SWEET MONGOLIA: HOW GENGHIS GOT HIS HORDE

New York Post
By KYLE SMITH
June 6, 2008 -- COMBINING the intelligence of an action movie with the excitement of an art-house release makes "Mongol" as dry as summer in the Gobi Desert.

This biography of the young Genghis Khan presents a warlord so chatty and flirtatious that he might as well have been called Genghis Hanks. As a young boy, the headstrong lad picks out his future bride (actually, she picks him) from a random tribe instead of a politically powerful group, but on the plus side he picks up a promise to win a sable coat as a dowry. Cha-ching!

Later, with his father dead and a pretender usurping the title of khan, young Temudgin (the future Genghis) vows vengeance - then essentially tells his men to hold that thought. He has to go look up this girl he hung out with for about 10 minutes several years ago.

The conquesting is shunted mostly to the side as Temudgin takes breaks to chat about, for instance, how beautiful the Mongol language is - to put the kindest possible spin on it, it sounds a bit like a goat spitting up his lunch - or about where to put which yurt. Meanwhile his enemies keep capturing - but forgetting to kill - him.

The story starts to turn from the wrath of Khan to the wrath of audience when, locked in prison, Temudgin sits there like a lost poodle at the pet shelter, waiting to be rescued instead of busting out. A movie with dialogue like "I didn't know that day would change my life forever" and "Don't you want to touch me, Temudgin?" needs a bit more action.

When Khan finally builds his one-man force into an entire army and a battle plan, he does so off-screen, between scenes, because the film is more interested in showing him picnicking with his kids.

Director Sergei Bodrov stages a couple of splattery yet artful battle scenes - including one in which a gang of ruffians wears what look like cool hockey masks covered with graffiti - and there is a weird and jittery score reminiscent of the one in "There Will Be Blood." Even so, "Mongol" really isn't worth leaving your yurt for

Death toll in Mongolia storms rises to 52

MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti)

The death toll in the heavy snow and sand storms that hit Mongolia last week has risen to 52, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Monday.

The storms most severely affected seven provinces in the west and center of the country. Wind speeds reached 40 meters a second in some areas.

More than 300 people and 70 vehicles were involved in the subsequent rescue operations, which are now coming to an end. The search for survivors has been hampered by poor weather conditions.

Earlier, it was reported that 42 people died.

Thousands of cattle also died in the storms. Strong winds also damaged buildings and infrastructure, causing power cuts in the worst-hit areas.

Kiwis' Mongolian boat venture

By TINA LAW
The Dominion Post(New Zealand)
Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Mongolia is about to be invaded by a trio of Kiwis creating what is believed to be the country's first commercial jet-boating operation.

Mike Gorman, who is originally from Christchurch but has lived in Japan for 35 years, thinks landlocked Mongolia will be the next big tourism destination and is keen to enter the market early.

He has enlisted the help of two long-time Canterbury jet-boat operators to help him build up the venture, which will put a bright yellow Christchurch-built Hamilton 212 jet boat on the waters of the Tuul River.

At 705 kilometres, the Tuul is more than four times the length of the Waimakariri River, which Johnny Sharp, of Southern Alps Jets, and Alastair Sime, of Adventure Jets, are used to boating on.

The two will spend six weeks training drivers and setting up the operation.

Mr Gorman was travelling to Mongolia and could not be reached for comment.

Mongolia, with just 2.9 million people, is the most sparsely populated country in the world, but Mr Sime said Mr Gorman believed the venture would create a lot of interest from tourists and local people.

Mr Gorman came up with the idea one day while overlooking the river. He decided it would benefit from a jet-boating operation.

It would not be Mr Gorman's first commercial venture in Mongolia. He already imports New Zealand fish into the country through Independent Fisheries.

Despite seeing only photographs of the Tuul River, Mr Sharp expected language and cultural differences to be the biggest challenges they would face.

The boat, built by 20-year-old Gareth Munro of Jet Seeker, had to be modified to cope with the altitude because the river, which cuts through the capital Ulan Bator, is 1524 metres above sea level.

Jet Seeker director Lindsay Munro said the engine's fuel/air mix had to be altered. The nine-seater boat, which took three months to build, was about the sixth built by his son Gareth since he joined his father's company in September last year.

Lindsay Munro said he would be employing two more staff to cope with the number of orders the company was receiving. He was hoping to secure orders from Taiwan and Britain.

