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Paris (AFP) – Israel's government cancelled visas for 27 French left-wing lawmakers and local officials two days before they were to start a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, the group said.

The action came only days after Israel stopped two British members of parliament from the governing Labour party from entering the country.

It also came amidst diplomatic tensions after President Emmanuel Macron said France would soon recognise a Palestinian state. Macron has in turn sought to pressure Netanyahu over conditions in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Israel's interior ministry said visas for the 27 had been cancelled under a law that allows authorities to ban people who could act against the state of Israel.

Seventeen members of the group, from France's Ecologist and Communist parties, said they had been victims of "collective punishment" by Israel and called on Macron to intervene.

They said in a statement that they had been invited on a five-day trip by the French consulate in Jerusalem.

They had intended to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of their mission to "strengthen international cooperation and the culture of peace", they added.

"For the first time, two days before our departure, the Israeli authorities cancelled our entry visas that had been approved one month ago," they said.

"We want to understand what led to this sudden decision, which resembles collective punishment," said the group.

The delegation included National Assembly deputies Francois Ruffin, Alexis Corbiere and Julie Ozenne from the Ecologist party, Communist deputy Soumya Bourouaha and Communist senator Marianne Margate.

The other members were left-wing town mayors and local lawmakers.

The statement denounced the ban as a "major rupture in diplomatic ties".

"Deliberately preventing elected officials and parliamentarians from travelling cannot be without consequences," the group said, demanding a meeting with Macron and action by the government to ensure Israel let them into the country.

The group said their parties had for decades called for recognition of a Palestinian state, which Macron said last week could come at an international conference in June.

Israeli authorities this month detained British members of parliament Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed at Tel Aviv airport and deported them, citing the same reason. Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the action "unacceptable".

In February, Israel stopped two left-wing European parliament deputies, Franco-Palestinian Rima Hassan and Lynn Boylan from Ireland, from entering.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted with fury to France's possible recognition of a Palestinian state. He said establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel would be a "huge reward for terrorism".

The human rights NGO interviewed 93 people who had been accused of witchcraft living in four camps in northern Ghana over the last two years – 82 of them women, most aged 50 to 90.

The resulting report, entitled Branded for Life, details how those sheltering in these camps, run by traditional priests, have poor access to health services, food, clean water and economic opportunities.

When teams from Amnesty visited the camps in November 2023 and April 2024, they found more than 500 people living in them.

"We first heard about the issue in July 2020, when a woman was lynched and part of the lynching was caught on camera and created outrage nationwide," Michèle Eken, senior researcher at Amnesty, told RFI.

As Amnesty embarked on a long-term research project on the issue, a law criminalising witchcraft-related attacks was pending in Ghana's parliament – which ultimately was passed, but never signed into law.

"That gave us even more interest in pushing further and understanding the issu," Eken said. "So that's why this report is focused on trying to bring light to this issue."

Amnesty's research shows that the belief in witchcraft is entrenched in several communities in Ghana, as it is in many communities around the world,

While it notes that: "It is important to distinguish harmful practices and human rights violations related to witchcraft accusations and the legitimate exercise of religious freedom, which is protected under international law," it also found that not enough is done by the authorities to combat stereotypes against women that lead to to witchcraft accusations.

The report shows that such accusations can lead to threats, physical attacks, even killings, which usually begin within the family or the local community following an illness or a death.

Older women living in poverty, those with limited education and those with health conditions or disabilities are at greater risk of these accusations, as well as women who are unmarried or otherwise do not conform to stereotypical gender roles.

Some accusers have even reported basing their claims on bad dreams they have had about a certain person.

One resident of the Gnani camp told Amnesty that her neighbour said he dreamt that she was trying to kill him. "He doesn’t want me [in the community], that’s why he accused me,” she said.

The woman reported having refused a marriage between the village chief and her daughters as the reason for these accusations.

A resident of the Kukuo camp, aged around 60, said: “They always have plans of putting allegations against you, especially if you are hardworking and are still strong and doing well as a woman.”

The report shows that in the northern and north-east regions of Ghana, women accused of witchcraft have no safe place to run to other than the camps overseen by religious leaders, which are now more than a century old.

