Daily Times

Thousands braved freezing temperatures in Mongolia’s capital on Monday to protest alleged corruption in the country’s coal industry and soaring inflation, an AFP journalist said. Protesters, many of them young people, rallied in Ulaanbaatar’s central Sukhbaatar Square — home to the Government Palace — in minus 21 degrees Celsius (minus six degrees Fahrenheit), demanding “justice” be meted out against corrupt officials and calling for the country’s parliament to be dismissed. “Karma is a bitch,” one protester’s sign read. “Help us our country is collapsing,” read another. Two herders told AFP they had travelled to the capital to join Monday’s protests. Police urged the protesters to disperse by 9 pm local time (1300 GMT) as the mood turned tense and scuffles broke out with demonstrators. Protesters are frustrated with the country’s ailing economy, with inflation soaring to 15.2 percent in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But public outrage has also been stoked by whistleblower claims that a so-called “coal faction” of lawmakers with ties to the industry has stolen billions of dollars worth of the sedimentary rock.