He had recently sold a secondhand boat to a rich Siberian man who wanted something to play with. He could use it only four months of the year, however, because of the temperature.

The long and short of it

Bao Xishun and He Pingping (Photo by AP)

The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
May 19, 2008


Scientists have discovered genes that influence height but are yet to explain the gap between the tallest and shortest of people, writes T.V. Jayan

A meeting between two ordinary men in a remote locale in Mongolia hit the headlines all over the world in July last year. But neither Bao Xishun, 56, nor He Pingping, 19, holds a position of eminence. Nor are they film or sports celebrities. The encounter grabbed world attention because of the two men’s contrasting statures. While Xishun, at 2.36m, is the world’s tallest living man, the 74-cm Pingping claims he is the shortest.

Modern science may not be able to explain the yawning gap between the heights of these two men — both hailing from Inner Mongolia — but it has gained some genetic insight into the varying stature of billions of others who fall between Xishun and Pingping in terms of height.

For nearly a century, scientists have believed that genes handed down from parents are responsible for 90 per cent of the normal variation in human height in a population. And it is not just one gene but probably a few hundred that contribute towards making a person tall or short. But until last year, scientists were clueless about their location on the human genome, which consists of more than 3 billion DNA base pairs.

In September 2007, researchers from both sides of the Atlantic, while foraging through DNA from 35,000 people, stumbled upon a difference in a gene called HMGA2, which plays a decisive role in making people taller or shorter, albeit marginally. They found that if a person had two copies of a longer variant of HMGA2, he or she would be 1cm taller than one who has two shorter versions of it.

The HMGA2 gene thus became the first reliable genetic link to human height. Later, scientists zeroed in on yet another gene, GDF5, which makes for an average height difference of 0.4cm.

What made the discovery of such genes possible is what scientists call genome-wide association studies. This is a relatively new way of identifying genes involved in human diseases. Made possible by advances in genetics and sophistication in scientific tools, this method searches the genome for small variations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The tools are so advanced that researchers can search for hundreds or thousands of SNPs simultaneously. Such studies pinpoint genes that may contribute to a person’s risk of developing a certain disease or those associated with a trait such as height or eye colour.

If 2007 saw a beginning in understanding the role played by genes in deciding how tall a person will be, 2008 has so far proved to be a watershed. The same consortium of scientists who discovered the HMGA2 and GDF5 genes, now split into two groups, recently discovered 40 more genetic locations. Combined, they may be able to explain a height difference of up to 6cm, or 5 per cent of the population variation in height.

The number and variety of genetic regions discovered so far show that height is determined not just by a few genes operating in the long bones, notes Thomas Frayling of Peninsula Medical School in the UK. Frayling is the lead author of the one of the two studies that appeared in Nature Genetics last month.

Joel Hirschhorn, a paediatric endocrinologist at Broad Institute in the US, who led the other study, says that the new findings account for only a small fraction of the variation in height among people and that there is a lot more to discover. “This is much more than we had even last year. But we are not close to predicting adult height,” Hirschhorn told Knowhow.

The study of genes involved in determining adult height stems from more than sheer curiosity. By identifying which genes affect normal growth, it is easy to understand the processes that lead to abnormal growth, the scientists say. “There appears to be a definite correlation between height and some diseases,” says Michael Weedon, a colleague of Frayling. Weedon was not only part of the original team that discovered the HMGA2 gene but was also instrumental in the latest discovery of 20 new genetic locations linked to height. For instance, there is a strong association between shortness and a slightly increased risk of conditions such as heart disease. Similarly, tall people are more prone to certain cancers and, possibly, osteoporosis.

A predominant factor that determines one’s height may be heredity, but diet too has a role to play. In fact, improved nutrition means that each generation gets successively taller, as has been shown by a recent study on Indians.

That said, Indians still have some catching up to do: an average Indian man (165.3cm) is two centimetres shorter than an average Czech woman who stands 167.3cm tall.

Increasingly-Hostile Mongolian Government Continues to Receive American Taxpayer Dollars Despite Targeting Western Interests

ALEXANDRIA, Va., USA
May 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/

A coalition of organizations that includes the Center for Individual Freedom, the Property Rights Alliance, the Institute for Liberty and Citizens Against Government Waste have written to President Bush to urge reconsideration of taxpayer-funded foreign aid to Mongolia in light of that nations regression in the areas of property rights and the rule of law.