One woman reported her struggles with her accommodation: “I have my own room here, but it needs re-roofing. Water comes down through the roof when it rains.”

A resident of the Kukuo camp in her eighties has not been able to support herself since she fled her village. She said she had enough food at home thanks to her harvests, but now, "if someone doesn’t feed me, how would I eat?”

Amnesty says the Ghanaian government has failed to ensure access to food, safe housing and clean water in the camps, while health services for women who have serious or ongoing health conditions are also inadequate.

Opportunities for these women to support themselves financially are limited, and governmental programmes to support them are inadequate

"The government provides a cash transfer programme, but not everyone in the camps is registered for it. Moreover, for those who receive financial assistance, it is not always paid on time and the amount is insufficient to provide an adequate standard of living," the report states.

“Because people in the camps are unable to provide for themselves, the authorities have a duty to protect and support them. But they have so far failed to do so,” said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s interim regional director for West and Central Africa.

The NGO now hopes that Ghana's government will establish a long-term national awareness campaign to challenge cultural and social practices that discriminate against women and older people, leaving them vulnerable to witchcraft accusations. It is also recommending that legislation is passed criminalising witchcraft accusations and related attacks.

Washington (AFP) – The United States would drastically reduce its diplomatic footprint in Africa and scrap State Department offices dealing with climate change, democracy and human rights, according to a draft White House order.

The executive order, framed as a strategy to cut costs while "reflecting the priorities" of the White House, also lays out measures to slash US soft power around the world.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said The New York Times, which first reported the existence of the draft order, had fallen "victim to another hoax."

"This is fake news," Rubio posted Sunday on X.

However, a copy of the draft viewed by AFP calls for "full structural reorganization" of the State Department by October 1 of this year.

The aim, the draft order says, is "to streamline mission delivery, project American strength abroad, cut waste, fraud, abuse, and align the Department with an America First Strategic Doctrine."

The biggest change would be organizing US diplomatic efforts into four regions: Eurasia, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia-Pacific -- with no equivalent focus on Africa.

The current Africa Bureau would be eliminated. In its place would be a "Special Envoy Office for African Affairs" who reports to the White House's internal National Security Council, rather than the State Department.

"All non-essential embassies and consulates in Sub-Saharan Africa shall be closed," the draft order says, with all remaining missions consolidated under a special envoy "using targeted, mission-driven deployments."

Emphasis in Africa would be placed on counterterrorism and "strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources."

The US footprint in Canada -- a historic US ally that President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested should be annexed and made a 51st state -- would likewise get a downgrade.

The diplomatic presence would see a "significantly reduced team" and the embassy in Ottawa would "significantly downscale."

Tom Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents US diplomats, said officers support making the government more efficient, but this "looks like a hatchet job."

"It looks like we're pulling back from the world," he said.

The plan would impose far-reaching cuts to American soft power around the world and weaken participation in multilateral bodies.

While the draft executive order obtained by AFP has not been discussed publicly by officials, it comes amid a flurry of moves to cut decades-old US initiatives and to question long-held alliances, including with NATO.

An earlier proposed plan leaked to US media would see the State Department's entire budget slashed by half.

While that proposal also has yet to be confirmed, the State Department did announce last week that it has scrapped an agency built to track and combat aggressive disinformation campaigns run by foreign governments.

The administration has also already axed the US government's foreign aid arm, USAID.

The new draft order says current offices dealing with climate change, oceans, global criminal justice, and human rights would be "eliminated." Also on the scrap list is the State Department's separate office for Afghan women and girls.

A decades-old program to project US cultural and English-language contacts around the globe would be partially dismantled.

The Fulbright program funds research and teaching scholarships for Americans abroad, as well as attracting foreign students to US institutions. Under the executive order, many of those opportunities would vanish.

This would follow Trump's already ongoing dismantlement of Voice of America, the network built to broadcast into repressive countries.

Yazdgerdi criticized what he described as a "self-inflicted wound" for the United States.

Soft power is "what showcases America. This is the inspiring element. Yes there's a fearful element in that we have an awesome military and you need that of course, but this is what inspires people," he said.

