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OnlyFans, has partnered with a cryptocurrency foundation to submit a late-stage plan to acquire short video app TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance, the two said on Wednesday. The intent to bid was sent this week to the White House by Zoop, billionaire Stokely's new company, and the Hbar Foundation, which manages the Hedera cryptocurrency network's treasury. While OnlyFans is known mainly for pornography, Zoop is mainstream and family-friendly, and gives back the majority of its revenue to those who post on the site, rewarding them for driving up user engagement.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SÃO PAULO—In the unfolding global trade war, Brazil is betting it has some distinct advantages. Chinese buyers are already stockpiling Brazilian soybeans as Beijing retaliates against President Trump’s tariffs with levies on U.S.

The State Department said it was green-lighting a sale that includes 20 F-16 jets and related equipment to the Philippines, a treaty-bound ally of the United States. The sale would «improve the security of a strategic partner that continues to be an important force for political stability, peace and economic progress in Southeast Asia,» a State Department statement said. It would also boost «the Philippine Air Force's ability to conduct maritime domain awareness» and «enhance its suppression of enemy air defenses,» the statement said. The news follows months of escalating confrontations between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite an international ruling that its assertion has no merit.

autonomous flying taxis for commercial use, marking a significant step in its low-altitude economy. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has granted air operator certificates to EHang Holdings and Hefei Hey Airlines, allowing them to operate passenger drones for urban sightseeing tours, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

transnational repression" and acts that threaten to further erode the city's autonomy, drawing condemnation from the territory's government Tuesday. The six officials included Justice Secretary Paul Lam, security office director Dong Jingwei and police commissioner Raymond Siu. The sanctions are expected to further escalate tensions between Washington and Beijing, who are already locked in friction over trade tariffs and other issues like Taiwan. «Beijing and Hong Kong officials have used Hong Kong national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence, and harass 19 pro-democracy activists who were forced to flee overseas, including a US citizen and four other US residents,» the US State Department said. The statement dated Monday said the six officials sanctioned were linked to entities or actions that engaged in coercing, arresting, detaining or imprisoning individuals under the authority of the city's security law, or implementing the law. The other three affected officials were Sonny Au, the secretary-general for the city's committee for safeguarding national security, and Dick Wong and Margaret Chiu, both assistant commissioners of the police.

The United States sanctioned six Chinese and Hong Kong officials who it alleged were involved in “transnational repression” and acts that threaten to further erode the southern Chinese city’s autonomy

The comments came after the three countries held their first economic dialogue in five years on Sunday, seeking to facilitate regional trade as the Asian export powers brace against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. Japan and South Korea are seeking to import semiconductor raw materials from China, and China is also interested in purchasing chip products from Japan and South Korea, the account, Yuyuan Tantian, said in a post on Weibo. All three sides agreed to strengthen supply chain cooperation and engage in more dialogue on export controls, the post said. During Sunday's meeting, the countries' trade ministers agreed to «closely cooperate for comprehensive and high-level» talks on a South Korea-Japan-China free trade agreement deal to promote «regional and global trade», according to a statement released after the meeting.

AI agent on the go. The developments come after Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startupDeepSeek released a major upgrade to its V3 large language model (LLM), intensifying competition with US tech leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Zhipu AI unveiled a free AI agent on Monday, joining a wave of similar launches in China's increasingly competitive AI market. The product, called AutoGLM Rumination, can perform deep research as well as tasks including web searches, travel planning, and research report writing, CEO Zhang Peng said at a lunch event in Beijing. The agent is powered by Zhipu's proprietary models, including its reasoning model GLM-Z1-Air and foundation model GLM-4-Air-0414. The company claims GLM-Z1-Air matches rival DeepSeek's R1 in performance while running up to eight times faster and requiring only one-thirtieth of the computing resources.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou’s House of Huawei promises to unravel the enigma of the Chinese telecom titan Ren Zhengfei, and how he built the world’s largest telecommunications equipment company by revenue. That it ends up more like a diligent history lesson than a sharp expose isn’t entirely Dou’s fault.

