Der Spiegel is keen on Africa. It cites the rise of traffic jams in major cities as a sign of boom, along with glittering shopping malls, and new infrastructure like highways, railways, airports, dams, power plants, pipelines, and factories, to say nothing of industrial parks and 'special economic zones.

The German news magazine credited greater political stability, economic reforms, and technological innovations as forming a basis for its optimism about Africa. On politics, Der Spiegel believes 25 out of 54 African countries have "halfway functional democracies", whatever that may mean, up from only 3 twenty years ago.

And while it may not make the headlines, there has been a decline in violence, civil wars, and military coups.

Meanwhile the communications and information sector are being revolutionized by modern data transmission from Cairo to Cape Town, and points in between, with Internet and mobile phone use exploding. Local IT experts are letting Kenya skip the intermediate steps of modernization with instant digitalization. This stimulates the economy and changes society big time, the Germans think.

The result is a new middle class of 310 million Africans, about as many as the total population of the USA.

Our Zimbabwe-born reporter Martin Ferera describes the article as "somewhat breathlessly positive."

Another Siberian day. Last night I did my religious duty, to vote in a new rabbi at Central Synagogue, a Reform temple where we belong. This required traveling 10 blocks by bus rather than using my cold feet. The bus was very crowded, not with people, but with their garments. Everyone took two seats.

The new rabbi, to take over in June, is Angela Buchdahl, not only the first woman to be named a senior rabbi at Central (which had 11 before her) but also the first of Korean Buddhist extraction on her mother's side. This causes some difficulty with more Orthodox Jews who consider religion to be transmitted by the mother, not by the father. That doctrine is post-Biblical, as Moses's wife Zipporah was the daughter of the Egyptian High Priest of Om.

I examined our portfolio with an eye to finding stocks likely to benefit from the Arctic cold, and I found 3, moreover all beaten down so far this year. I also put in a sell. Today we have news from Jordan, Mongolia, Singapore, Israel, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong, Britain, and Latin America and Africa overall.

*We are invested in two pan African plays, South Africa's Naspers Ltd, NPSNY, a media play, and Cayman Islands-based closed-end Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF here, AOF:UK.

*How you gain from the Arctic weather? Buy makers of over-the-counter drug nostrum for the sniffles, like Reckitt-Benckiser, RBGLY, of Britain. In elevators, subways, or buses you meet cold germs today.

Think about who can gain from salting roads. Here we have two ideas. Lot's Wife is a salt column near the Dead Sea Works where Israel Chemicals extracts potash, bromine, magnesium and (aha) sodium chloride from the waters. The table salt is in glut and causing a threat to the tourist revenues of the Dead Sea resorts. ISCHF must expensively truck and dump it into the water. Only tiny amounts are used for food, cosmetic, or medical applications around Israel.

ISCHF is expanding its operations to other colder climes like Britain, Germany, and Spain, where potash is mined rather than extracted form waters. It may get more salt sales there.

Our other fertilizer firm, Agrium, being Canadian, already ships salt-infested clay from its mines to help clear roads. AGU says tailings from its potash operations at Vanscoy produce 3.5 mn metric tonnes of salt annually, and about 400,000 tonnes is not re-injected into the mine or stored on the surface, but marketed for highway and road de-icing and cattle feed. So there is spare salt galore.

The price of fuel is rising as pipelines freeze and oil refineries are shut by the cold. My pet green peeve about shale gas being flared at oil fracking sites (because it is too cheap to ship) may turn because of pricier fuel. If gas is pipe-lined it is good news for Canada's Pure Technologies which tests pipe integrity, PPEHF. And if it gets liquified and shipped, it will modestly boost Chicago Bridge & Iron, our Dutch energy engineering play, CBI.

*While the Latin America sell-off of raw materials shares goes on, we will monitor the situation rather than trading shares like Vale, Ecopetrol, or Cosan Ltd. VALE, EC, CZZ. It's tough for commodities right now.

*Despite having only an "acting" CEO, Israel's Teva is acting as a spoiler to Endo's $2.85/sh offer for NuPathe, PATH, developer of migraine and neurological drugs. Teva has now bid $3.65/sh or $114 mn. Both bids offer a further $3.15.sh in milestones. PATH rose to $4.18, heralding a future bidding war.

TEVA is also said by Globes Israel to be buying control of Celltrion, a South Korean biotech firm.

*Bloomberg reports that Israel will lay a 15-kilometer gas pipeline to Jordan by 2016 to ship offshore gas from the Tamar field controlled by our Delek Group. Like Israel, Jordan has suffered from attacks on the trans-Sinai pipeline from the Egyptian Nile Delta fields which have cut supplies.

DGRLY Sunday agreed to deliver gas to a Palestine Authority (West Bank) ute. Last week's replay of Lawrence of Arabia featured Peter O'Toole damning the Sykes-Picot division of the Middle East between Britain and France squeezing out both Arabs and Jews. It is being rewritten now. (Frida, going to Israel next week, will update. I am going to London and Paris next week. Both of us want to get away from the freeze.)

*Ma vs Ma. Alibaba Group, the e-commerce firm about to be listed in the year of Ma (the horse) is taking on Tencent with a new mobile phone gaming platform, having hired TCFZF's former exec Liu Chunning to run its free digital entertainment site. Both Alibaba and Tencent are headed by guys named Ma. We are over-exposed to one horse in this race and therefore will sell our Hong Kong 0700 shares at a nice gain. I am keeping the ADRs, TSFZF.

*Global Logistic Properties will develop two properties in Saitama, near Tokyo jointly with the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board totaling 1.4 mn sq ft. GBTZF long term debt was reaffirmed at BBB+ by Fitch today, countering rumors that it is overstretched, citing strong revenue growth.

*However Mongolian bank debt was downrated by Moody's (after Fitch last week) taking its yields to 7.962% according to Bloomberg. In H1 last year because of political squabbles over copper royalties and reduced Chinese coal demand, Mongolia growth fell to 11.3% annualized from 12.4% in 2012. Volatility from its resource-based economy is expected to continue causing risks to Mongol banks which, however, have lowish non-performing loans Fitch told Bloomberg. MNGGF is affected of course.

*Mallinckrodt, an Irish drug firm, was rated overweight by Morgan Stanley today with a target price of up to $56. Mallinckrodt, was acquired by Tyco International after it was spun off by Covidien last year. It rose 3%.

*Hikma Pharmaceuticals of Jordan, HKMPY, was upgraded to overweight by JP Morgan Cazenove in Britain, where it has its primary listing, with a GBP 6.3 target price. However Cazenove downgraded GlaxoSmithKline to neutral with no TP.

*Canadian Solar sold another 4 solar power plants uisng its CS6X-300 watt modules to turn out 25.3 megaWatts/yr of electricity for Narenco, a North Carolina ute. They cumulatively are the equivalent to removing c5200 cars from the road. CSIQ.

*We sold QBE, the Oz insurance firm, on time. QBEIF yesterday was reported to face a losse on US claims.