"You're basically ceding the field to countries that have no issue filling the void -- Russia and China immediately spring to mind."

Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) – Lebanon's military said a munitions blast in the country's war-torn south killed an officer and two soldiers on Sunday, days after an explosion killed another soldier.

Under a November truce deal that ended a war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, the army has been deploying in south Lebanon and dismantling the militant group's infrastructure there.

"An army officer and two soldiers were killed and a number of citizens were injured due to an explosion of ammunition as it was being transported inside an army vehicle" in Braiqaa, in south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh district, an army statement said.

Specialised army units were investigating the circumstances of the incident, the statement added.

An AFP correspondent in Braiqaa, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Israeli border, saw several charred and burnt vehicles on the road, with some damage to nearby shops and flats.

The army had cordoned off the area.

President Joseph Aoun offered his condolences for the three servicemen "who fell while performing their mission to preserve security and stability" and to keep south Lebanon residents from harm, a presidency statement said.

On Monday, the army said a soldier was killed and three others wounded in an explosion in the country's south, where Aoun said they had been dismantling mines in a tunnel.

According to the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon's Litani River. Israel was to withdraw all its forces but has kept troops in five places it deems "strategic".

New York (AFP) – Thousands of protesters rallied Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the United States for a second major round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his hard-line policies.

In New York, people gathered outside the city's main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans like "No Kings in America" and "Resist Tyranny."

Many took aim at Trump's deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting "No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here," a reference to the role of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in rounding up migrants.

In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process.

The administration is carrying out "a direct assault on the idea of the rule of law and the idea that the government should be restrained from abusing the people who live here in the United States," Benjamin Douglas, 41, told AFP outside the White House.

Wearing a keffiyeh and carrying a sign calling for the freeing of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian student protester arrested last month, Douglas said individuals were being singled out as "test cases to rile up xenophobia and erode long-standing legal protections."

"We are in a great danger," said 73-year-old New York protester Kathy Valy, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, adding that their stories of how Nazi leader Adolf Hitler rose to power "are what's happening here."

"The one thing is that Trump is a lot more stupid than Hitler or than the other fascists," she said. "He's being played... and his own team is divided."

Daniella Butler, 26, said she wanted to "call attention specifically to the defunding of science and health work" by the government.

Studying for a PhD in immunology at Johns Hopkins University, she was carrying a map of Texas covered with spots in reference to the ongoing measles outbreak there.

Trump's health chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, spent decades falsely linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) jab to autism.

"When science is ignored, people die," Butler said.

In deeply conservative Texas, the coastal city of Galveston saw a small gathering of anti-Trump demonstrators.

"This is my fourth protest and typically I would sit back and wait for the next election," said 63-year-old writer Patsy Oliver. "We cannot do that right now. We've lost too much already."

On the West Coast, several hundred people gathered on a beach in San Francisco to spell out the words "IMPEACH + REMOVE," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Others nearby held an upside-down US flag, traditionally a symbol of distress.

Organizers hope to use building resentment over Trump's immigration crackdown, his drastic cuts to government agencies and his pressuring of universities, news media and law firms, to forge a lasting movement.

The chief organizer of Saturday's protests -- the group 50501, a number representing 50 protests in 50 states and one movement -- said some 400 demonstrations were planned.

Its website said the protests are "a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies" -- and it insisted on all protests being non-violent.

The group called for millions to take part Saturday, though turnout appeared smaller than the "Hands Off" protests across the country on April 5.

Kinshasa (AFP) – The mayor of the DR Congo town near where a boat caught fire earlier this week told AFP on Saturday that at least 33 people had died in the disaster, significantly fewer than previously reported.

More than 200 passengers were crowded onto a wooden boat on the Congo River in northwest DRC on Tuesday when the blaze broke out, said the mayor of Mbandaka, Yves Balo.

"We count 195 who have survived, including 22 burn victims who are being cared for at Wangata general hospital, and 33 deaths, with 29 people already buried and four more still at the morgue," Balo told AFP.

The disaster occurred near Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province, at the confluence of the Ruki and the vast Congo River -- the world's deepest.

The mayor's toll, the first official one from the blaze, was far lower than that of at least 143 deaths previously given to AFP.

