Briefly

SUDAN

UN envoy no longer welcome as mediator

The United Nations envoy to Sudan, a key mediator in the country's brutal conflict, is no longer welcome in the African country, Sudanese authorities say. A terse statement issued by Sudan's Foreign Ministry late on Thursday came just weeks after Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan demanded in a letter to envoy Volker Perthes that he should be removed from his post. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been notified that Perthes has been formally declared "persona non grata", the ministry said.

RUSSIA

Oil to India increased 19 times last year

Oil export from Russia to India increased 19 times and amounted to 41 million metric tons in 2022, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Alexander Novak said. In an op-ed published on Thursday in the journal Energy Policy, Novak called Russia's current energy policy a "Turn to the East". He noted that in May 2022, oil supplies from Russia to Asian countries exceeded the volumes sent to Europe for the first time. In 2022, Russia's oil exports to friendly countries increased 76 percent, and exports of petroleum products increased by 20 percent. As he mentioned, Russia redirected almost 40 million tons of oil and petroleum products from Western markets to Eastern markets last year.

FRANCE

Minister: Nuclear power nonnegotiable

French nuclear power is "an absolute red line" and nonnegotiable, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday, following Franco-German disagreements over the role of nuclear energy in Europe. "Nuclear power is an absolute red line for France, and France will not relinquish any of the competitive advantages linked to nuclear energy", Le Maire insisted as he closed the annual conference of the French Electricity Union. France's 56 aging reactors provide some 70 percent of France's electricity needs. "French nuclear power is nonnegotiable and will never be negotiable," he said.

JAPAN

Failed asylum-seekers could be deported

Japan enacted an immigration law on Friday allowing the government to deport failed asylumseekers, despite pushback from opposition parties and rights groups. Until the revised legislation was passed, applicants could stay in Japan during the decision process, regardless of the number of attempts they made to secure refugee status. Now they can be deported after three rejections. Refugee status was given to a record 202 people in Japan in 2022. But this was out of 3,772 applicants, with Japan falling far behind some European countries and the United States who take in tens of thousands of refugees annually.

Agencies - Xinhua