Under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), impoverished foreign nations are eligible to receive American aid upon the condition that they demonstrate respect for free-market principles, property rights and the rule of law. In recent months, however, the Mongolian government has dangerously regressed in these areas. Specifically, it has begun to target Western interests through confiscatory taxation, and sought to intimidate them into relinquishing equity in their bargained-for commercial mining enterprises.

Alarmingly, these actions by the Mongolian government pave the way for Russian companies to swoop in and earn billions in profits at the expense of Western interests. Despite this aggression, the MCC recently awarded Mongolia a nearly $300 million grant, financed by American taxpayer dollars.

The deteriorating business and legal situation in Mongolia is cause for alarm, given its critical geographic location between Russia and China. In the letter, the groups said, If we allow Mongolias unethical practices to continue and spread, its corrupt neighbors will stand to gain the most by filling the vacuum and forging new partnerships there.

To be sure, the Bush Administration maintains an impressive record of supporting policies that advance development of friendly nations and uphold the democratic ideals that Americans hold so dear. It is for this reason, however, that Mongolias recent actions are so disquieting.

In our efforts to advance prosperity in other nations across the globe, we must not abandon the principles and standards necessary to build politically and economically stable democracies, wrote the groups.

The letter therefore urges President Bush to reevaluate Mongolias eligibility to receive American taxpayer-funded foreign aid in light of its recent transgressions.


Founded in 1998, the Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org) is a Constitutional and free-market advocacy organization with more than 250,000 supporters and activists nationwide.
SOURCE Center for Individual Freedom

Visit Mongolia and other wonderful places

Muskogee Phoenix, USA
May 17, 2008
By Margrett Kelley
Librarian Assistant, Muskogee Public Library


Usually I don't bother reading the preface to a book, however when I opened "Edge of Blue Heaven: A Journey through Mongolia," and read author Benedict Allen’s preface; I knew I had found something very special to read.

Author and filmmaker Allen tells us ’that exploration is not about leaving your mark.’ He goes on to says it's, "about making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself up to whatever's there and letting the place leave its mark on you."

As a modern day explorer Allen is the consummate traveler and adventurer. He travels alone using a country's indigenous "tribal" people as guides. He has written six books about his various expeditions in the Amazon, New Guinea, Australia's Gibson Desert, Sumatra, and Mongolia. His book on Mongolia, "Edge of Blue Heaven," describes in remarkable detail his extraordinary travels through the forests of Siberia, across the open plains of the Mongolian steppe and on alone for 1,000 miles through the Gobi Desert. He found children riding reindeer to herd horses in the Mongolian steppe, and snow leopard activity which was tracked very near their camp, although no one actually saw the leopard; such is the elusive and ethereal animal. This is a wonderful book to read even if you have seen the BBC TV series which the book was published to accompany.

If you are the reader who enjoys more historical travel tales you will want to read "In Search of New Horizons" by Robert B. Downs, whose travel tales begin around 464 to 447 B.C. all the way to the chapter on "St. John Hunt's The conquest of Everest, in 1953." And, for those of us who may never visit the Holy Land in person you will want to read "Come See the Place the Holy Land Jesus Knew" by photographer Gordon N. Converse with text by Robert J. Bull and B. Cobbey Crisler.

The non-denominational text traces Jesus' life from his birth to the Ascension. If you have more interest in books on tape you will enjoy "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer, which is about a young man who invents a new life for himself after giving his $25,000 in savings to charity. He walked away from his car and other possessions, ignited his wallet and walked alone into the land north of the icy crown of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America.

The Washington Post said: "A narrative of arresting force. Anyone who ever fancied wandering off to face nature on its own harsh terms should give a look. It's gripping stuff."

Another great travel book-on-tape is "Route 66-The Mother Road," by Michael Wallis. Read by the author; it is pure enjoyment. Let author Wallis take you down one of America's most famous and exciting roads! So travel on down to the library, there's plenty to read, DVDs, and videos to see, books-on- tape to enjoy, free computer classes, free public access Internet, WiFi for your laptop and events happening at your library.

Library cards are free, drop by, browse, and stay a while; we'd love to say hello.

Keeping Up With the Khans

Far Eastern Economic Review
by Oliver Waddington-Ball
May 14, 2008

Seen from an airplane at 35,000 feet, Mongolia is a vast and predominantly empty landscape. It’s hard to believe that it has become the scene of one of Asia’s most spectacular real-estate booms. In the last 12 months, housing sales and prices in the capital, Ulan Bator have grown exponentially. Similarly, rental yields in the subarctic city of one million people have doubled, eclipsing growth rates of Beijing and Hong Kong. According to Tsenduren Bordukh of Mongolian Properties, the country’s largest real-estate agency and developer of the luxury Olympic Residence, real-estate price levels will grow “well into the next decade.”

