Mongolian ruling party wants new elections after technical problems with automated voting machines

In the parliamentary elections last Thursday a new automated voting system was used. The election before this where there was manual counting was marred by corruption allegations. Riots ensued in which several were killed.

However, the automated system has sufferred from technical problems. Results were supposed to be released within hours of the polls closing but still had not been released.

The governing Mongolian People's Party and another 8 smaller parties signed a petition claiming the new system violated the Mongolian constitution. The MPP secretary said:"We are demanding the traditional system of counting votes by hand in every election constituency across the whole country to end this confusion that the population has about the voting machines and automated systems," The main opposition group the Democratic Party refused to sign the petition. It feels that it will eventually win.

The chair of the Election Commission said:"There has been no mistake with the voting machines... there was no widespread problems with irregular voting," "The parties have no evidence about mistakes with the voting system and they have a right to have observers at polling stations."

The Democratic Party eventually joined a fragile coalition with the leading MPP after the last election. Perhaps the problem with the new election is not so much the voting machines as that the ruling party does not like the results.

Mongolia is a country that grew last year at a rate of 17..3 per cent. Many foreign companies are moving to develop the rich resources of the country. Mongolia's copper, coal, and gold reserves among others are estimated to be worth more than a trillion dollars. For more see this article.

India, Mongolia, and Philippines owe $60 million in taxes to NYC

This is from IHT. It is hardly fair that New York City should forego taxes on property that should not really be exempted. Seems that some countries have been claiming exemptions that are not warranted. Now all New York has to do is collect!
Maybe the Philippines can pay in Filipino nurses and Mongolia in yurts. India can offer call center services.


Judge orders India, Mongolia and the Philippines to pay nearly $60 M in taxes to NYC

The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
NEW YORK: The governments of India, Mongolia and the Philippines must pay New York City a total of $57.6 million (€36.5 million) in real estate taxes after a federal judge ruled that diplomatic privileges do not exempt the countries from tax obligations.

U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued the order Monday in a case that reached the Supreme Court. The court ruled 7-2 last year that the city had a right to collect taxes on portions of buildings used by other countries for non-diplomatic purposes.

International treaties have defined consulates and embassies as sovereign territory, which makes them generally tax exempt. But Rakoff said it was clearly stated that only the home of the head of a mission is exempted from taxes in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

India was ordered to pay $42.4 million (€26.88 million) in taxes related to a 26-story tower near the United Nations with 20 floors of apartments occupied by diplomatic employees.

Rakoff said Mongolia must pay $4.3 million (€2.73 million) in taxes for a six-story building with two floors of staff residences and the Philippines must pay $10.9 million (€6.91 million) in taxes for a building on a prime stretch of Fifth Avenue that includes commercial tenants such as a restaurant, a bank and an airline office.

Robert A. Kandel, a lawyer who represented the three nations in court, did not immediately return a telephone message for comment.

The city praised Rakoff's decision. "We are very pleased that the rule of law was upheld," New York Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said in a release. "Most countries are good neighbors to New York City. They pay what they owe, like all other New Yorkers who carry their share of the tax burden. However, this ruling sends a message to those trying to avert their obligations that New York City will be vigilant."

Marjorie B. Tiven, commissioner of the NYC Commission for the United Nations, said she was hopeful the case would send a message to the rest of the world about tax obligations.

"It's time for all foreign governments using diplomatic properties for non-diplomatic purposes to pay their fair share like other New Yorkers," she said.

At one point in the litigation, the U.S. Department of State had sided with the foreign countries against the city, saying that a victory by the city could force the U.S. to pay millions of dollars in taxes on various properties it controls abroad.


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Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

Mongolia: A member of the coalition of the billing

It is significant that even Mongolia seems to be considering winding down its involvement in Iraq in favor or lucrative UN peace-keeping missions. Interesting that the laws favoring foreign investment were begun long before the communist era ended. Imagine it is forbidden to nationalise any company with any private investment in it.

July 16, 2007

War earns Mongolia rich peace dividend

Sam Knight in Ulaanbaatar
When he was 19 Garbold Azzaya left his grandparents and their cattle and sheep in the foothills of Bulgan in northern Mongolia and joined the army. Two years later, when he was a sergeant in the 150th Peacekeeping Battalion, he flew from a sub-zero Ulaanbaatar to the 40C (105F) heat of al-Hillah, near the ruins of Babylon, to man the guard towers of Camp Charlie, the headquarters of the multinational division in Iraq.