The countries' three trade ministers agreed to «closely cooperate for a comprehensive and high-level» talks on a South Korea-Japan-China free trade agreement deal to promote «regional and global trade», according to a statement released after the meeting. «It is necessary to strengthen the implementation of RCEP, in which all three countries have participated, and to create a framework for expanding trade cooperation among the three countries through Korea-China-Japan FTA negotiations,» said South Korean Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun, referring to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The ministers met ahead of Trump's announcement on Wednesday of more tariffs in what he calls «liberation day», as he upends Washington's trading partnerships. Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are major U.S. major trading partners, although they have been at loggerheads among themselves over issues including territorial disputes and Japan's release of wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Bangkok, Myanmar Earthquake Today LIVE: A strong 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit central Myanmar on March 28 (Friday), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The tremor hit 16 km northwest of Sagaing city at a depth of 10 km, at around 12:50 pm local time, USGS added.Minutes later at 1.03 pm, the National Center for Seismology in India reported a 4.0 Ritcher scale quake in Meghalaya's East Garo Hills.Also Read | Earthquake today: Quake of magnitude 7.2 hits Myanmar; tremors felt in China, ThailandFurther, the USGS and Germany's GFZ Center for Geosciences also reported that a midday earthquake struck Thailand's capital city of Bangkok at a shallow depth of 10 km.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus here on Friday, official media reported. Yunus, on a four-day visit to China, took part in the country's Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Hainan after his arrival there on Wednesday. He arrived in Beijing on Thursday and was received at the airport by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong. Gearing up for his meeting with Xi, Yunus called on China on Thursday to reduce interest rates for Chinese loans and waive commitment fees on Chinese-funded projects. In his meeting with the Chinese Executive Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, Yunus sought Chinese support in an array of development projects, Bangladesh media reports said. He also called for a reduction of interest rates for Chinese loans from three per cent to 1-2 per cent to Bangladesh and sought a waiver of commitment fees on the Chinese-funded projects in Bangladesh. China is Bangladesh's fourth-largest lender after Japan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, with total loans disbursed since 1975 coming to USD 7.5 billion, according to a report in the Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh.

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with global executives and made a case for investing in the country, as Beijing focuses on reaching out to businesses amid escalating trade tensions with the U.S.

BEIJING — In the latest step toward building a revenue-generating robotaxi business, Chinese start-up Pony.ai said it has obtained China's first permit to charge fares for fully driverless taxis in core parts of a business district of Shenzhen.

Wang Chuanfu, the founder and CEO of BYD, has made one of the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturing businesses, starting his journey when he was poor.

Trump is doing all he can to save TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing app owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It's unusual because not long ago Trump had wanted to ban it. In a desperate bid to make TikTok American, he said on Wednesday he would be willing to reduce tariffs on China if it allows ByteDance to sell the app to an American buyer. However, AFP has reported that China has rebuffed Trump's offer, with its foreign ministry saying that it has «repeatedly stated our position» on TikTok. «The Chinese side's stance against imposing additional tariffs is also consistent and clear,» foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said. A US law during the Biden administration ordered TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the US, enacted over concerns that Beijing could exploit the video-sharing platform to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion. The law took effect on January 19, a day before Trump's inauguration. TikTok temporarily shut down in the US and disappeared from app stores as the deadline for the law approached, to the dismay of millions of users. Trump suspended its implementation for two-and-a-half months after beginning his second term on January 20, seeking a solution with Beijing. TikTok subsequently restored service in the US and returned to the Apple and Google app stores in February. Trump's reprieve to TikTok is set to expire on April 5. Why did Trump change his stance on TikTok from wanting to ban it to going all-out to save it? Why Trump wants to save TikTok

Xi Jinping is making China’s presence more felt across the Indo-Pacific region by testing US allies on sensitive issues, as Donald Trump’s attention is taken up elsewhere. From sending warships off Australia’s coast for unprecedented shooting drills to flying a record number of “grey zone” balloons around Taiwan, and putting pressure on Thailand over human rights issues, Beijing is ramping up efforts to project power in the region. China also issued a strongly worded warning on Taiwan to Tokyo — which doesn’t officially recognize Taipei — against “colluding” with separatists. Trump’s sudden embrace of Russia, skepticism of NATO allies and tariffs that punish friendly nations have fueled concerns about the US as a reliable security partner in Asia, where Washington has for decades provided a buffer to Beijing.

Muhammad Yunus is due in China on Wednesday at the start of a four-day visit during which he is expected to seek financial support and sign MoUs to boost his country’s sagging economy amid dwindling support from the US under President Donald Trump. India will keep a close watch if Yunus agrees to any Chinese military presence particularly in any airfield closer to the border area. Additional Chinese support for Bangladesh armed forces and any enhanced Chinese military presence in the Bay of Bengal will also be closely monitored, according to Bangladesh watchers. Yunus will attend the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2025 in Boao, Hainan province, and hold bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 28. Boosting economic relations with China will be a central focus of this visit, sources in Dhaka said. Yunus will later speak at Peking University, where he will reportedly be presented with an honorary doctorate. China, while engaged with Dhaka under the Hasina government and earlier with the BNP regime, is keen to keep Yunus in good humour for its economic and strategic interests in the Bay of Bengal region. As per a report in Bangladesh’s leading English newspaper The Daily Star, China and Bangladesh are planning to sign at least eight MoUs on trade, culture, upgrading Mongla Port and water management. The Sheikh Hasina government had given India access to the Mongla Port.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Chinese equities have been out of favor among many investors for the past few years. However, the tide appears to be turning, driven by strong corporate profits, enthusiasm over artificial intelligence and an apparent easing of regulatory pressure from Beijing.