Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack www.reuters.com

Microsoft to shut London Skype office putting 220 jobs at risk www.bbc.com

China to invest $450 billion in agriculture www.rt.com

Over the next four years the Chinese government will invest 3 trillion yuan ($450 billion) into developing the country’s agriculture, the official state news agency Xinhua reports.

Samsung phone fire in China not caused by battery: supplier www.reuters.com

China cuts retail fuel prices www.chinadaily.com

BEIJING -- China will lower retail prices of gasoline and diesel due to falling international crude prices.

World's gold miners stick close to home in hunt for more metal www.reuters.com

The world's biggest gold miners are taking a cautious approach in their hunt for bullion, spending more money to explore around existing mines rather than new territory in a strategy that may have short-term gains but risks future production growth.

Top producers are relying more than ever on small companies to do the heavy lifting of searching for new deposits and increasingly taking 10 to 20 percent equity stakes in the junior miners.

Exploring close to home is more cost efficient and improves the odds of discoveries. But the chances of making major new finds are limited, diminishing global gold output, which is expected to decline by nearly 9 percent in the next three years.

"It only makes sense to be looking in your own backyard first before exploring elsewhere," said Paul Rollinson, Chief Executive of Kinross Gold, which spends about 90 percent of its exploration budget around existing sites.

"We focus on areas we already know, with existing infrastructure nearby, in jurisdictions we are comfortable with."

The world's 10 biggest gold miners are bumping up the share of exploration budgets earmarked for land around existing mines, or brownfield exploration, increasing the spending to 56 percent in 2015 from 45 percent in 2013.

In the meantime, they curbed spending on greenfield exploration in new territory to 21 percent from 25 percent of their budgets, data from SNL Metals & Mining, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, shows.

"They say the best place to discover a mine is in the shadow of a headframe," atop mine shafts, said Maria Smirnova, portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management.

"The rate of failure in exploration is staggering, so it is always better to try and improve what you have already."

SCREWS ON SPENDING

Barrick Gold, the world's largest producer by output, looks to near-mine discoveries because plants and equipment are already in place and the deposit is well known, said its president, Kelvin Dushnisky.

Finding affordable and reliable deposits became vital in the last three years as miners slashed spending amid a slump in gold prices. Miners have kept a lid on spending this year despite a partial recovery in bullion prices and income.

Exploration spending by the world's 10 biggest gold miners, such as South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti, sank 37 percent to $1.075 billion between 2013 and 2015, the last year for which data is available, SNL Metals & Mining data shows.

Newmont Mining the world's top gold miner by market valuation, cut its exploration budget by nearly 40 percent in 2013 and prioritized areas expected to deliver higher-margin ounces, said Chief Executive Gary Goldberg.

"That's first of all around our existing operations," he said, adding that Newmont has earmarked about 80 percent of its approximately $200 million budget in 2016 for brownfield exploration.

Longer-term, Newmont is eyeing Ethiopia, Cote d'Ivoire and Queensland, Australia for greenfield exploration, he said.

"Any management team in the industry would consider brownfields expansions first," before committing to big new projects, given capital is still limited, said David J. Christensen, CEO of mining fund ASA Gold & Precious Metals.

Goldcorp Chief Executive David Garofalo said there was little available to throw even that limited capital at.

"We are a supply-challenged industry," he said. "We've had a very poor track record over the last few years of exploration success."

Global gold mine production peaked in 2015 and is estimated to fall nearly 9 percent by 2018, to 2,903 tonnes, Thomson Reuters GFMS data shows.

Big gold miners have always relied on small exploration companies for discoveries, acquiring them to access their big finds. But they are increasingly hedging their bets with 10-20 percent equity stakes in juniors, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Sam Crittenden in a report earlier this year.

Barrick plans to be more active partnering with juniors going forward, Executive Vice President for Exploration and Growth, Rob Krcmarov, said in June.

Mid-tier producer Agnico Eagle Mines, which has bucked the industry trend by boosting its drilling budget over the past five years, plans to continue investing in juniors even as it adds to its drilling budget.

Agnico last week increased its gold estimate for its Amaruq project, a new deposit close to its existing Meadowbank mine in Canada's Arctic, by 13 percent to 3.71 million ounces.

"Greenfields is tough. I think the general consensus amongst gold producers is that the real greenfields is best left to the juniors," said Chief Executive Sean Boyd.

(Editing by Chris Reese)

Russian election: Putin-backed party well ahead - exit polls www.bbc.com

United Russia, backed by President Vladimir Putin, is far ahead in the nation's parliamentary election, taking at least 44%, exit polls suggest.
Mr Putin said: "We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result."
The nationalist LDPR and the Communist party are way behind United Russia, with about 14-16% each.
Liberal opposition parties appear to have failed to pass the 5% threshold needed for party-list representation.
However, the exit polls say though they could still get seats in individual constituencies.

A VTsIOM exit poll gave United Russia, led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, 44.5%, with the Public Opinion Foundation putting its total higher, at 48.7%.
Partial official results later confirmed a large lead.
Dmitry Medvedev (L) and Vladimir PutinImage copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
Mr Putin (R) appeared alongside Mr Medvedev to congratulate party activists
The two exit polls differed on whether the LDPR or Communists were second, but both were well behind.
A Just Russia was fourth on about 8%.
These four parties had dominated the last State Duma (lower house).
Two opposition parties, Yabloko and Parnas, were projected to receive 3.5 and 1.2% respectively.
The turnout was significantly down from the 2011 elections - just below 40% two hours before voting ended.
Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova said she was "fully confident that the elections are proceeding in a quite legitimate way".

The authorities were anxious to oversee trouble-free polls this time
Legitimate vote? By Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow
In the system of "Managed Democracy" crafted by the Kremlin, it was unthinkable that President Putin's control of parliament would weaken.
And so, the four pro-Kremlin parties which dominated the previous parliament will do so again. But will the new parliament be recognised by the public as legitimate?
The Russian authorities have tried to present this as one of the cleanest elections in years. Some opposition candidates were permitted to run; a respected human rights advocate was appointed head of the Russian Election Commission.
Yet throughout the day there have been reports of voting fraud - and video to back them up. In some cases, webcams installed at polling stations recorded what appear to be election officials stuffing ballot boxes.
It was vote-rigging which sparked anti-government street protests after the last parliamentary election. President Putin will be hoping that this time his personal popularity, combined with widespread apathy, will mean that Russians accept the result.
Allegations of fraud after the last election had sparked large-scale protests against Mr Putin in Moscow and the authorities were anxious to oversee trouble-free polls this time.
Mr Putin has enjoyed 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, and does not belong to any designated party.
But he visited the headquarters of United Russia with Mr Medvedev after the vote to congratulate activists on their victory.
"We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems," Mr Putin said. "Nevertheless, we have this result."
Crimea votes

Voting in Crimea - annexed by Russia in 2014 - angered Ukraine
But despite Russia's economic malaise and tensions with the West over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, some observers had called the election campaign the dullest in recent memory.
Serious irregularities were reported in one Siberian region, with suggestions of "carousel" voting - people bussed around polling stations - in the city of Barnaul.
Monitoring group Golos says it had received more than 1,300 complaints from around the country by late afternoon, AP reports.
For the first time, people voted in Crimea, annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move condemned internationally.

China business confidence rises again www.bbc.com

Confidence among Chinese entrepreneurs has picked up for the second quarter running, according to the country's central bank.
People's Bank of China surveys showed the business confidence index rising to 51.2% in the third quarter.
That was 2.2 percentage points higher than in the second quarter.
China's factory output and retail sales grew faster than expected in August, on the back of a strong housing market and government infrastructure spending.
Economic change
The world's second largest economy has lost some of its momentum during this year, as it has entered a period of readjustment.
China is looking to transform its economy away from factories and exports towards domestic consumption.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects China's GDP to grow by 6.6% this year, close to the low end of China's own official forecast of between 6.5% to 7%.
That will come after decades of near double-digit growth.
Housing costs
Meanwhile, a separate central bank survey showed a bankers' confidence index rising to 46.5% in the third quarter, 2.8 percentage points higher than in the April to June period.
The survey showed one in five bankers believed monetary policy would be relatively loose in the fourth quarter of this year.
The People's Bank of China has reduced interest rates six times in 22 months, and and also cut the amount of cash banks must keep in reserve.
And a third survey issued by the central bank at the weekend showed that 53.7% of households believed housing costs were "unacceptably high", up 0.3 percentage points from the second quarter.

New counting method to boost GDP www3.nhk.or.jp

Fiat Chrysler recalling 1.9 million cars for new air bag defect www.reuters.com

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said on Thursday it is recalling 1.9 million vehicles worldwide for an air bag defect linked to three deaths and five injuries.