World News

By Michel Rose

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s top administrative court has upheld a decision to shut down popular TV channel C8 for repeated failures to respect human rights and protect minors, causing an outcry among some right-wing politicians who alleged an assault on free speech.

The C8 channel is part of the Canal+ group owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bollore’s media conglomerate Vivendi. The channel will go off air on March 1, after French media watchdog Arcom decided not to renew its 10-year licence and handed it to another bidding channel.

That decision was upheld late on Wednesday by the highest administrative court, which said Arcom had lawfully removed the licence, given C8’s repeated failure to meet its contract obligations to respect people’s rights and protect minors, but also its failure to turn a profit.

Right-wing politicians, including far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen but also – more unusually – ruling conservatives were strongly critical.

Le Pen called it a “worrying decision that rules in favour of the Ayatollahs of group think”.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a conservative who is seen as having presidential ambitions, said C8 had “found an audience,” and its removal was depriving it of a “space to express itself”.

The court’s ruling comes as Europe’s policing of what can and cannot be said – either online or on TV – has been questioned by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

Vice-President JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk have framed European attempts to place safeguards around an increasingly vitriolic and polarised media landscape as an attack on free speech.

Canal+ said it deplored the court’s decision. Some 400 staff members and suppliers were likely to lose their jobs and C8 had proved its “liveliness” and popularity with more than 9 million viewers every day, it said in a statement.

“A whole ecosystem is being sacrificed,” the group said.

Arcom imposed a record fine of 3.5 million euros ($3.66 million) on C8 in 2023 after its star show host, Cyril Hanouna, called a left-wing lawmaker a “piece of shit” and a “jerk” in 2022 for mentioning on its show the activities in Africa of C8’s owner Bollore.

One of the warnings C8 received was over a decision to invite on the show a 17-year-old to talk about his parents’ recent career move into pornography, which the regulator said could lead to the child being stigmatised in future.

Over the past few years, Bollore’s media outlets have taken an increasingly right-wing turn, focusing on crime and immigration, as well as giving ample air time to politicians from Le Pen’s party.

Media historian Alexis Levrier noted the court decision was based on a 1986 law passed by the conservative government of the day to regulate the media landscape.

“At the time, the moderate right knew that you can’t allow everything on licences that belong to the state,” he said on X.

($1 = 0.9565 euros)

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

NUUK, Greenland (Reuters) – Greenland’s ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit party said it will not rush an independence vote through after a March 11 general election, cautioning about possible economic and welfare implications.

The Inuit Ataqatigiit (AI) party formally launched its election campaign on Thursday.

Renewed interest in Greenland from the United States has invigorated the country’s independence movement, sparking calls for swift secession discussions with Denmark, its former colonial ruler.

“I will not be triggered by the heat of the moment to make decisions in a rush,” Naaja Nathanielsen, resources minister in the previous government, said in a recent Reuters interview.

Polls suggest that while most Greenlanders oppose joining the U.S., a majority favour eventual independence, but differ on the timeline due to potential living standards impacts.

In a significant policy shift, Siumut, the government coalition partner of IA, announced plans this month to invoke an article in a 2009 law granting Greenland enhanced autonomy, including the right to negotiate full independence.

Naleraq, Greenland’s third-biggest party and a leading advocate for independence, also aims to put a deal to a vote before the next election in four years.

“For us, it’s not a matter of who can speak more brazen about it. It’s about ensuring independence and the right alliances, and maintaining welfare levels,” Nathanielsen said.

Greenland’s economy is reliant on fishing, which accounts for over 95% of exports, and annual subsidies from Denmark that fund about half of the public budget.

Nathanielsen suggested that to establish a self-sustaining economy, Greenland should prioritize the development of its tourism and mining industries, aiming to operate between three and five mines, compared to the current single mine.

Since the formation of its first parliament in the 1970s, Greenland has been steadily progressing toward independence.

In 2009, it gained further autonomy, including the right to declare full independence through a referendum. A draft constitution was introduced in 2023, and a commission was set up last year to evaluate the steps necessary for Greenland’s independence.

