When two world leaders were caught on a hot mic having a bizarre conversation about living forever, the news agency Reuters realized it was a big story.

Reuters reported on and aired the footage of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping discussing organ transplantation as a means of life extension and perhaps immortality during a September 3 Victory Day Parade in China, a procession celebrating the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

But two days later, Reuters yanked the video off its website, retracted the footage from its wire service, and erased clips from its social media feeds.

The reason: a takedown letter from a China Central Television, China’s state-controlled television network, which had licensed footage of the event to Reuters.

Last Friday, CCTV lawyer HE Danning

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