Josephine-Pacifique Lokumu, head of a delegation of national deputies from the region, had put the toll at 143.

And Joseph Lokondo, a local civil society leader who said he helped bury the bodies, put the "provisional death toll at 145: some burnt, others drowned".

Bako said the discrepancies over the death tolls were due to people having confused the numbers from previous disasters, which are frequent on the Congo River.

He was speaking after having met deputy interior minister Eugenie Tshiela, who flew into Mbandaka from the capital Kinshasa on Saturday.

Lokumu said the blaze was caused by a fuel explosion ignited by an onboard cooking fire.

"A woman lit the embers for cooking. The fuel, which was not far away, exploded, killing many children and women," she added.

Videos circulating on social media showed flames leaping from a long boat stranded far from shore, with smoke billowing from the wreckage and people aboard smaller vessels looking on.

Search efforts continued on Saturday, "but the chances of finding survivors or additional bodies are slim, three days after the tragedy", a humanitarian source told AFP, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

A vast central African nation that covers 2.3 million square kilometres (900,000 square miles), the DRC suffers from a lack of practicable roads. Planes serve only a limited number of cities and towns.

As a result people often travel on lakes, the Congo River -- the second longest in Africa after the Nile -- and its winding tributaries, where shipwrecks are frequent and the death tolls often heavy.

A chronic absence of passenger lists often complicates search operations.

In October 2023, at least 47 people died after a boat navigating the Congo sank in Equateur.

More than 20 people died in October last year when a boat capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern DRC, according to local authorities.

Another shipwreck on Lake Kivu claimed around 100 lives in 2019.

Tunis (AFP) – A Tunisian court has handed down jail sentences of up to 66 years to multiple defendants, including prominent opposition figures, in a mass trial criticised by rights groups.

The trial, decried by a defence lawyer as a "masquerade", is of unprecedented scale with around 40 defendants including vocal critics of President Kais Saied.

A prosecutor cited on Saturday by local media announced sentences ranging from 13 to 66 years for the defendants, accused of "conspiracy against state security" and "belonging to a terrorist group"

However, a list communicated to AFP by several lawyers, and "subject to official confirmation", indicates minimum sentences of four years.

Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people, with some already in prison for two years while others were in exile or still free.

Appeals are planned, defence lawyer Abdessatar Messaoudi said.

Bassam Khawaja of Human Rights Watch posted on X: "The court did not give even a semblance of a fair trial." The charges, he said, "appear unfounded and based on no credible evidence".

According to the list supplied by lawyers, those accused who are abroad, and who include French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy, received 33-year jail terms.

The same penalty was handed down to feminist activist Bochra Belhaj Hmida and the former head of the presidential office, Nadia Akacha.

Issam Chebbi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition, as well as lawyer Ridha Belhaj and activist Chaima Issa, were sentenced to 18 years behind bars, Messaoudi told AFP.

Activist Khayam Turki was handed a 48-year term while businessman Kamel Eltaief received the harshest penalty -- 66 years in prison, the list showed.

Turki's cousin, Hayder Turki, told AFP he was "very saddened" by the verdict, saying: "He doesn't deserve this -- he's a great man, his crime was being involved in politics."

Two former leaders of the Islamist Ennahdha party, which was Saied's main rival, were also sentenced. Abdelhamid Jelassi and Noureddine Bhiri received 13 and 43 years respectively, according to the list.

Kamel Jendoubi, a rights advocate and former minister tried in absentia, decried a "judicial assassination" by the courts.

"This is not a judiciary ruling, but a political decree executed by judges under orders, by complicit prosecutors and by a justice minister" who all serve "a paranoid autocrat", Jendoubi charged.

Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021 and assumed total control, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.

Late Friday, defence lawyers denounced the trial after the judge finished reading the accusations and began deliberation without hearing from either the prosecution or the defence.

One lawyer, Samia Abbou, told AFP there were "flagrant violations of judicial procedure" with the accused "not heard" during the "masquerade".

Friday's hearing lasted much of the day and was held amid tight security. Media and foreign diplomats were barred from the proceedings.