“At some point, there will be a referendum. I cannot tell you if it’s the next election cycle, or the next again, and what it will precisely entail, but I know things will progress,” said Nathanielsen.

The left-wing IA party currently holds 11 seats in the 31-seat parliament.

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Erin Banco and Andrea Shalal

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration may seek to strike a simplified minerals deal with Ukraine to get a pact in place quickly and later negotiate detailed terms, such as how much of Ukraine’s vast resources the U.S. would own, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.    

This follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s rejection of a detailed U.S. proposal last week that would have seen Washington receiving 50% of Ukraine’s critical minerals, which include graphite, uranium, titanium and lithium, the latter a key component in electric car batteries.

That episode made clear that reaching a full deal will take time, the sources said. But U.S. President Donald Trump wants a pact with Ukraine in place before potentially authorizing more U.S. military support for Kyiv or moving ahead with a bid to broker formal peace talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the three-year-old war, which was triggered by Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor. 

Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is in Kyiv this week to discuss the parameters of a revised pact and what Ukraine needs in return for signing. Zelenskiy said he would meet with Kellogg on Thursday “and it is crucial for us that this meeting – and overall cooperation with America – be constructive.”

When asked if U.S. officials would continue to pursue a deal, a Trump adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about Zelenskiy: “Absolutely, we need to get this guy back to reality.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The push for a deal continues despite a widening rift between Trump and Zelenskiy. 

Trump denounced his Ukrainian counterpart as “a dictator without elections” on Wednesday after Zelenskiy said Trump was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble, a response to the U.S. president suggesting Ukraine started the war. 

The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine in the past three years , and Trump has said U.S. investment in Ukrainian minerals could ensure “that we’re going to in some form get this money back.” He is pushing for Kyiv to grant the U.S. mineral concessions worth $500 billion in recognition of Washington’s aid.  

The sources said it is important to Trump that he can signal publicly to the American people that the U.S. is recouping the aid. 

LESS ‘RAPACIOUS’

It’s unclear the extent to which the original U.S. proposal was framed as compensation for past weapons shipments or for future installments. But Zelenskiy said it focused too heavily on U.S. interests and lacked security guarantees for Kyiv.

“I can’t sell our country,” he told reporters Wednesday.

A third source familiar with the matter said Ukraine is willing to make a deal with the Trump administration. Another source also said Kyiv was ready to make a deal but that it must not look as “rapacious” as the arrangement the U.S. first proposed.

Details of the U.S. discussions about a potential mineral deal, including who inside the administration helped draft the original proposal, are unknown. 

The revised approach is just one of several being discussed at the White House on how to clinch a deal with Kyiv in the coming weeks, an unusually quick timeline for a complex sector where deals usually involve private companies and state entities, not governments.

Trump on Wednesday repeated his frustration that most U.S. aid was grants while Europe, he said, primarily made loans. “While the United States gets nothing back, so they get their money back,” he said.

He also criticized Zelenskiy’s rejection of the 50-50 split, characterizing it as breaching an accord without any evidence Kyiv had actually agreed to it. “And we had a deal based on rare earth and things, but they broke that deal… they broke it two days ago,” Trump said.

‘TRIED, TESTED’ CHINESE TOOL 

A revised, simplified approach would help the United States sidestep numerous legal and logistical hurdles and give it time to negotiate the details of the development, including revenue sharing, at a later date. 

“The U.S. has not historically used natural resource-for-aid swaps, but it’s a tried and tested tool in China’s minerals playbook,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Ukraine was keenly interested in building a deeper economic and security relationship with the United States and finding a way to recognize the significant U.S. investment already made in Ukraine’s future, said Tyson Barker, former U.S. deputy special envoy for Ukraine’s economic recovery.

“The Ukrainians are more than willing to give extra advantages to the United States, in the form of privileged concessional access to critical mineral resources, in recognition of the billions of dollars that American taxpayers have put into Ukraine,” he said. “This is something that the Ukrainians have been strategizing about for some time.” 