In this largely vacuous country of 1.56 million square kilometers, it is ironic that the real-estate boom is driven by the lack of developable spaces. However, while the country is space rich, Ulan Bator is not. With four in 10 Mongolians living in the capital, the city has reached the limits of practical developable space. The power plant responsible for the underground heating system and supply of electricity, a legacy of the Soviet involvement, is so overstretched that, even were developers to engage in rapid construction on green field sites around the edges of the city, the chances are that new domiciles would lack heating and receive an erratic supply of electricity. David Dollar, country director of the World Bank for Mongolia and China, in his closing address of a meeting with the Mongolian government in April 2007 noted: “I think it’s fair to say that participants shared some major concerns over the status of Mongolia’s power sector.” As for many developing countries, the government has struggled to finance the kind of projects necessary to support the rapid modernization of the economy and local tariffs have failed to rise rapidly enough to service debt costs or to raise significant new funds for the sector. Not an appealing thought in a country where the winter temperature plummets as low as 40 degrees Celsius below zero, and then bounces back to more than 40 degrees Celsius in the summertime.

This environmental extremity has also been the cause of sluggish development of those projects lucky enough to be guaranteed access to Ulan Bator’s heating system. Development of all types has had to revolve around the unforgiving winter season stretching from October through to April when freezing temperatures make it impossible to pour concrete. The underdeveloped level of infrastructure both in and around the capital has also mean that even in the balmier months, developers often lack the factors of production and cabooses laden with goods are often stacked up at the border, waiting for the attention of the countries’ dwindling supply of Soviet-built freight locomotives. This has culminated in a building rate that averages around 60 apartments per year for the top five developers, according to Lee Cashell, founder and chief executive officer of Asia Pacific Investment Partners, an investment group headquartered in Hong Kong but with extensive Mongolian exposure.

But as most high school economics students will be able to explain, an expansion in supply of a good, however inhibited, should lead to a decrease in prices unless there is a proportional or greater expansion in demand. This has clearly been the case in Mongolia’s real estate industry where the rate at which new housing is built is still being outstripped by the growth of demand from the market. And this is reflected in almost monthly price hikes. Who then is snapping up these new apartments? Part of the answer lies in the same backbone of Mongolia’s steady GDP growth rate of about 8% to 10% since 2003, the continued foreign investment in the exploration and extraction of resources, such as copper and coal, which has been accountable for nearly 70% of FDI since 1990. This has led to an increasing number of expats in and around Ulan Bator, all desperate to spend nontransferable housing budgets and unsatisfied with the still widely used local alternative, the ger, or felt tent commonly found in Mongolia.

But in fact, the foreign miners are not the only ones unsatisfied with the long held tradition of the versatile ger. Many aspirational Mongolians, often those who have been in some way involved with the spillover effects of FDI and sustained GDP growth, have also been rejecting the traditional abode. Having becoming increasingly wealthy and aware of the things that money can buy, this new group is looking for modern apartments. The money supply has also recently opened up. Local lenders, spurred on by market competition in the banking sector, have started offering long-term lending and mortgages and reducing collateral requirements. This has had the effect of putting even more domestic Mongolians in the market, chasing that elusive square meter.

This ever increasing demand for real estate and the resulting overnight returns on offer to the savvy foreign investor has led to a great deal of FDI aimed at the real-estate market in the past two years. The country has a rating of 60.1% on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. A percentage point above the Asian average, this classifies Mongolia as comparatively secure for investment. Whilst foreigners are not allowed to own land, they can gain freehold through an immovable property certificate for any development they build or buy, with protections similar to those in the United States. And the Mongolian government has no restrictions on foreign exchange, meaning that foreign investment will likely continue to grow. If and when these investors choose to exit the market will depend largely on the government’s handling of rising inflation, which has accelerated almost 10% since June last year. However, if some of these bottlenecks, such as the real-estate one that constrict the size and value of development projects can be removed, this could mean that the future for property developers and buyers alike could be bright.


Mr. Waddington-Ball is a marketing intern with The Wall Street Journal in Beijing.

