The goldrush town of Ogoomor Baga is the richest place in Mongolia, but you won't find it on any map.
It doesn't officially exist as a town and many of its workers won't be able to vote in this month's elections.
It sits aside the Tuul river in the dusty, central Mongolian steppe where day and night miners dredge, sift, dig and pan for gold, producing some four tonnes a year, according to official figures.
And then there are the "ninjas" -- illegal miners who follow in the others' footsteps, picking up the leftovers, and named after the green, turtle-like pans they wear on their backs.
Ogoomor Baga is laid out in the style of any gold rush town the world over -- shoddy camps and houses, treacherous mud roads, a cheap hotel with women living upstairs and even a sauna out back.
But one trapping of urban life many of the miners cannot enjoy is a vote. They have to go back to their hometown to register for the election, and it's just not worth it.
"It would cost me 20,000 togrogs (US$17) to get back home to register and I can't afford that," one ninja said yesterday as he pulled gold-bearing soil from a 30m shaft.
Many in Ogoomor Baga and other remote parts of the vast, windswept country won't go to polling stations at all, put off by the hurdle of registering.
About half of Mongolia's 2.7 million population are Nomads who tend cattle, sheep, horses and camels on the vast meadows that blanket most of the country.
Gonkhor, a worker at the local MPRP office, said many people had shown an interest in party policies.
"But obviously there are people who haven't registered like the ninjas and they can't vote," she said.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
RSS