Barker said some similar terms would need to be offered to other countries that contributed heavily to Ukraine during the war, including Canada, Britain, Japan and the EU.

But Russia also covets Ukraine’s natural resources and its forces, which have already seized a fifth of Ukraine including reserves of rare earths, are now little more than 4 miles from a giant lithium deposit.

Ukraine and the United States need to discuss the fate of mineral deposits in areas captured by Russia, Zelenskiy has said, questioning if minerals in those areas would be given to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his partners Iran, North Korea and China.

(Reporting by Erin Banco and Andrea Shalal, additional reporting by Gram Slattery and Ernest Scheyder; editing by Michelle Nichols and Cynthia Osterman)

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CAIRO (Reuters) – A joint Egyptian-British mission has identified an ancient tomb near Luxor as that of King Thutmose II, marking the first discovery of a pharaonic royal tomb in more than 100 years, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said on Tuesday.

Located west of the Valley of the Kings, Thutmose II’s tomb was the last lost tomb of the kings of Egypt’s 18th dynasty, and the first royal tomb discovered since King Tutankhamun’s in 1922, the ministry said.

Archaeologists were able to identify the tomb due to alabaster vessels found on site and inscribed with the name of King Thutmose II and his wife Queen Hatshepsut, one of a small handful of women to have ruled Egypt.

They also found pieces of his funerary furniture, as well as pieces of mortar with blue inscriptions, yellow stars and religious writing, the statement said.

However, due to flooding soon after the king’s death, the tomb was generally not well preserved, the ministry statement added. There were indications that most of its contents had been moved, and work to recover them was under way, it said.

(Writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Aidan Lewis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is set to cut the size of its diplomatic mission in China by up to 10%, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the situation.

American diplomats working in mainland China and Hong Kong as well as local employees might be given notice as early as Friday in a round of downsizing that the media outlet described as unprecedented.

The cuts would affect the embassy in Beijing and the consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan, as well as the consulate in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post said.

It was not clear whether any of those affected would be reassigned elsewhere in the diplomatic service, but layoffs are expected, it added.

President Donald Trump’s administration has asked U.S. embassies worldwide to prepare for staff cuts, sources told Reuters last week, as part of the Republican president’s effort to overhaul the U.S. diplomatic corps. Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk have been making efforts to cut U.S. government spending that they consider wasteful since Trump took office on January 20.

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment.

The United States has a large diplomatic workforce in China and those in Beijing are located in a 10-acre site consisting of six buildings, including a new annex completed in 2016.

According to the website of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China, the Beijing embassy complex houses more than 1,300 American and locally-hired staff representing almost 50 different U.S. federal agencies.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and David Brunnstrom; editing by Deepa Babington)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Joyce Yip, a 39-year-old entrepreneur in southern China’s Guangzhou, has a new celebrity crush: Melania Trump.

The two-time first lady has become an online celebrity in China, especially among women. That may be surprising, given her husband’s hostility toward China, but social media posts reflect an admiration for her independence, her taste in fashion and how she’s raising her teenage son.

And, perhaps most importantly, her stoic allegiance to President Donald Trump despite his misogynistic comments, allegations that he’s had extramarital affairs and his being found liable for sexual abuse in a civil suit brought by a New York advice columnist.

“She looks heroic, elegant and resolute, so powerful and majestic, loving it so much,” Yip wrote on the Instagram-like platform Xiaohongshu after the inauguration last month.

After the first lady wore a wide-brimmed hat to the inauguration, similar products appeared on online shops and knitting influencers on Xiaohongshu posted videos showing people how to make their own within 48 hours.

By China’s conventional standards, women are expected to be supportive of their husbands and to focus on raising children. But Melania Trump’s streaks of independence also appeal to Chinese fans, as does her ascent from small-town Slovenian roots to the top of the world’s social ladder.

“Chinese fans like her having both traditional and modern sides of a woman,” said Jingsi Wu, an associate professor of media studies at Hofstra University in New York.