Sixteen days after he arrived Sergeant Azzaya, armed with an AK47 six years older than he was, saw a blue car too close to the wall at the southeast corner of the base. “I shouted, ‘Go back’,” he said. “I said it in Iraqi, ‘Erja!’.” And the car drove off.

Less than a minute later a bomb destroyed part of the wall and a suicide attacker, driving an explosives-filled lorry, was rumbling towards him. “I didn’t have time to communicate,” Sergeant Azzaya said. “I thought, ‘I need to shoot that truck to stop it.’ I first shot directly the driver – three bullets – and after my last shoot the truck blew up. No stopping, nothing, it just blew up.”

That was the only occasion he fired his weapon in anger during a six-month tour. The rest of the time he learnt English from the Americans, played table tennis and read novels. His bravery won him Mongolia’s third-highest military award and a Silver Star from the Polish Army, which was in charge of the base, and made him a minor celebrity at home.




Sergeant Azzaya, now a student in the staff training college in Ulaanbaatar, his blue uniform a salad of decorations, is not the only Mongolian beneficiary of the war in Iraq. The country as a whole, which has just sent its 995th soldier to the Middle East and is yet to suffer a casualty, is emerging as one of the few winners of the four-year-conflict and is now looking for an exit before something goes wrong.

In cash terms Mongolia has come out on top. According to Lieutenant-General Tsevegsuren Togoo, Chief of Mongolia’s General Staff, the war in Iraq has cost Mongolia 2.84 billion Tugriks (£1.2 million) since it agreed to join the invasion in 2003.

In return its soldiers are fed, given new uniforms, battle armour and night-vision equipment when they arrive in Iraq and President Bush has promised Mongolia $14.5 million (£7 million) to renovate its Armed Forces. The country’s readiness to fight in Iraq was also key to winning it a highly sought-after first-round place in Washington’s $5 billion Millenium Challenge Account. Mongolia will receive between $170 million and $300 million to help to fund its railways, health and education services when President Enkhbayar visits the White House this autumn.

The combat experience of Iraq has also enabled Mongolia to qualify for lucrative UN peacekeeping operations. The army receives $1,028 per soldier per month from the UN when it offers its troops – a figure that dwarves their monthly pay of $160. And since the first wave of Iraq veterans returned, the country has volunteered them with alacrity, sending 750 soldiers to Sierra Leone as well as contingents to Kosovo and the Western Sahara. As a result, the G8 will rebuild an old Soviet base near Ulaanbaatar to become a north Asian training facility for UN operations.

“One of the main focuses for the military, when we were making the decision to send our first rotation, was to acquire some real-world experience that would be usable for UN peacekeeping missions,” said General Togoo. “So, overall, the military has achieved its goal [in Iraq]. We have opened the door to the UN peacekeeping world.”

General Togoo would not say whether Mongolia’s eighth deployment to Iraq – a reduced force of 100 soldiers guarding the new multinational base in Diwaniyah – would be its last. “The military cannot think of themselves alone,” he said. “We have to consider the national interest as a whole.” But analysts in Ulaanbaatar speak openly of Mongolia’s withdrawal once the Millenium Challenge compact is signed this year.

“Our military and diplomats are all discussing the withdrawal,” said Otgonbayar Sarlagtay Mashbat of the Mongolian Institute for Strategic Studies. “This was the doorstep into UN peacekeeping operations, and now we have no more need of the Iraqi operation, which is also now a little expensive for us.”

He also pointed out that Mongolia, a country of less than 3 million people, had yet to be tested by a death in Iraq. “We still don’t know how casualty sensitive our population is,” he said. “This is not exactly a case of troops defending our country.”



Land of opportunity

–– Mongolia escaped Chinese rule with Soviet help in 1921, only to have a communist regime installed in 1924. It was isolated from all other foreign influence until the communists were ousted in 1996

–– Its extensive mineral wealth went largely untouched. Now its exploitation fuels the country’s extraordinary economic growth

–– The Mongolian Government has strongly encouraged tourism, receiving 385,000 visitors last year, 20 per cent up on the year before

–– Mongolia passed its first laws encouraging overseas investment in 1990

–– Nationalisation of companies in which private investment has been made is banned. More then 1,400 companies, representing 70 countries, operate in Mongolia

*Sources: Mongolian Ministry of Road, Transport and Tourism; Permanent Mission of Mongolia to the UN; CIA World Factbook