Metal Mania From Mongolia Invades YouTube With Guitar Riffs, Guttural Singing www.sputniknews.com

Centuries after Genghis Khan raged across Eurasia, Mongolians have launched a new kind of offensive, which might outshine the conquests of their ancestors. The band Hu, mixing rock music with traditional themes, has found inspiration in their country’s long history, making nomadic life great again.

Michael S.Klecheski appointed as Ambassador of the USA to Mongolia www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The United States House of Representatives confirmed the nomination of to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the US to Mongolia Michael S.Klecheski on January 2.

Cabinet ratifies President-initiated bill on dissolving Parliament www.zgm.mn

Chief of Staff to the President of Mongolia Enkhbold Zandaakhuu submitted a draft bill on Amendment to the Law on the Procedure of the Plenary Session of the Parliament to Speaker Enkhbold Miyegombo last week. The bill was then approved by the Cabinet.

New railway for coal transport opens in north China www.en.silkroad.news.cn

TAIYUAN, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- A new railway for coal transport has opened in north China, according to China Railway Taiyuan Group.

Mongolia’s coal exports hit all-time high in 2018 www.daily-sun.com

ULAN BATOR: Mongolia's coal exports hit an all-time high in 2018, the country's finance ministry said Friday.

Share of Renewable Energy in Mongolia Reaches Record High www.financialtribune.com

The share of renewable energy in Mongolia's total electricity production has reached a record high in 2018, local media reported Monday.

How A Mongolian Heavy Metal Band Got Millions Of YouTube Views www.npr.org

A band from Mongolia that blends the screaming guitars of heavy metal and traditional Mongolian guttural singing has picked up 7 million views for its two videos.

Leather jackets, skull rings and bandanas alongside intricately carved Mongolian horsehead fiddles are just some of the images in the first two music videos the Mongolian band The Hu released on YouTube this fall. Excited listeners from around the globe have posted comments like "This makes me want to ride a horse and shoot people with a bow" and "This sounds like ancient mongol rock of 1000 b.c. Really badass!" (sic)

And yet what The Hu is doing, while new, comes out of a tradition that began several decades ago when Mongolia transitioned from a satellite of the Soviet Union to a democracy.

As the Soviet Union crumbled and Western influence flooded in during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mongolian musicians chose to preserve Mongolian culture while also adapting new influences, explains University of Chicago ethnomusicology Ph.D. student Thalea Stokes.

It is something they continue to do today, says Stokes, who spoke via Skype from Inner Mongolia where she is studying Mongolian hip-hop. The hip-hop scene she studies has a similar background. Although hip-hop is a relatively new import, Mongolians have rapidly adapted it, mixing "fierce ethnic pride and adventurous dancing" with social and political critique, according to Stokes' research.

"Mongolians are not just taking elements from Western music and just copying and pasting," says Stokes. Instead, they're actually using some of these elements and making their own authentic music.

"So it's not rock music performed by Mongolians. It's Mongolian rock music," she says.

To Fight Pollution, He's Reinventing The Mongolian Tent
Mongolian rock combines traditional Mongolian instruments, like a horsehead fiddle (morin khuur), Jew's harp (tumur khuur) and Mongolian guitar (tovshuur) with the pounding bass and drums of rock.

It also involves singing in a guttural way known as throat singing while throwing heads back and forth reminiscent of the head banging of '80s heavy metal bands like Metallica. Those who study Mongolian music believe one reason The Hu has proved so popular with outsiders is this combining of modern and historical and Eastern and Western elements.

The Hu call their style "Hunnu rock" — from the Mongolian root word for human being: "Hu." The band spent seven years putting together their first album, which they expect to release this spring. They plan to call it "Gereg," the name for a diplomatic passport used during the time of Genghis Khan. For the album, the idea was to find, study and incorporate as much of Mongolia's musical culture as they could into a rock style, says the band's 52-year-old producer and songwriter, B. Dashdong who goes by "Dashka."

Mongolian musical culture is tied up with their pastoral way of life. The two-stringed horsehead fiddle is shaped to resemble a horse and includes the carving of a horse head and strings and bow made of horsehair. It produces a sound similar to a violin and can be used to imitate the sound of a herd of horses. In throat singing, associated with pastoral herders in Central Asia, the singer produces a low constant sort of drone at the same time as a series of higher tones.

"We wanted to come up with our own thing that we can offer to this big music family. Make something new," says Dashka, who spoke through a translator via Skype.

It is not just their instruments that incorporate traditional elements. In the band's first song, "Yuve Yuve Yu" (What's going on?), they mention Genghis Khan and how he was fated to bring nations together. The video begins with images of people inside playing video games, watching television and looking at their phones. A door is opened and the band's four members step into different natural settings: cliffs, desert, forest and lake. The message they hope to convey through their lyrics and imagery is that people need to pay attention to nature and their history and culture, explains lead singer TS. Galbadrakh, known as "Gala," 29.

It is a familiar message to Kip Hutchins, a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. Lines about neglecting their ancestors — like "taking our great Mongol ancestors names in vain" — are almost exactly what was sung in the late 1980s during the transition to democracy, says Hutchins. It was then that rock became popular as a form of political protest. Soon after, Mongolians started to form folk rock and folk jazz ensembles. Band members tended to be trained in conservatories on traditional instruments.

The four members of The Hu all learned to play traditional Mongolian instruments at the Mongolian State Conservatory. The oldest in the group, G. Nyamjantsan, who goes by "Jaya," 35, still teaches at the conservatory. N. Temuulen aka "Temka," 28, who plays the Mongolian guitar, says their international popularity was something they expected — but not in the millions.

"When we do this, we try to spiritually express this beautiful thing about Mongolian music. We think we will talk to everyone's soul through our music," says Temka through a translator. "But we didn't expect this fast, people just popping up everywhere."

They aren't quite sure how it happened. Hutchins has an idea. He believes part of the appeal of bands like The Hu is the way he believes the story of Mongolia has been written in the West. Nomadism and horse culture has been romanticized, and the emphasis on freedom and heroes tends to appeal to the stereotypical male heavy metal fan.

"There is a kind of exoticism to Mongolia," says Hutchins. Mongolia "is at once a community and a culture that is part of Asia and Europe at the same time."

The Hu is not the only Mongolian band that has attracted recent international attention. There is the folk rock band Altan Urag, whose music was featured in the 2007 film Mongol and in the Netflix show Marco Polo, and the Inner Mongolian Hanggai Band.

Ethnomusicologist Charlotte D'Evelyn sees The Hu as trying to bring back traditions while also modernizing. For her it is as if the band is saying, "We're still modern and we're living in the modern world. But we're using this music to revive some kind of nationalistic cultural identity."

Hutchins puts it another way.

"The Hu is obviously interested in teaching a global community about Mongolian culture as much as they're interested in creating something Mongol."

Katya Cengel is the author of Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back. She reported from Mongolia in 2017 on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project (IRP). You can find her on twitter @kcengel

Mongolian central bank's purchase of gold expected to decrease in 2019 www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of Mongolia's purchase of gold is expected to decrease in 2019, the central bank's spokesperson said Saturday.

Law-making process freezes for eighth week www.zgm.mn

Parliament session was delayed for the eighth week yesterday. While lawmakers are failing to form a quorum, the number of issues that require immediate approval have been piled up, which could potentially have dire consequence if the situation prolongs any further.

Apple won't be the last casualty of China's slowdown www.cnn.com

Hong Kong (CNN Business)From iPhones to autos, global brands rely on China for growth. Now the country's economic slowdown is putting their earnings at risk.

Apple (AAPL) on Wednesday said that it expected a weaker Chinese economy to hurt its holiday sales numbers, prompting its stock to plunge up to 8% in after hours trading. CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to investors that the company had been blindsided by "the magnitude of the economic deceleration" there.
It isn't the only company that could suffer. The slump in China's economy, the second largest in the world, could hit companies like General Motors (GM), Volkswagen (VLKAF) and Starbucks (SBUX), which will report earnings in the coming weeks.
"This year has the potential to be a tough year for western brands," said Benjamin Cavender, a Shanghai-based analyst at consultant China Market Research Group.

