One of the joys of growing up a middle-class New Yorker was the multi-ethnic environment. As a baby, I was fed pastina thanks to the mothers of my contemporaries Rosalie and Clementina, Sicilian Americans who lived in our building. As a teenager, I had two Ukrainian-American friends, Marsha and Michele, who also lived in our northern Manhattan elevator-less apartment building. Marsha and Michele are Uniate Catholics whose ancestors moved to Pennsylvania from the western part of Ukraine, a country much in the news these days. Their father died at age 93 in 2003 as the oldest member of the NY Stock Exchange.

Ukraine in Slavic languages means border. It was fought over by the ancestors of today's Russians and Swedes or Poles, and later between the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian emperors at times when Poland was out of the equation. I am reminded of Marsha and Michele with Ukrainian politics today. The western Uniate side of the country, where their families originated, is pro-European, hoping to join the EU. The east is red. And the rest is the muddle in the middle.

Russia is offering Ukraine a $15 bn loan plus reduced prices for Gazprom gas to keep it in the Putin camp. Anti-govt protestors in Kiev remain camped out.

Now that the SPD referendum is aus dem Weg (out of the way), six German banking associations have joined the protestors to the European Commission over the was financial transaction taxes (FTT) operate, according to The Wall Street Journal. The German coalition government now being formed is supposed to back a FTT or Tobin tax.

With a new Indian-American relationship manager, Kamal, now that Supriya was promoted away from my branch, I finally succeeded in sending an HSBC payment to our advertiser Bullion Vault. They have confirmed receipt. Kamal advises against buying physical gold now because the next 6 weeks are considered inauspicious for Indian weddings, which boost demand. However, like Chanukah, because of the vagaries of the luni-solar calendar with the winter solstice, the Chinese New Year will be early (Jan. 31, 2014) and often causes a spike in gold demand. It will be the Year of the Horse or 4711. (cf below).

Moreover, gold producers are cutting their output, most recently Petropavlovsk which after a $742 mn loss in H1, is reducing its production target for next year to 620-630 thousand ounces, vs an expected 750 thousand oz this year. It is listed on the London AIM.

In the next few days I will also produce my 2014 forecasts which I am working on using Tarot cards, tea leaves, Chinese fortune cookies, and hunches.

More from Britain, Japan, China, Israel, Canada, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, with two muddles. Plus a trading alert.

*I finally bought her shares of Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF paying the nasty marketmaker $1.19/sh.

*Noble Energy told Israeli journalists from Globes Israel that there is as much as 3 billion barrels of oil in offshore Israeli and Cypriot waters where NBL is the drilling operator for Delek Group (DGRLY) subs. The fields, Leviathan and Aphrodite also have been estimated as holding half that volume of oil in addition to 19 trillion and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas respectively.

The politics are complex, but the point of the leaks is to show that Jerusalem attempts to block exports from the fields, to go live as soon as a year from now, make no economic sense. The Texas company is taking the lead rather than Israeli because it is politically sensitive.

The effort is being helped by deals on gas from an operating Israeli field, Tamar, now being shared with Jordan's Arab Chemicals, producer of Dead Sea potash, and with a new desalination plant coming near Aqaba on the Jordanian Red Sea coast to supply water to Israel, the West Bank Palestinian Authority, and Jordan itself. Moreover Cyprus is outside Jerusalem's sway.

Delek's subs won Israeli approval for extension of its Rachel 349 and Amit 350 until mid-Feb. While they were not formally given exploration rights in Cyprus, the consortium did get a Nicosia letter extending the validity of their drilling rights until next end-May. Delek owns 25% of the Cypriot concession, with partners Woodside Energy and Edison SpA of Australia and Italy at 30% each, and Enel (also Italian) at 15%. This is muddle No. 1.

*BlackRock's taking of a 10.1% stake in Telecom Italia should boost Telefonica (TEF) once people stop reacting to its failure to wrap up a German cellular company purchase from Royal KPN. TEF indirectly via a holding co. Telco now owns 22.4% of TI and if bond conversions take place, it can own as much as 70%. Brazil will not let TEF keep this stake which would eliminate one cellular phone co. there. This is muddle No. 2.

*No good deed goes unpunished. After GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) halted its bonus payments to salesmen based on the volume of its drugs prescribed by the doctors they visit, Deutsche Bank analysts cut their forecast for GSJ profits from GBP 18 to 17. GSK will also eliminate "educational" bonuses to doctors starting next year. Coupled with worries that the Chinese probes of marketing abuses may be more widespread, this has pushed down our share.

*Galapagos nv (GLPYY) has selected its pre-clinical candidate potentiator for development against cystic fibrosis (CF). It showed high potency and better efficacy, plus good oral drug-like properties when compared to Kaydeco, the only drug on the market now. GLPYY selected GLPG1837 for tirals next year, and filed a patent for it. The research program has been funded since 2005 by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and now is being developed jointly with AbbVie which in Sept. paid $45 mn to join and may pay milestones of up to $360 mn. CF is a hereditary disease caused by a defect in a gene encoding the CF transmembrane regulator for sweat, mucus, and digestive juices. A flawed conductance protein causes respiratory infections, poor growth, diarrhea, and early death.

*Teva will be allowed by Pfizer to launch a generic of Viagra by the end of 2017 or perhaps earlier, under a patent accord. TEVA may also get approval from the European Union for a launch of its multiple sclerosis drug Laquinimod, produced with Sweden's Active Biotech. The US FDA turned down sub-category data backing a marketing approval and is unlike to follow the European Medicines Authority ok.