Russia-Mongolia trade to exceed $1 bln

MOSCOW, May 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Mongolia will increase bilateral trade to $1 billion and above in the next several years, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar is currently in Moscow on a three-day working visit.

"Not so long ago, the goal was to increase our trade to $1 billion, and we will achieve this target in the next several years, and surpass it," Medvedev told Enkhbayar during their meeting in the Kremlin, adding that at present trade turnover was more than $750 million.

"This shows that there is potential for development," he said.

Bilateral trade has been growing steadily between Russia and Mongolia in the past few years. Last year, trade hit $677 million, up 28.3% against 2006. Russian exports to Mongolia increased 28.4%, and imports from the Central Asian country rose 28.2% in 2007.

Russia is Mongolia's second largest economic partner after China. Last year, Russia exported to Mongolia oil and mineral products, food, agricultural raw materials, vehicles, equipment and chemicals.

Russia invested over $2.2 million in Mongolia last year, against $500,000 in 2006. Mongolian investment in Russia reached around $7 million in 2007.

Russia is currently studying the possibility of the construction of a small or medium-capacity nuclear power plant in Mongolia.

According to Mongolian estimates, uranium reserves in the country amount to 60,000 metric tons. However, Russian experts have assessed Mongolia's uranium reserves at 120,000-150,000 tons.

Nambaryn Enkhbayar invited Dmitry Medvedev to visit Mongolia and congratulated him on Zenit St. Petersburg's recent UEFA Cup victory.

"I am happy that the Russian side won," he said.

Zenit beat Glasgow Rangers 2-0 in Manchester on Wednesday evening to become only the second Russia side, after CSKA in 2005, to win the trophy.

Mongolia, coal and inflation

Foreign companies have long been interested in Mongolia's mineral resources, including coal. Now a political backlash is developing against earlier agreements felt to be exploitative, causing the government to consider new legislation before the electorate, beset by rising inflation, votes in next month's parliamentary elections.

By JOHN C.K. DALY
UPI International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- Rising fuel and food costs are hitting Mongolia hard, with foreign investors exploiting the situation to pressure the country to open up its economy. Given the country's political isolation, sandwiched between China and Russia, its two major trading partners, Ulaanbaatar is being held over the proverbial barrel in negotiations with its giant neighbors, leaving its population of 2.9 million nervously awaiting further aftershocks from rising inflation.

While Mongolia's economy traditionally has been based on herding and agriculture, the country's extreme climate hobbles economic development. Besides "severely continental" weather with long, exceptionally cold and snowy winters, the country has suffered from drought over most of the last decade, while mining degrades the environment.

But the country has few options, as Mongolia's minerals are its major export asset. The nation contains vast undeveloped deposits of coal, copper, molybdenum, tungsten, phosphates, tin, nickel, zinc, fluorspar, gold, silver and iron. Mining remains the most important branch of the national economy, and foreigners are attempting to acquire assets at fire-sale prices. Rising inflation combined with inequitable commercial agreements is producing rising discontent.

To give but one example, over the last two months Russia's Rosneft, which supplies more than 90 percent of Mongolia's oil, has increased oil prices to Mongolia by 14 percent to 26 percent. The company has offered price reductions in return for concessions to operate 100 gas stations in the country.

But Russian buccaneers are not the only foreign capitalists interested in Mongolia's mineral reserves. Tethys Mining LLC is a subsidiary of Brazil's Vale Inco company, one of the world's largest mining concerns. Investing a mere $16 million in Mongolia, Tethys Mining LLC recently announced that it has discovered a large coal deposit, Tugalgatai in Murun, Khentii aimag, with recoverable reserves estimated at 3 billion tons, which would make it the country's second-largest deposit, exceeded only by Tavan Tolgoi, with an estimated 6.2 billion tons of reserves.

Washington is belatedly stepping up its assistance to Ulaanbaatar. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government bilateral development fund, has approved a $285 million compact with Mongolia to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth, while two months ago the U.S. Trade and Development Agency awarded a $500,000 grant to Sharyn Gol Energy, a private Mongolian coal producer, to draft a study on expanding Mongolia's mining sector via improved railway networks. Trains are Mongolia's primary mode of moving heavy and bulk freight and play an increasingly significant role in mining, with 28 percent of coal output being exported to neighboring countries, primarily Russia and China. But even here, the heavy hand of Moscow is apparent; Russia already owns 49 percent of the Ulaanbaatar Railway.