Since the trial began on March 4, defence lawyers have repeatedly called for all the defendants to appear in court, including at least six who went on a hunger strike.

The lawyers denounced the case as "empty", while HRW said the trial was taking place in the context of repression with Saied "weaponising the judicial system to target opponents and dissidents".

Analyst Hatem Nafti posted on X that any acquittal in the mass trial "would have negated the conspiratorial narrative that the regime has relied on since 2021" and "accepted by a large part of the population" relying on restricted media coverage.

Beijing (AFP) – Step by mechanical step, dozens of humanoid robots took to the streets of Beijing early Saturday, joining thousands of their flesh-and-blood counterparts in a world-first half marathon showcasing China's drive to lead the global race in cutting-edge technology.

The 21-kilometre (13-mile) event held in the Chinese capital's E-Town -- a state-backed hub for high-tech manufacturing -- is billed as a groundbreaking effort to test the limits of bipedal robots in real-world conditions.

At the crack of the starter's gun, and as a Chinese pop song "I Believe" blared out from loudspeakers on repeat, the robots queued up one by one and took their first tentative steps.

Curious human runners lined up on their side of the road and waited patiently with mobile phones at the ready to shoot each machine as they prepared to depart.

One smaller-sized android, which fell over and lay on the ground for several minutes, got up by itself to loud cheers.

Another, powered by propellers and designed to look like a Transformer, veered across the starting line before crashing into a barrier and knocking over an engineer.

"Getting onto the race track might seem like a small step for humans, but it's a giant leap for humanoid robots," Liang Liang, Beijing E-Town's management committee deputy director, told AFP before the event. Nearby, engineers jogged alongside their machines.

"The marathon helps push humanoid robots one step closer toward industrialisation."

Around 20 teams from across China are taking part in the competition -- with robots ranging from 75 to 180 centimetres (2.46 to 5.9 feet) tall and weighing up to 88 kilograms (194 pounds).

Some are running autonomously, while others are guided remotely by engineers, with machines and humans running on separate tracks.

Engineers told AFP the goal was to test the performance and reliability of the androids -- emphasising that finishing the race, not winning it, was the main objective.

"I think it's a big boost for the entire robotics industry," Cui Wenhao, a 28-year-old engineer at Noetix Robotics, said of the half-marathon.

"Honestly, there are very few opportunities for the whole industry to run at full speed over such a long distance or duration. It's a serious test for the battery, the motors, the structure -- even the algorithms."

Cui said as part of its training, a humanoid robot had been running a half-marathon every day, at a pace of about seven-minutes per kilometre, and he expected it to complete the race with no issues.

"But just in case, we've also prepared a backup robot," he added.

Another young engineer, 25-year-old Kong Yichang from DroidUp, said the race would help to "lay a foundation for a whole series of future activities involving humanoid robots".

"The significance (of the race) lies in the fact that humanoid robots can truly integrate into human society and begin doing things that humans do."

China, the world's second-largest economy, has sought to assert its dominance in the fields of AI and robotics, positioning itself as a direct challenger to the United States.

In January, Chinese start-up DeepSeek drew attention with a chatbot it claimed was developed more cost-effectively than its American counterparts.

Dancing humanoid robots also captivated audiences during a televised Chinese New Year gala.

Islamabad (AFP) – Pakistan's foreign minister was due to visit Afghanistan on Saturday after his country expelled more than 85,000 Afghans, mostly children, in just over two weeks.

Islamabad has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of April more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled -- including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades.

Convoys of Afghan families have been heading to border towns each day fearing the "humiliation" of raids, arrests or being separated from family members.

Pakistan's foreign office said its top diplomat Ishaq Dar will hold meetings with senior Afghan Taliban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund during a day-long visit.

"There will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline," Pakistan's deputy interior minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference on Friday.

"When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you're involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism, or committing other crimes," he added.

Chaudhry has previously accused Afghans of being "terrorists and criminals", but analysts say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban government over escalating security concerns.

He said on Friday that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.

The United Nations' refugee agency said on Friday more then half of them were children -- entering a country where girls are banned from secondary school and university and women are barred from many sectors of work.