Both sides are on display in a 4-year-old video that showed Melania Trump refusing to hold her husband’s hand as they disembarked from Air Force One. The video has scored more than 5 million “likes” on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and still generates views and comments.

Around half a million people liked a November post on Xiaohongshu that joked about how unwilling the usually reserved Melania Trump must be to return to the very public life of a first lady.  A satire in The New Yorker magazine meant to be critical of her marriage to the president received 1 million views on Bilibili, a YouTube-like platform, and only seemed to boost her popularity.

Almost 30,000 people liked a November post about a years-old interview Melania Trump and her husband did on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, saying their relationship was “super sweet.”

Ge Yahan is among Melania’s fans. The 24-year-old from Zibo on China’s eastern coast calls Melania a mysterious lady who was brave enough to follow her dreams from a small town in Slovenia to the United States.

Her celebrity crush brings in a bit of pocket money too. She has been selling unauthorized copies of Melania’s new self-titled memoir translated to Mandarin by AI on China’s social media underground for eight yuan ($1.10).

Donald Trump has been openly critical of China’s economic practices as barriers to America’s financial success. He launched a trade war during his first term by imposing hefty tariffs on Chinese imports, adding more after he returned to office last month. He mocked the deadly coronavirus as the “Kung Flu,” a racist term for COVID-19. Earlier this year, Trump claimed, without evidence, that thousands of Chinese immigrants are flooding the U.S. to build an “army” and attack America.

But Wu, the academic, said people in China often see U.S. politics as akin to a soap opera.

Pouring over details of leader’s lives is a novelty to many in China, where top leaders tend to appear only in tightly stage-managed public settings. Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan, who was a well-known singer before marrying Xi Jinping, has kept a higher profile than the wives of previous leaders, but the couple’s lifestyle is still so little known that it’s not clear where they live or whether they have a pet.

Rose LuQiu, an associate professor at School of Communication in Hong Kong Baptist University, said fans see Donald Trump as a winner, whose success the first lady shares.

“The more independent and accomplished she is — but still unwaveringly loyal to (Donald) Trump — the more it reflects his perceived success as a man,” she said.

Huang Li, who works in public relations for the fashion industry and sells Melania Trump’s memoir online on the side, says she doesn’t care about politics, but says she likes Trump for his hard work and the courage he showed by yelling “fight, fight, fight” after being shot during an assassination attempt in July.

Huang has sold more than 30 copies of Melania’s memoir, which is not available in China. China’s National Publications Import & Export Shanghai Co. is pre-selling English copies for 290 yuan ($40), and it’s not clear if there are plans for an official translation.

“People want to know more about her,” Huang said.

Fans also like what they see as sacrifices Melania Trump has made to help her 18-year-old son Barron. Many have joked that she only agreed to move back to the “White House dormitory” to help with his career.

Wu said this appeals to Chinese fans. “Chinese pay extra attention to parenting,” she said.

Melania’s perseverance amid her husband’s personal and political scandals resonates with fans even more.

“Melania is a woman who is low-key, very real, supports her husband in the back and stands with him when he needs her,” said Yip, the entrepreneur.

Like many admirers of Melania, Yip said she liked the president’s daughter Ivanka “during her highlight moments” eight years ago. But Yip now views her a traitor for testifying in her father’s civil fraud trial in New York last year after being ordered by the judge to take the stand.  Even though Ivanka Trump revealed little, Yip and many other Chinese believe she betrayed her father.

“The rules of this society are that men are allowed to be disloyal, but not women,” said Yip, “Melania is very loyal to her husband.”

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By Giulia Paravicini

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Congolese religious leaders are aiming to organise peace talks that would bring President Felix Tshisekedi’s government, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and exiled opposition figures around the same table, two officials said Wednesday.

The effort would require getting Tshisekedi to abandon his position of refusing to sit down with the rebels, whom he brands terrorists. But as M23 continues to advance after seizing eastern Congo’s two largest cities, those involved in the effort say they are hopeful.

