Groupe Le Monde, or Le Monde Group, is a French mass media company that publishes the daily newspaper Le Monde and was founded in 2000. Headquartered in Paris, the group comprises six media outlets, including the internationally recognized Le Monde, which also publishes the monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, as well as Courrier International, Télérama, La Vie, and HuffPost.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a global news agency providing fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of world events and daily life issues. Drawing from a newsgathering network across 150 countries, AFP has developed a strong digital verification operation. With 2,600 staff representing 100 nationalities, the agency covers news in six languages through multimedia storytelling spanning video, text, photos and graphics. As one of three major international news agencies (after Reuters and the Associated Press) and the only European one, AFP serves media outlets, digital platforms, companies and institutions worldwide and has won numerous awards throughout its history.
Le Monde Diplomatique is a monthly newspaper founded in 1954 by Hubert Beuve-Méry. The publication offers analysis and opinion on international politics, culture, and current affairs. According to its website, as of 2025, Le Monde Diplomatique operates a network of 35 partner publications that publish all or part of its content each month in 27 languages worldwide, including a Chinese edition produced in partnership with the Paris Institute of Intercultural Management and Communication (ISIT).
Media Group is an Indonesian media and business conglomerate founded in 1978. The company operates Media Group Network, which encompasses television channel Metro TV, newspaper Media Indonesia, news portal Medcom.id, providing news and entertainment content across Indonesia. Beyond media, the conglomerate has expanded into food industry services, as well as hospitality ventures.
The Karangkraf Group is a Malaysian media conglomerate established in 1978 that has expanded over five decades from a small publishing house into a diversified media company. The group operates multiple subsidiaries, including the newspapers Sinar Harian and Sinar Daily.
BFM TV, whose full name stands for Business FM (originally Business TV), is a French news television and radio network that provides continuous live and on-demand coverage across multiple platforms, focusing on news, economy, sports, technology, travel, music, and culture. Based in Paris, the channel was founded in 2005 and operates as a division of CMA CGM Group, the world’s third-largest shipping company, which acquired the network in 2024.
Metro TV is Indonesia’s first 24-hour news television station, which began broadcasting on November 25, 2000. Operating under the tagline “Knowledge to Elevate,” Metro TV broadcasts news in three languages — Indonesian, English, and Mandarin — and produces programs covering technology, health, culture, and general knowledge. The station says it has established partnerships with foreign broadcasters for news exchange and workforce development, aiming to provide international audiences with coverage of Indonesian affairs.
Kompas Gramedia is a major Indonesian media conglomerate founded in August 1963 by journalists P.K. Ojong and Jakob Oetama with the launch of Intisari magazine. The company expanded into newspaper publishing with the establishment on June 28, 1965, of the daily newspaper Kompas, which has since become Indonesia’s largest-circulation newspaper. Today, Kompas Gramedia operates across eight businesses, including media, retail and publishing, hospitality, manufacturing, event organizing, education, property, and digital services.
Gonggong News Agency (共工新聞社), also known as Gong Gong News, is a privately operated news service that provides a range of China-related news, often drawn from PRC state sources such as Xinhua, as well as domestic news from the African continent — but whose primary purpose seems to be facilitating business connections between China and Africa, and in particular between China and Uganda. Though the news service reportedly began operations in 2015, founded by Chinese national Gong Jianguang (龔建光), it was not registered under the “Gong Gong” name in Hong Kong until December 2020 with the registration of “Gong Gong News Agency Limited,” also “Gonggong Newspaper Limited.” Prior to that time, the chief entity was Hong Kong’s Fanzhou International Group Limited (泛洲國際集團有限公司), previously “Africa International Limited” (泛非国际有限公司), which remains the top shareholder in Gong Gong News (51 percent) and has been fully held by Gong Jiangguang since a series of share transfers in 2011. Although Gong’s history with Uganda and Africa are unclear, his involvement with Fanzhou, formerly “Africa International,” since 2011 hints at involvement in related business. Gong, whose hometown according to Hong Kong records is the village of Xiwanzhou (西湾洲) in Hunan, north of the city of Yuanjiang, appears in numerous online sources, including as late as November 2024, as the “Chief Commercial Liaison Officer, Embassy of the Republic of Uganda to China” — a position he has reportedly held since at least 2013, two years before the full operation of the news agency. A 2017 article from Phoenix News reports that the Ugandan Embassy in China had officially appointed Gong Gong as its “foreign publicity unit” (外宣单位) in China, while a more recent report in 2024, from Gong Gong News itself — announced that Charles Madipo Wakiduso, the director of the Commercial Center of the Ugandan Embassy, had been appointed as “Honorary President” (名誉社长) of the Gonggong News Agency. Gong has an active website at cn.kgongcn.com as well as a currently inactive website at gonggong.hk. Gong Gong News also has active YouTube, Facebook and X accounts. The outlet claims to have international desks and departments in Uganda, the United States, Indonesia, and Taiwan — though this could not be confirmed. Gong Gong News describes itself — somewhat speciously — as a member of multiple international Chinese-language media associations. These include the International Union of Chinese Media and Journalists (國際華文媒體與記者聯盟), of which no credible record can be found outside of Gong Gong’s own claims, and the International Communication Organization (國際傳播組織), an organization started by an individual called Chen Xuegang (陈学刚) that claims registration in the United States but now has only an active .cn domain Chinese-language site. Until the end of 2024, the organization had another URL, now inactive, that displayed only dummy content archived by the Internet Archive. Born in 1971, Gong graduated from the University of International Business and Economics (外經濟貿易大學). In 2016, he also launched Guangdong Fanzhou Culture Communication (廣東泛洲文化傳播有限公司), which operates across media, news and cultural promotion, while maintaining diverse holdings in real estate development, logistics, technology services, and food trade. Gong is also listed as having been appointed in 2020 as a researcher for the Beijing-based China Academy of Management Science (中國管理科學研究院), or CAMS, a research institution originally under the sponsorship of the China Tourism and Culture Resources Development Association that was revoked in June 2024 for numerous violations. The CAMS website had previously featured a section called “caring guidance” (親切關懷) that displayed photographs of Gong meeting with various officials, including Ugandan Vice President Edward Sekandi and Chinese provincial leaders.