Washington (AFP) – The United States will roughly halve the number of troops it has deployed in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, the Pentagon said Friday.

Washington has had troops in Syria for years as part of international efforts against the Islamic State (IS) group, which rose out of the chaos of the country's civil war to seize swaths of territory there and in neighboring Iraq over a decade ago.

The brutal jihadists have since suffered major defeats in both countries, but still remain a threat.

"Today the secretary of defense directed the consolidation of US forces in Syria... to select locations," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, without specifying the sites where this would take place.

"This deliberate and conditions-based process will bring the US footprint in Syria down to less than 1,000 US forces in the coming months," he said.

"As this consolidation takes place... US Central Command will remain poised to continue strikes against the remnants of (IS) in Syria," Parnell added, referring to the military command responsible for the region.

President Donald Trump has long been skeptical of Washington's presence in Syria, ordering the withdrawal of troops during his first term but ultimately leaving American forces in the country.

As Islamist-led rebels pressed forward with a lightning offensive last December that ultimately overthrew Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Trump said Washington should "NOT GET INVOLVED!"

"Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT," Trump, then the president-elect, wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The 2014 onslaught by IS prompted a US-led air campaign in support of local ground forces -- the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Iraqi government units.

Washington also deployed thousands of American personnel to advise and assist local forces, with US troops in some cases directly fighting the jihadists.

After years of bloody warfare, Iraq's prime minister announced a final victory over IS in December 2017, while the SDF proclaimed the defeat of the group's "caliphate" in March 2019 after seizing its final bastion in Syria.

But the jihadists still have some fighters in the countryside of both countries, and US forces have long carried out periodic strikes and raids to help prevent the group's resurgence.

Washington stepped up military action against IS in Syria in the wake of Assad's overthrow, though it has more recently shifted its focus to strikes targeting Yemen's Huthi rebels, who have been attacking international shipping since late 2023.

US forces in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by pro-Iran militants following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, but responded with heavy strikes on Tehran-linked targets, and the attacks largely subsided.

Washington for years said it had some 900 military personnel in Syria as part of international efforts against IS, but the Pentagon announced in December 2024 that the number of US troops in the country had doubled to around 2,000 earlier in the year.

While the United States is reducing its forces in Syria, Iraq has also sought an end to the US-led coalition's presence there, where Washington has said it has some 2,500 troops.

The United States and Iraq have announced that the coalition would end its decade-long military mission in federal Iraq by the end of 2025, and by September 2026 in the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Washington (AFP) – The White House on Friday unveiled a revamped Covid-19 website that promoted the contentious theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory, framing it as the pandemic's "true origins."

The Covid.gov website, previously focused on promoting vaccine and testing information, now includes a full-length image of President Donald Trump and criticizes the pandemic policies implemented under former president Joe Biden.

The site also targets Anthony Fauci, Biden's former chief medical advisor, for advancing what it calls the "preferred narrative that Covid-19 originated naturally."

It presents five bullet points aimed at bolstering the lab leak theory, noting that Wuhan, the site of the first known coronavirus case, is also home to China's "foremost SARS research lab" and has a history of conducting research at "inadequate biosafety levels."

"By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn't," the website said.

The lab-leak theory, once dismissed as a conspiracy theory, has recently gained mainstream traction in the United States.

Even as the debate remains unresolved -- scientifically and politically -- US agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy have come out in support of the theory, albeit with varying levels of confidence.

Earlier this year, the Central Intelligence Agency shifted its official stance on the virus's origin, saying that it was "more likely" leaked from a Chinese lab than transmission from animals.

The assessment drew criticism from China, which said it was "extremely unlikely" Covid-19 came from a laboratory.

Beijing also urged the United States to "stop politicizing and instrumentalizing the issue of origin-tracing."

The United States and China are currently locked in a major trade war, with Washington announcing Thursday new port fees for Chinese-linked ships and increased tariffs for Chinese goods.

"I welcome all efforts to dig deeper," said Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in response to the revamped White House website.

"But it would be a terrible shame if such efforts distracted from essential work to help prevent further infections and treat people suffering from Covid-19 and long Covid," he told NPR.

