First
Deputy Prime Minister N.Altankhuyag received on Thursday Steven Barnett,
chairman of the International Monetary Fund”s (IMF) Asia-Pacific Department and
head of a special committee for Mongolia. Barnett reiterated the IMF’s
commitment to the standby agreement but stressed the need for Mongolia also to
follow

Parliament
yesterday discussed draft laws relating to mining. One, developed by MPs
D.Gankhuyag and Z.Enkhbold, was not approved, with 62.8 percent of MPs voting
against it, while another, initiated by MPs N.Batbayar and S.Byambatsogt got
the support of 75.6 percent to be forwarded to

The Government will spend MNT 642.3 million for the Naadam
festival this year. The reserve fund will allot MNT100 million of this, with
the rest coming from the Ulaanbaatar budget and from the income during the
festival.

MNT1.1 billion from the state road fund

President B.Nagovits of the Republic of Buryatia recently
met with the Russian Federation’s President D. Medvedev and Prime Minister
Putin in Moscow to discuss several issues relating to his region, including
some concerning Mongolia. Medvedev has agreed to study his proposal to allow
third

D. Batbaatar, a senior official at the Auto Transportation
Agency of Mongolia, has said that the railway to be built around strategic
deposits will be effective in transporting minerals only if there are roads
linking it to the mines and surrounding habitations. The

D.Arvin, chairperson of the Standing Committee on Social
Policy, Education, Culture, and Science, has expressed her unhappiness that
more importance is paid to welfare distribution than to employment generation.
Her committee recently reviewed how money in the Fund for Employment Support
had been spent.

The Millennium Challenge Account of Mongolia (MCAM) has
submitted to the city authorities projects and programs it plans to implement
in Ulaanbaatar. These cover areas of infrastructure, health, education and the
environment. The 17-km road from the Bayanzurkh checkpoint to Nalaikh will be
re-constructed,

Four persons, including two children, died in two separate
road accidents on Wednesday. In the first, on the Bayankhoshuu road, a truck
carrying bricks rolled on to a bus, forcing it to hit a car, which crashed on
and killed a pedestrian on

The working group on the Government’s draft protocol on the
Tavantolgoi  deposit held its first
meeting on Tuesday. The group comprises four MPs from DP and five from
MPRP.  Its head, MP D.Damba-Ochir, later
told media that they heard the suggestions of mining experts

Karpal Singh, counsel for the family of
murdered Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, has said the Mongolian
government is ready to post a security deposit bond for the family to enable
the Court of Appeal to continue with the compensation hearing. “They (Mongolian
government) have