Reuters

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris' Fine Gael drew level with Sinn Fein in an opinion poll for the first time in almost three years on Thursday, a further potential setback to the opposition party's hopes of governing for the first time.

The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A survey taken three weeks before local polls and within a year of the next parliamentary election put Sinn Fein's support five percentage points lower at 23%, with Fine Gael... (continue reading...)

(Reuters) - CME Group, the world's largest futures exchange operator, plans to launch bitcoin trading to expand its portfolio, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The Chicago-headquartered exchange has been holding discussions with traders who want to buy and sell bitcoin on a regulated marketplace, the newspaper said, citing three people with direct knowledge of the talks.

However, FT said that the plan has not yet been... (continue reading...)

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday that U.S. and European assertions of excess capacity were "naked trade protectionism" and that efforts to constrain new energy exports from the World's No.2 economy would frustrate global efforts to tackle climate change.

Growing alarm over Chinese industrial overcapacity flooding the European Union with cheap products is opening a new front in the West's trade war with Beijing, which kicked off with... (continue reading...)

LONDON (Reuters) - Prosecutors have demanded a 17-year prison sentence for an elderly Russian scientist who is accused of handing secret information to German intelligence, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on Thursday.

Anatoly Maslov, 77, is accused of treason in a trial that is closed to the media.

Kommersant said the defence argued such a jail term would be tantamount to a death sentence, given Maslov's age and poor state of... (continue reading...)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament warned that Ukraine was dragging the United States and Europe into a major global war and on Thursday urged Western leaders to act responsibly to avoid a catastrophe.

President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has touched off the worst breakdown in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Russia is now advancing along the front line in Ukraine.