PARIS/ZURICH (Reuters) – Pan-European stock market operator Euronext (ENX.PA) and Switzerland’s SIX sparked a bidding war for Spain’s BME (BME.MC) on Monday, with both trying to snap up one of Europe’s last standalone stock exchanges. SIX has offered to buy BME for 34 euros per share, implying a total equity value of 2.843 billion euros […]

To the Editor: In “The Billionaires Are Getting Nervous” (editorial, Nov. 10), you characterize me, among others, as a “perturbed plutocrat” short on “finesse” who needs to “get a few things straight.” Perhaps we are not alone in that. By ignoring the details of the candidates’ wealth-tax proposals, which you portray as “innovations that require […]

The quickest, simplest and ultimately most effective solution to the row over Lorraine Clifford-Lee’s past social media comments about Travellers, women and Brazilian dwarfs would be for the senator to voluntarily step aside as the Fianna Fail candidate for the Dublin Fingal by-election. The interests of the party should always come before those of any […]

There was a small bit of consolation last week for our old friend, Public Service Broadcasting. Into the conversation came the voice of David Puttnam, saying that he would seriously consider a suggestion by RTE’s Moya Doherty that he would chair a review of the situation. “In an era of fake news, alternative facts and […]

The UK’s withdrawal terms were settled with the EU a month ago, for the second time, but ratification has again been deferred, on this occasion for a trip to the polls. Even with a decisive election outcome, there is no guarantee of an early end to the Brexit nightmare, for the UK or its European […]

John F. Kennedy confessed that Nikita Khrushchev “beat the hell out of me” at their summit in Vienna in 1961. China gave Barack Obama a rude welcome when Air Force One landed in Hangzhou in 2016. But in the annals of diplomatic humiliation, it’s hard to top Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit this week to the […]

Want to know why property prices are falling in Dublin and a huge slowdown is evident in the rest of the country? It’s not too complicated actually. What is happening is that we have gone past the point of affordability for many potential ordinary buyers. Surging rents and the rises so far in property prices […]

While the world watched the first day of public impeachment hearings this week, Ukraine was at war. It has been for five years, since Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and fomented, funded and supported an armed rebellion in the eastern Donbass region. Though that conflict faded from headlines until the whistleblower complaint that unleashed […]

This has been a month of sadness and loss as the nation learned of the passing of broadcaster Gay Byrne. The airwaves filled with tributes to him as a transformative person in Irish society over many decades. As mentioned by Bob Collins in his funeral Mass in the Pro Cathedral, Gay’s talent was evident right […]

Given what we’ve seen in the impeachment hearings so far, there is literally no crime, no abuse of power, that would induce Republicans to turn on President Trump. So if you’re waiting for some dramatic political turn, don’t hold your breath. On second thought, however, maybe you should hold your breath. For air quality has […]