing even comes close to Kamoa-Kakula.”

The first mine will be able to finance two further mines and a smelter, with investment of US$1.1 billion, he said. “That is mind-boggling and we’ve never seen that before,” said Friedland.

Ivanhoe is developing Kamoa-Kakula with its Chinese joint-venture partner Zijing Mining Group Co. and the Congolese government.

EXCITING PROSPECT
The results from drill hole DD1450 at Kamoa North, released by Ivanhoe last week, were “nothing short of extraordinary,” Paul Gait, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in a note. They confirm that “the broader Kamoa-Kakula region is by far the most important and exciting mining project in the world today,” he said.

Ivanhoe shares have climbed 21 per cent in Toronto since it reported the results of the drill hole at Kamoa North on Jan. 30. That gave the company a market value of $2.94 billion (US$2.2 billion).

Nothing even comes close to Kamoa-Kakula

Over more than two decades, mining investor Friedland and his small team have made some of the biggest mineral discoveries in the world.

In addition to unearthing Africa’s largest copper deposit, other projects include building the Oyu Tolgoi copper-and-gold mine in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert and discovering the Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Canada, which he sold in 1996 for more than US$3 billion. Ivanhoe is also developing a platinum mine in South Africa.

Bloomberg.com