*Reckitt Benckiser (RBGLY) having just bought vitamin purveyer Schiff may wind up in trouble now that the supposed benefits of taking multi-vitamins have been shot down by studies in The Annals of Internal Medicine (which enrolled male doctors) and by the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston (where my daughter-in-law's mom is on staff.) RBGLY will use marketing to overcome the studies, predicts our reporter on the stock, Martin Ferera.

From Bloomberg good news for Ma Huateng, chairman of Tencent:

"'We view Tencent has the makings of a great long stock and expect significant growth from its mobile Internet business,' said You Na, a Hong Kong-based analyst at ICBC International. The brokerage initiated coverage of Tencent on Nov. 18 with a buy rating.

'Tencent’s QQ instant-messaging service had 818 million monthly active users at end June, and WeChat had 236 million [now up to 272 million], almost twice the population of Japan. Tencent is counting on WeChat, which targets more upscale users than QQ, for its global expansion.

"'Tencent is well-positioned among the top mobile Internet entries via Weixin, beckoning a global Internet trend,'You said."

TCFCF today announced an unquantified investment in wealth management services and stock market game firm Howbuy (following a similar move by Jack Ma's Alibaba Group earlier this year).

Our TZFCF, China's largest Internet firm, is in fierce rivalry with Alibaba, its largest e-commerce platform. Tencent is offering a payment platform which now works on WeChat but is expected to launch a version using cell phones directly challenging Alibaba. The two Chinese Ma (horse) rivals are not related. We also own the HK version as 0700.

*Our DeNA Co (DNACF) in Japan also has e-commerce clout, with Mobaoku, a cellphone auction shopping site, and Shopping Mall for cellular phone buying. And it is also in financial services via an insurance agency and a payment services arm. We wanted out when the DNACF stock started copying a rival gaming site's stock performance but I couldn't get my price. We also own it as JP: 2432 in yen.

*Our Guangshen Railway (GSH) is again up, from under $21 to $22.8, a rise of 8% in 2 days. It was rated hold in an S&P report Dec. 14, but with a target price of $29 and a forecast of 5.4% higher revenues in the Year of the Horse. Maintenance and labor costs will eat up some of the benefits along with worries about economic growth in China and competition from new high-speed rail lines paralleling its network for passenger travel. Freight volumes will suffer if China really does succeed in switching to a consumer economy from an export one. Its business if 52% passenger, 48% freight, S&P estimates. We own both GSH and HK:0525.

*Analyst Ben Isaacson of Scotiabank figures out what the new Chinese export fees on urea mean for Agrium. He writes:

"The off-season window (Jul through Oct) remains unchanged. However, the export tax changes from 2% to RMB 40/mn metric tonnes [mt]. Urea that was $285/mt (FOB China) will remain flat at the same level (assuming anthracite @ RMB 830/mt). During peak season (Nov through Jun), the tax drops from 77% to RMB 40/mt + 15%. Urea that would have been priced at $529 (FOB) can now be exported for $329/mt. While the Chinese will likely be more competitive in 2014, there is a silver lining. Urea is supply-driven, the price established by high-cost, anthracite coal-based Chinese producers. With China competitive all year, there is less need to dump product during the summer. We shouldn't see a parking lot of sub-$300/mt barges in the Gulf right before ice-lock.

"As the Chinese export more evenly over the year, producers like AGU should be able to capture a slightly higher margin. While there is no margin difference for China at $285/mt (off-season) vs. $329/mt (peak season), the implication for [sodium] producers is positive. A 2-tiered market should continue for urea, but a higher spring floor could result in slightly higher earnings, all else [being] equal. Chinese product will be competing more against Middle East imports, rather than AGU volumes." We bought AGU rather than a potash producer when we sold SoQuiMich over corporate governance concerns. AGU is over $90 today having sharply outperformed Potash of Saskatchewan, POT, a purer potash play, the alternative our writer favored, and SQM, off 5% and 26% vs AGU's 2% loss since we exited SQM.

*AAA Research Reports today tipped Canadian Solar (CSIQ)as an Electronic Equipment share when I thought it made solar photovoltaic cells and modules.

Fund news:

*Mexican Equity & Income Fund (MXE) still hasn't produced its dividend tallies and inpatient shareholders may be selling. Last year it did so Dec. 6.

*Korea Fund (KF) in its 2012-3 FY (to end-Sept) earned realized and unrealized capital gains of $4.79/sh vs prior year's $3.o3. It was helped by a 202,520 share buy-back which cut the number of shares out to under 8.5 mn. However the discount from NAV grew despite these efforts, to 10.27% at the FY close, from the prior 9.1%. This is of course a reflection of fear of North Korea, now even more unpredictable.

*Japan Smaller Cap Fund (JOF) will pay a distribution from ordinary income of $0.199/sh to shareholders of record this Thursday, on Dec. 23.

*Alliance Bernstein Global High Income Fund ($AWF) declared, in addition to its norm dime/mo distribution, a one-time special income distribution of 9.86 cents/sh both payable to shareholders of record on Christmas eve. AWF also declared a long term capital gain distribution of 28.47 cents/sh to shareholders of record Dec. 27. The total of 48.33 cents/sh will hit your account Jan. 17, 2014 but count for taxes in 2013.

*Mr Price (MPC) is rising sharply in South African trading, to a new high in rands. We sold because these levels are not being achieved in US$s.

*Also up is another share half sold for tax purposes, PT Semen Indonesia, up over 3%. PSGTY.

*However, Alcatel Lucent continues to drift downward, along with telcos and the Paris bourse.

*Opko Health (OPK) is off another 8.5% today despite a campaign to discredit the shorts and a deal to buy a drug lab in Uruguay. We sold out of Prolor Labs (PBTH) to avoid being taken over by OPK. To quote Rockefeller or one of the Rothschilds, "The way I made my fortune is always selling too soon."