Thursday newspaper round-up: Trade talks, The Telegraph, Meta Platforms

(Sharecast News) - Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea as "amazing", saying their dispute over the supply of rare earths had been settled and that he would visit China in April. In early comments, Chinese state media reported Xi as saying a "consensus" with Trump had been reached on trade issues, and that there were good prospects for cooperation on trade, immigration and fraud. - Guardian

The American private equity firm seeking control of The Telegraph has said it will set up an "independent advisory board" to uphold journalistic integrity, as it faces scrutiny of its links to China. Gerry Cardinale, the managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners, said he had asked Lord Black of Brentwood, Telegraph Media Group's deputy chairman, to develop proposals for how such a board might be composed and how it might work. - Telegraph

European carmakers are days away from halting production as a diplomatic spat between China and the Netherlands causes a major shortage of microchips, the industry has warned. On Wednesday, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (Acea) said companies are burning through stocks of chips made by Chinese-owned Nexperia and supplies were "rapidly dwindling". - Telegraph

Meta Platforms has taken a near $16 billion one-off charge in the third quarter related to President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, briefly sending its shares sharply lower on Wall Street. The social media company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said the bill had led the business to take a non-cash income tax charge of $15.93 billion. Excluding this, Meta said its third-quarter net income would have increased by $15.93 billion to $18.64 billion, compared with the reported net income of $2.71 billion. - The Times

Two of the Magnificent Seven technology companies beat expectations in quarterly sales from their cloud computing units as businesses continue to invest heavily in artificial intelligence services despite fears of a bubble. Alphabet's Google Cloud unit posted third-quarter revenue of $15.2 billion, topping estimates of $14.7 billion as AI start-ups seek to harness its computing power. Meanwhile, rival Microsoft said the Azure cloud business, its key AI unit, grew 40 per cent in the most recent quarter, outpacing estimates of 38 per cent. - The Times