5.22pm BST European markets end sharply higher A combination of merger excitement – Murdoch’s tilt at Time Warner of course – and positive Chinese GDP data has given a lift to stock markets across the globe. A bounce back by troubled Portuguese bank Espirito Santo also helped European bourses.The closing scores showed: • The FTSE 100 finished 74.22 points or 1.11% higher at 6784.67 • Germany’s Dax added 1.44% to 9859.27 • France’s Cac closed 1.48% better at 4369.06 • Italy’s FTSE MIB ended 3.17% higher at 21,069.97 • Spain’s Ibex rose 1.84% to 10,668.4 On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its record breaking run, and is currently 65 points or 0.38% higher. On that note, it’s time to shut up shop. Thanks for all the comments, and we’ll be back to do it all again tomorrow. 5.07pm BST Over to Greece where mission chiefs representing the country’s troika of creditors have concluded talks with government officials ahead of tonight’s EU summit meeting. Helena Smith reports: Fears of reform fatigue notwithstanding, the troika’s latest review of the debt-saddled Greek economy was surprisingly low-key – devoid of massive protest and riots on any real scale worth noting. In…