“We, the two churches, Catholic and Protestant, are trying to get the whole world around one table,” Msgr. Donatien Nshole, secretary-general of the influential Catholic bishops conference (CENCO), said in an interview in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, where he met with President William Ruto to discuss how to combine regional mediation efforts with national ones.

The church-led diplomacy is the latest push for a resolution as anxiety rises in the capital Kinshasa, with some officials seeking to leave amid fear of a coup.

The latest flare-up in the long-running conflict in eastern Congo has killed thousands, according to U.N. figures, and drawn in Congo’s neighbours, raising fears of an all-out regional war.

Nshole and Reverend Eric Nsenga of the Church of Christ in Congo (ECC), a union of dozens of Protestant denominations, spoke ahead of their return to Congo following a diplomatic tour with stops in Goma, Brussels and Kigali.

They met rebel leader Corneille Nangaa, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congolese opposition figures such as Moise Katumbi and loyalists of former President Joseph Kabila.

On Thursday, they plan to hold a prayer event in Lubumbashi announcing a national dialogue initiative that will cover issues ranging from the country’s mining policies to the disarmament of armed groups.

U.S. think tank the Pew Research Center estimates 95.8% of Congo’s population is Christian, almost evenly split between Catholics and Protestants.

Congo’s vast mineral resources “are the object of desire at several levels,” Nsenga said, adding that “their role is central” in drawing in various actors.

Multiple attempts to solve the conflict diplomatically have stalled, with Tshisekedi skipping two consecutive African-organised summits addressing it, including last weekend’s African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

The M23 advance is the gravest escalation in more than a decade of the long-running conflict in eastern Congo, rooted in the spillover of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into Congo and the struggle for control of Congo’s vast mineral resources.

Rwanda rejects allegations from Congo, the United Nations and Western powers that it supports M23 with arms and troops. It says it is defending itself against the threat from a Hutu militia, which it says is fighting with the Congolese military.

(Reporting and writing by Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet, Alexandra Hudson)

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BERLIN (Reuters) – Austrian authorities are investigating the flow of money behind a large donation made to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to support its German election campaign, according to a joint investigation by the newspapers Spiegel and Standard.

The donation – the party’s largest ever at 2.35 million euros ($2.45 million) – came in early February, boosting the AfD in the final stretch of the campaign for Sunday’s election, in which is it forecast to secure a historic second place.

The donation came from Gerhard Dingler, according to a German parliamentary register of such payments.

Dingler previously worked for Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) as its managing director in the western state of Vorarlberg, which borders Switzerland and Germany. He held that post for 15 years and left in 2016.

Germany’s Spiegel and Austria’s Standard reported on Wednesday that the Austrian domestic intelligence service and federal criminal investigation bureau were investigating suspected money-laundering over a 2.6 million euro payment made to Dingler shortly before his donation.

That raises the suspicion that Dingler was serving as a front for another donor.

The investigation is focused on how Dingler declared the payment prior to the donation, Spiegel and Standard reported.

A spokesperson for Austria’s BKA criminal investigation bureau declined to comment on specific persons. The DSN domestic intelligence agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The AfD’s treasurer, Carsten Huetter, said he offered full transparency and cooperation with authorities in the event of an investigation in a statement addressing the report.

“Mr Dingler has repeatedly assured the party that the donation in kind was made from his private assets,” Huetter said.

Der Standard reported that Dingler did not respond to multiple attempts by the newspaper to reach him. Reuters attempts to reach him were also unsuccessful.

The AfD could face a fine of around 7 million euros under German law if the donation is found to violate rules on party donations.

In 2019, Germany’s Bundestag parliament fined the party more than 400,000 euros for violating party donation rules.

($1 = 0.9590 euros)

(Reporting by Rachel More in Berlin and Francois Murphy in Vienna; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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(Reuters) – Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said on Wednesday the flight crew on board the regional jet that flipped upside down in Toronto upon landing was experienced.

The crew on Delta’s Endeavor Air subsidiary in Monday’s crash, in which 21 people were injured, was familiar with wintry conditions in Toronto, Bastian told CBS News in an interview.

“There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said. “All these pilots train for these conditions.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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