Thursday, October 23, 2008

Owning a car in UB

We have already decided that we are not going to own a car in Mongolia at least for the first few years. We are apparently nearly alone in that decision, though. Mongolia Web News reports a massive increase in car sales this year. At the beginning of 2008, there were 26,123 cars registered in Ulaanbaatar; today, there are 120,000. Well, maybe there will be more room on the buses now. No wonder it's hard to cross the street!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Never Find Out



More videos available here.

Treatment of cats and dogs in Mongolia

Peace Corps Mongolia has an interesting, albeit disturbing blog post about how domestic animals are treated in Mongolia. Here is an excerpt from the more disturbing part:
Speaking of killing dogs… in the bitter Mongolian winter, all stray dogs are killed. There are many reasons for killing off the street dogs. One reason is safety. A pack of hungry dogs sometimes will go after small children to eat. Another reason is for population control. I can’t imagine how many more stray dogs there would be if the majority weren’t killed off every winter.



How are the stray dogs killed off? Many people in the West would think that many of these are inhumane, but I’ll tell you anyway. Sometimes the poison is put in the trash dumpsters, so that the dogs will eat the poison. Sometimes dogs are clubbed to death. But the most extreme way I’ve heard to kill a dog: Let jailed prisoners out for the day. Give them guns. Let the prisoners walk around town shooting all of the stray dogs. You may think I’m joking, but I’m not.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Travel tips for Mongolia

Random Travel Tips has a couple of top 10 lists of recommendations for traveling in Mongolia.

Jannina Jessen has some interesting observations as well.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Racism in the 2008 presidential election?

For those who think race won't play a major factor in the election next month, check out this segment from the Howard Stern Show:

Monday, October 06, 2008

Japan to seek uranium from Mongolia

Bloomberg reports that fifty government and corporate officials from Japan will head to Mongolia this week to enter into talks seeking participation in that nation's uranium deposits. Japan is the world's third largest uranium consumer, and competition with China and India for the mineral has grown fierce.
Mongolia has 62,000 tons of proven uranium reserves, or 1 percent of the world's total, according to the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. The country has untapped areas that may contain as much as 1.39 million tons, which would make it the world's largest source of the ore, the group says.