The MCC agreement was not without its critics; last month the Center for Individual Freedom published a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal calling on President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "Send a Clear Message to Mongolia: Eliminate Corruption and Protect Private Property -- Or Risk Losing U.S. Foreign Aid." The ad thundered, "Mongolia has begun a full-scale assault on the rule of law, disregarding legal contracts, shaking down private companies through confiscatory taxes on mining interests, and intimidating Western businesses into relinquishing ownership to the State."

The ultimate question is who's "shaking down" whom. In an ominous development for the Mongolian government, last month 20,000 Mongolians demonstrated in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, over rising food costs. Inflation is gnawing through a country where the CIA estimates that more than 36 percent of the population lives below the poverty line with a per capita GDP of $2,900. Last year inflation, driven primarily by rising food prices, reached 15.1 percent, its highest level in a decade, so it is hardly surprising that the government is taking a long, hard look at earlier contracts that it signed with foreign companies. In a nation that is now a democracy, Mongolian politicians have to explain to the electorate why the price of bread increased 50 percent in April alone, while the cost of a 55-pound bag of flour tripled. Last month consumer prices increased by 5.1 percent over those of March, with food increasing overall by 11.1 percent.

Mongolia's efforts toward strengthening control over its natural resources follow earlier, similar efforts by Kazakhstan and Russia. Last month Mineral Resource and Petroleum Authority Chairman Luvsanvandan Bold said that the government was considering a law that would give the state 51 percent of all "strategic deposits," up from the current maximum rate of 34 percent for state ownership. In a rare show of political unity, both the Democratic Party and Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, formerly the Communist Party, agreed that discussions of the draft amendments to the minerals law be held behind closed doors for "national security reasons."

The political fallout is already apparent, moving Parliamentarian S. Batbold to present legislation offering food subsidies to the most vulnerable elements of society, including the elderly, children, the disabled, pregnant women and single mothers. Last week Parliament Democratic Party legislators Z. Enkhbold and R. Erdeneburen introduced a draft resolution on dismissing Minister of Food and Agriculture Ts. Gankhuyag for incompetence over rising food prices, but the resolution failed in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Development on a technicality.

With an election looming next month, the Mongolian electorate is likely to engage in a massive yurt-cleaning of the corrupt politicians responsible for rising costs and who signed exploitative "legal contracts" with foreign companies. Such a development will likely leave the Center for Individual Freedom and foreign investors less than happy with a new Parliament given a mandate to reassert control over the country's natural resources. But such an outcome is hardly likely to be a surprise, as cold, hungry people frequently vote in their self-interest rather than for free-market principles.

It's the economy, stupid.

Russia squeezes Mongolia

By JOHN C.K. DALY
UPI International Correspondent
May 9, 2008

Oil surged to more than $126 a barrel Friday. As consumers around the world wrung their hands in despair, unease extended to governments under the political influence of larger, energy-rich states, which in the past might have provided energy at subsidized prices in return for political fealty.

In Eurasia, the changing dynamic of the patron-client relationship is nowhere more apparent than in the affairs between the Russian Federation and Mongolia, where the government has been reeling from massive energy price increases. In 2006, inflation in Mongolia, driven by rising food and fuel prices, reached 15.1 percent, its highest level in a decade. Now energy price increases are threatening to push the inflation rate even higher. Since March, Russia's Rosneft, which supplies more than 90 percent of Mongolia's oil, has increased oil prices to Mongolia by 14 percent to 26 percent. In an ominous development for the Mongolian government, last month 20,000 Mongolians demonstrated in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, over rising food costs.

It is ironic that in the post-Soviet space, Russian energy producers have become capitalists par excellence, embracing free-market principles with the fervor of a born-again true believer.

According to the Mongolian media, Russia increased cost for oil products for supply to Mongolia by $54 a ton in April and $62 in May. Mongolian airlines, which import their fuel from Russia, have been similarly squeezed over the last six months, with aviation fuel costs surging by $137-$225 per ton.

Rosneft is not without heart, however, and has offered to lower the price of oil imports if the Mongolian government would allow Rosneft to build 100 gas stations in the capital Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan and Erdenet and some provinces.

It was precisely to ward off this kind of economic mugging that last month Mongolian Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar made a three-day official visit to Moscow at the invitation of Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.