The Chinese economy is flagging after decades of expansion. Growth in 2018 is expected to be the weakest since 1990. The outlook for this year is even worse, as the trade war with the United States and government attempts to curb runaway debt take their toll.
That spells trouble for companies that rely on China's enormous market to boost their global sales. Chinese consumers could be less willing to part with their cash for the latest smartphone or luxury handbag as they tighten their belts.
"Brands like Apple will struggle in part because consumers are having to think harder to justify premium products and brands," said Cavender. He points out that China now boasts a number of homegrown smartphone makers, like Huawei and Xiaomi. Many of these offer products that are competitive with the iPhone's capabilities but are substantially cheaper.
China is hugely important to Apple, making up about 15% of the company's global revenues. "When you talk about China and Apple, they're tied at the hip," said Dan Ives, New York-based managing director of equity research at broker Wedbush Securities. China is "the heart and lungs of the Apple growth story."
But he thinks the company has made missteps in this market, such as selling some recent models of the iPhone at a price deemed too expensive by Chinese consumers.
Starbucks feeling the squeeze
It isn't just high-tech names that are likely to feel the squeeze. The cost of a Starbucks latte is substantially less than a new iPhone, but America's biggest coffee chain is unlikely to escape China's economic slowdown. The firm has an ambitious expansion plan for China, Starbucks' second-biggest market after the United States, but sales have been slowing.
The coffee company is considered a luxury brand in the country, said Nick Setyan, another analyst at Wedbush who covers the restaurant business. That makes Starbucks vulnerable if consumers decide to cut back on spending because of the economic downturn.
The problem is magnified because the Seattle-based company is also facing rising competition from local players, like Luckin Coffee, which has been rapidly increasing its number of stores and sells much cheaper coffee.
"We are going to see Starbucks continuing to struggle," added China Market Research's Cavender.
A customer trying a red iPhone 7 in Nanjing, China. Apple on Wednesday said that it expected a weaker Chinese economy to hurt its holiday sales, prompting its stock to plunge.
A customer trying a red iPhone 7 in Nanjing, China. Apple on Wednesday said that it expected a weaker Chinese economy to hurt its holiday sales, prompting its stock to plunge.
Auto market likely to get worse
China has been a source of blockbuster sales for major carmakers for years, as rapid economic growth gave millions of consumers the cash to spend on middle-class status symbols.
For the likes of General Motors and Volkswagen, China brings in more revenue than the United States or Europe. "The China market is extremely important to all carmakers," said Tu Le, Beijing-based founder of research firm Sino Auto Insights.

But GM, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Ford (F) are among those companies that reported late last year that their sales in the country were sliding as the economy lost momentum. Some brands blamed the trade war with the United States, which is making drivers think twice before splashing out on a new ride.
Le thinks that Ford, Volkswagen and Tesla (TSLA) are among the Western automakers that are most vulnerable to China's slowdown. Ford has struggled to attract drivers there with its line-up of cars in the country, while Tesla faces huge competition from cheaper, Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Experts think things could get worse before they get better, despite recent moves by Beijing to cut tariffs on US auto imports at the end of last year.
"Regaining the momentum towards growth is going to be very challenging in the next year or two if the overall economy stays weak," said Le.
Apple suppliers
Shares in companies that provide components for Apple products were among the hardest hit by the fallout from the iPhone maker's warning.
Hon Hai Precision (HNHPD), better known as Foxconn, fell 2% on Thursday in Taipei. Catcher Technology, a Taiwanese company that makes iPhone cases, dropped nearly 4%.
Austria's AMS (AMSSY), which makes light sensors, plunged more than 19%. Shares in European chipmakers Dialog Semiconductors (DLGNF) and STMicroelectronics (STM) dropped 7%.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner contributed to this report.