Mongolian mining mania

Mongolia, landlocked between giants China and Russia, has a population of less than 3m. The city of Cape Town, at the  southern tip of Africa, has a population exceeding 3m. Mongolia is the size of western Europe and is gradually emerging from obscurity as more and more people become aware of its substantial mineral resources. A huge copper/gold project is under way at Oyu Tolgoi, while Tavan Tolgoi, the world's largest untapped coal deposit is also moving towards production. Rio Tinto, one of the world's mega-miners, is wrangling with the Mongolian government over royalties at Oyu Tolgoi but the project is so vital for both parties that some solution will be found. Tavan Tolgoi has an estimated coal resource of 6.4bn tonnes, enough to keep a quite a few fires burning! Newly-elected Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, he of Abenomics fame, is set to visit Mongolia, proclaiming it for its 'shared democratic values'. Abe is cosying up to several Asian economies as part of a plan to neutralise some of China's growing muscle in the region. The Tavan Tolgoi development will also need a lot of heavy equipment of the kind that Japanese companies are good at. 800 years ago Genghis Khan founded the Mongol empire and grandson Kublai conquered China. Kublai's summer palace was in Xanadu, now known as Beijing. That's not going to happen again anytime soon but the country is starting to become a player after years in the wilderness. The QSL is from Radio Ulan Bator, English Section, heard in Cape Town in 1968. Typed on an old typewriter, the upper case characters popped up half a line and the lines nearly ran off the page.