In 2007 bilateral trade between Russia and Mongolia amounted to about $670 million, an increase of 28 percent from 2006, with Russian imports accounting for approximately 34.2 percent of Mongolia's foreign purchases, well behind China, Mongolia's leading trading partner. The figures show a lopsided trade imbalance, however, as Russia supplies the strategically critical items of oil and wheat.

During an interview with Itar-Tass, Bayar diplomatically alluded to some of the difficulties in the nations' bilateral trade, saying, "Levying by the Russian side of high customs duties on goods of Mongolian traditional export, high transportation tariffs through the territory of Russia and a necessity in receiving various types of permissions and licenses all hinder the development of trade and economic ties." Ever the optimist, Bayar added that Ulaanbaatar and Moscow intend to increase the annual bilateral trade to $1 billion and Russian investments in Mongolia to $3 billion to $5 billion.

The problem for Mongolia is that Russian control over the country's economy is likely to intensify, not shrink. Sergei Chemezov, head of the state firm Rostekhnologiia, wants to form the world's largest mining and metals company. On April 14 he wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russian shares in Mongolian Erdenet (49 percent), Mongolrostsvetmet (49 percent) and the Ulaanbaatar Railway (49 percent) should be transferred to Rostekhnologiia. Putin forwarded the letter to Zubkov for consideration. The prize that Zubkov is angling for is the license for Mongolia's Udokan, the third-largest copper field in the world, which has been put up for bidding. Bids are due by May 14, with the Mongolian government making its decision on July 17. If Rostekhnologiia's bid is successful, the company would have a significant impact on the nation's economy, as the mining sector remains the most important branch of Mongolia's national economy, with Erdenet, Mongolrostsvetmet and the Ulaanbaatar Railway providing almost 20 percent of Mongolia's gross domestic product.

Such naked avarice has produced a political backlash among the descendents of Genghis Khan, with the Mongolian government drawing up a bill to submit to Parliament to regulate foreign companies seeking to sell oil in Mongolia. Under the proposed legislation, it would be necessary for foreign oil companies to negotiate sale terms through an approved government office. In an attempt to ward off monopolies, the legislation also proposes that no single oil company would be allowed to sell more than 30 percent of the oil required by the Mongolian domestic market.

During the Soviet era, assistance from Moscow at its height provided one-third of Mongolia's gross domestic product; however bitter Ulaanbaatar may find it, at least in the short term, history seems to be repeating itself. The most notable result of Bayar's trek last month to Moscow was a Russian agreement to supply Mongolia immediately with 100,000 tons of wheat on preferential terms, approximately half of Mongolia's annual needs of 240,000 tons. In an attempt to stave off a crisis, on Wednesday the Mongolian government announced strict price controls on both stored and imported wheat, as well as continuing subsidizing wheat to maintain current prices.

At this point however, the Kremlin has Mongolia over the proverbial barrel. Given the country's extreme geographical isolation, its options are extremely limited, especially as Mongolia's other neighbor, China, in 2004 surpassed Japan as the world's second leading oil importer after the United States. Moscow's capitalists should remember their history before attempting to squeeze Mongolia much further, however. In the 13th century, Mongol armies under Baty and Subedei swept into Russia from the east and conquered the nation, with the subsequent 2-1/2 centuries coming to be known as the Mongol "yoke."

American Taxpayers Call on President Bush to Protect Western Interests in Mongolia

Nearly 35,000 Letters Sent to President Bush Expressing Concern about Backsliding on the Rule of Law, Infringement of American Property Rights and Increased Corruption

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) announced that its supporters have sent nearly 35,000 letters to President Bush and Administration officials, asking that they reconsider foreign aid to Mongolia in response to government-sanctioned expropriation of Western interests there.

This groundswell of citizen activism demonstrates that Americans are opposed to having their tax dollars finance the ex-Communist government in Mongolia if it is merely going to undermine American free-market ideals and business interests. In recent months, the government of Mongolia has unfairly moved to force Western companies to relinquish control of mineral deposits to the state. This is a deliberate disruption of the business and legal climate in Mongolia, and a clear step towards forcing Western interests out of the country.

Most alarming, however, are the excessive foreign aid payments that Mongolia has received despite its gross transgressions against American and Western interests. For instance, Mongolia has received nearly $300 million in grants from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which was in turn used to improve the countrys Russian co-owned railway infrastructure.

Mongolias activities threaten the rule of law and individual freedom around the world, and its attempt to seize Western business assets is an affront to its relationship with the U.S., said Timothy H. Lee, CFIFs Director of Legal and Public Affairs. While the Mongolian government is attacking the values that Americans hold dear, including those demanded by the MCC, it is simultaneously accepting American taxpayer largesse. This is simply unacceptable.

