Hundreds of young Mongolians turned out this week in the country’s capital calling for the prime minister’s resignation on allegations of corruption, a longstanding source of deep public anger in the landlocked democracy.
Mongolia has for decades struggled with endemic graft and the widespread view that the proceeds of a coal mining boom are being hoarded by a wealthy elite has sparked frequent protests and unrest.
Under Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene — in power since 2021 — Mongolia has plummeted in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Photo: AFP
Fueling public outrage are allegations that the prime minister’s family are enjoying wealth far beyond that expectation of a civil servant on the public dime — claims sparked by a social media post by his son’s girlfriend showing a lavish birthday gift.
The prime minister’s office said it “vehemently” denied allegations of impropriety, describing them as a “smear.”
However, hundreds of mostly young protesters have gathered for eight consecutive days at Sukhbaatar Square, also known as Genghis Khan square, in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, demanding the premier’s resignation.
“The prime minister has to resign,” protest organizer O. Ulamsaikhan, 24, said.
“What we are trying to achieve is to establish a new political culture in which unethical behavior by public officials leads to accountability and resignation,” he said.
Also deepening anger in the country are worries over the economy and cost of living. Inflation, which soared following neighboring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — reached 9 percent last year, national news agency Montsame reported.
“Young people are working hard to make a living,” said university freshman O. Khulan, 19, who was among the crowd holding placards reading: “It’s easy to resign.”
“Yet it is unfair that the prime minister’s son and his girlfriend have a lavish lifestyle, while I’m buying my bag from a thrift shop,” she said.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS