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• The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.3%at 95.49 in early trade, its lowest since October 3.

• A computer virus wreaked havoc on firms around the globe on Wednesday as it spread to more than 60 countries, disrupting ports from Mumbai to Los Angeles and halting work at a chocolate factory in Australia.

The virus, which researchers are calling GoldenEye or Petya, began its spread on Tuesday in Ukraine. It infected machines of visitors to a local news site and computers downloading tainted updates of a popular tax accounting package, according to national police and cyber experts.

• Japanese retail sales rose less than expected in May as sales of durable goods and clothes slowed, falling substantially from April's annual increase though analysts expect sales to continue rising as a trend.

Retail sales rose for the seventh straight month at 2.0 percent in May from a year ago, data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed on Thursday. It slowed from 3.2 percent in April and undershot the median estimate of 2.6 percent growth in a Reuters poll.

• China denounced a Europol report on Thursday that accused China of being the main source of counterfeit goods in the European Union, calling it "irresponsible" while vowing to continue the crackdown on intellectual property right violations

• The mood among German consumers rose to its highest level in almost 16 years heading into July, a survey showed on Thursday, supporting expectations that private consumption will contribute strongly to growth this year.

The consumer sentiment indicator, published by the Nuremberg-based GfK institute and based on a survey of around 2,000 Germans, rose to 10.6 going into July, the highest level since October 2001.

• A trip to Poland by U.S. President Donald Trump next week may feel like a diplomatic coup for the right-wing government, but western European nations are uneasy it will encourage Warsaw's defiance towards Brussels.

Trump visits Poland for one day - en route to a G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany - to take part in a gathering of leaders from central Europe, Baltic states and the Balkans, an event convened by Poland to bolster regional trade and infrastructure.

Brussels diplomats view the July 6 gathering, dubbed the Three Seas summit because the countries involved border the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, as a Polish bid to carve out influence outside the European Union with which the nationalist government has repeatedly clashed.

Trump plans to promote U.S. natural gas exports to the leaders from central and eastern Europe, a region heavily reliant on Russian supplies, his top economic adviser said. Poland received its first shipment of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) this month.

• Revised US military options for North Korea have been prepared and are ready to be presented to President Donald Trump, two US military officials told CNN.

The options, which include a military response, will be presented to the president if Pyongyang conducts an underground nuclear or ballistic missile test that indicates the regime has made significant progress towards developing a weapon that could attack the US, they said.

• Crude oil rose for a sixth straight session on Thursday to its highest since June 19 on a decline in U.S. output, but ongoing worries about global oversupply continued to drag.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude had risen 21 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $44.95 per barrel by 0648GMT, while benchmark Brent futures gained 20 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $47.51 a barrel.