The new site, which apparently seeks to redefine the political narrative about Covid-19, also criticized the mask and social distancing mandates introduced at the start of the pandemic in 2020. There is also a map of Wuhan that is animated to throb.

Under a section titled "Covid-19 misinformation," it also accused public health officials under the previous administration of demonizing "alternative treatments" and colluding with social media companies to censor dissenting views about the pandemic -- a charge frequently echoed by US conservatives.

The Biden administration has previously rejected the charge that it was suppressing or censoring conservative perspectives.

The website revamp comes after layoffs began earlier this month at major US health agencies, as the Trump administration embarks on a sweeping and scientifically contested restructuring that will cut 10,000 jobs.

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- who has alarmed health experts with his rhetoric downplaying the importance of vaccines -- said the layoffs were part of a major reform of his department, aiming to refocus efforts on chronic disease prevention.

More than one million people died of Covid-19 and related illnesses in the United States, and millions more fell victim to the disease around the world.

Coltan linked to conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has likely entered the European Union market through international commodities trader Traxys, a Global Witness investigation has revealed.

The report found that Traxys, a multibillion-dollar company based in Luxembourg, bought at least 280 tonnes of coltan from Rwanda in 2024, with evidence suggesting a significant proportion is connected to the war in eastern DRC.

The report is based on customs data and testimony from two smugglers and sources in government, civil society and the mining sector.

The main mines exploiting coltan in the Great Lakes region of central Africa are found in the Rubaya area of eastern DRC.

In February, Rwandan-backed armed group M23 conquered the region, occupying Goma in North Kivu, the largest city in eastern DRC, and Bukavu, a city of more than 1 million and the capital of South Kivu province, just weeks later.

“Our investigation strongly suggests that conflict coltan from the DRC smuggled to Rwanda has entered the EU," Alex Kopp, senior campaigner at Global Witness, said in a statement shared with RFI.

"It seems that the EU has not been able to put effective safeguards in place and should immediately rescind its raw materials partnership with Rwanda," he added.

The report shows that Traxys was almost the only buyer of coltan sold by Rwandan minerals exporter African Panther Resources Limited, according to customs data seen by Global Witness.

Two traders who illegally bring coltan from Rubaya in the DRC over the border to Rwanda told Global Witness that African Panther has bought smuggled coltan from Rwanda. One trader also said M23 demanded a tax of 15 percent of the selling price.

The report confirms that Traxys indeed increased its purchase of coltan from Rwanda in 2023, and became one of the biggest buyers of the mineral from Rwanda in 2024.

“As major donors, the EU and its member states have considerable clout over Rwanda," Kopp added. "The EU’s values and principles command it to freeze development assistance to Rwanda until Rwanda withdraws its troops from DRC and stops all support to M23.”

A metal derived from coltan known as tantalum is used in manufacturing electronic devices such as mobile phones, personal computers and automotive parts, including those for electric vehicles key to the energy transition. One mobile phone contains 40 milligrams of tantalum on average.

UN reports have already shown that the M23 rebel group is to a significant degree financed by the exploitation and export of coltan in the Rubaya area, which is smuggled to Rwanda in large volumes.

Global Witness reports show that M23 has continued to profit from coltan mined in Rubaya by controlling a major transport route and by taking control of the area’s mines, which produce around 15 percent of the world’s tantalum.

According to UN experts, at the end of 2023 it was clear that conflict coltan from the Masisi area was also regularly smuggled to Rwanda and laundered into supply chains. They say the ore trade has provided M23 a revenue of an estimated $800,000 per month.

At the end of 2023, European Commission President Uusula von der Leyen discussed critical raw materials with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, leading to a strategic partnership signed in February 2024.

This partnership was intended to allow the EU better access to raw materials from Rwanda, including coltan and tantalum, which the EU defines as critical raw materials.

This latest Global Witness investigation indicates, however, that the EU has not developed sufficient safeguards to stop conflict minerals from entering its territory.

In response to the investigation, Traxys has denied that its coltan originates from Rubaya and helps fund M23, citing a number of due diligence measures including mine visits, plausibility checks and the use of traceability systems.

African Panther has also denied the presence of smuggled coltan from Rubaya in its supply chain.