The letters therefore urged President Bush to reconsider American taxpayer support for Mongolia, given the countrys recent infractions against business and industry rights. American taxpayers have clearly stated that they do not support MCC grants that will merely line Russian and Mongolian pockets at the expense of American taxpayers and Western interests, said Lee.

Founded in 1998, the Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org) is a Constitutional and free-market advocacy organization with more than 250,000 supporters and activists nationwide.

SOURCE Center for Individual Freedom

TUYA’S MARRIAGE

The Deals Made to Go on in a So-Called Simple Life
By STEPHEN HOLDEN (The New York Times)
Published: April 4, 2008

Who, if given a choice, would want to grow up on the cold, arid steppe of Inner Mongolia, the setting of Wang Quan An’s absorbing film “Tuya’s Marriage”? The climate is so inhospitable that life is a grinding struggle for subsistence. Water is scarce and must be lugged by hand from distant wells. Yet the movie finds an austere beauty in this landscape of scrub and grassland ringed by forbidding slate-blue mountains. The camera frequently draws back to take in the spectacle of people dwarfed by nature in a harsher Asian answer to the North American plains.

Most of the film’s characters, including Tuya (Yu Nan), an attractive, robust woman who lives with her husband and their two young children, dwell in crude huts made with wood and rugs. Sheep herding is the region’s primary occupation and source of food, although there are signs of change. And alcohol is almost as necessary a staple as water; consumed prodigiously, it provides insulation from the cold and relief from pain.

This grueling life in a cruel environment exacts a heavy toll. Tuya’s husband, Bater (played, as are the other male characters, by a nonactor of the same name), was permanently disabled in a well-digging accident and is entirely dependent on Tuya, who fetches water and tends the flock. The family’s future is imperiled when she dislocates her back while tugging out a man pinned beneath an overturned truck.

Lest you think that “Tuya’s Marriage” is an ethnographic curiosity, Mr. Wang and his screenwriting collaborator, Lu Wei (“Farewell My Concubine”), portray a world that, apart from its hardship, is thoroughly recognizable in its human complexity. Its characters are motivated by the same needs for companionship and material well-being and the same demons — greed, lust, jealousy and despair — that drive everybody.

Tuya realizes that the most practical way of preserving her family is to follow Bater’s suggestion that she divorce him and remarry — on condition that her new husband agree to take care of Bater and the children. The local belle of the ball, so to speak, she is besieged by suitors from near and far when word spreads of her decision. The film observes the fascinating rites of courtship and the dealmaking by this strong, unsentimental woman who knows what she wants and drives a hard bargain.

The movie begins and ends with the same ambiguous scene of her eventual wedding day, when her young son fights with another boy who sneers at him for having two fathers. Tuya, after breaking up the fight, retreats from the celebration to reflect. The film has too much integrity to equate marriage with happily ever after.

Her choice of new husbands comes down to two men. Senge, a shy, high-strung friend and neighbor whose shrewish wife ran away from home, taking his truck, screws up the courage to propose; he will divorce his wife when he finds her, he promises. But a more likely candidate is Baolier, a divorced childhood schoolmate of Tuya who is newly wealthy, having struck oil.

Baolier represents the forces of technological change that are just beginning to affect the region. In his marriage proposal he agrees to take care of Bater by putting him in what passes in Inner Mongolia for a comfortable nursing home, and Tuya agrees. But within a short time Bater, feeling abandoned, gets drunk and slashes his wrists.

Baolier, the nouveau riche Mongolian, is portrayed as the same kind of conspicuously consuming vulgarian as the typical American oil tycoon. Fortified by his money, he insists on having things his way and having them now rather than later. Long before Tuya is ready, he forces his attentions on her in a roadside inn that, despite its large-screen television and spacious accommodations, is even more desolate than the steppe on which it looms like a modern monstrosity.

The industrial landscape that may eventually usurp the primitive one is just a different kind of wasteland.


Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Directed by Wang Quan An; written (in Mandarin, with English subtitles) by Mr. Wang and Lu Wei; director of photography, Lutz Reitemeier; production designer, Wei Tao; produced by Yan Ju Gang; released by Music Box Films. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Yu Nan (Tuya), Bater (Bater), Baolier (Baolier), Senge (Senge) and Zhaya (Zhaya).