Today for the first time in my life I received a Passover e-card. In fact I have never received any kind of a Passover card before. It was from a Christian friend who presumably doesn't know any better. I sent her back greetings for a happy Easter.

This is a quick file for Monday before we head Boston-ward for Passover (Pesach). We're taking a bus. Tonight's Seder is in Cambridge at the home of our daughter-in-law's parents, both Harvard Med School profs. If I get more information from Andrew the Webmaster about what ails him, I will have medical consultants at hand. (Andrew is currently hospitalized in St. John's, Newfoundland, a nearby Internet offshoring site halfway to Europe. He assures me that he is not suffering from heartbleed virus.)

The 2nd Seder will be at the home of our son and his family with some of the same guests and some different ones.

Escaping to the Catskills or Florida or the Caribbean for Passover is an old tradition among American Jews, mainly to avoid the intense spring cleaning required to surely remove all prohibited leaven or grain which may be in the house. But now Israelis are also escaping, to spend the holiday in Turkey or in a hotel in Eilat, also to make less work for mother.

So here is a Jewish joke. Chayim Yankel and his wife Rifky, Brooklyn Orthodox Jews, decide to convert to Christianity. For a few years, all goes well, and they live as Christians. He shaves his beard and she gets rid of her sheitel (wig). Their kids at a regular school have time to play.

A couple of weeks ago, Chayim Yankel surprised Rifky by telling her he missed being Jewish, and wanted them to go back to their old religion. To which Rivky responded: "Are you mashuggah? Not before Pesach!"

Reform Jews like this working woman don't get as intense about cleaning their homes to remove every crumb. More follows from Norway, Britain, Ireland, India, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Colombia, and China. Now to the Boston Limoliner we go.

*Fishfarming giant Marine Harvest revealed today that it will top forecasts in its current quarter with net profit of 1.08 bn NOK ($181 mn) -- way over estimates -- thanks to higher prices for its salmon. The now listed MHQ, which we bought when it was on the pink sheets before its reverse split, also upped its quarterly dividend to 5 kronor per share from last year's Dec. quarter level of 1.02 kronor and pre-split 0.10 kronor in the 2013 March quarter. MNH rose 3% in Oslo trading today. This is from a release by the company but not a formal quarterly report.

*GlaxoSmithKline is now under criminal investigation in Poland for bribery to Polish doctors despite its "zero tolerance policy" under CEO Andrew Witty, this time to promote sales of its asthma drug Seretide. Ex-GSK saleman Jarek Wisniewski explained the process: We pay doctors; they give us prescriptions. We don't pay doctors; we don't see prescriptions for our drugs." This follows similar charges in China and Iraq against GSK. The GSK share price rose 4.16% in London trading this morning.

*Today's Barron's reports on some of the background to the $5.6 bn takeover bid for Questor being mounted by Mallinckrodt. MNK will pay for the US firm mostly with shares, as a result of which QCOR will own 49.5% of the Irish company. As I noted, QCOR makes Acthar Gel, about which there turns out to be a controversy as it bought Acthar for only $100,000 13 years ago. The product is used to against many problems under indications which pre-date stringent FDA clinical studies, ranging from multiple sclerosis an arthritis to kidney disease--and another score of indications. QCOR raised the price for the nostrum more than 10-fold since it bought the rights and then deflected insurance and government objections to the rising price by paying a charity, the Chronic Disease Fund, to help people pay the tab. Because Barron's wrote criticizing this strategy, some 38% of QCOR stock had been shorted as of the close of March. It is also being investigated by federal agencies, but now it will be Irish like MNK, Bill Alpert warned.

*Nokia tomorrow will begin offering its 6,600 Chennai (formerly Madras) employees a buyout to be able to close their worksite despite Indian tax authorities demanding a huge forfeit to allow the sale of Nokia's worldwide cellphone production sites to Microsoft for $7 severance.5 bn. Depending on seniority the Chennai workers will be offered 300,000 to 500,000 rupees in pay, about $5000 to $8300. The Indian unions oppose the Finnish firm's work-around to do the deal despite a $375 mn New Delhi tax claim. The deal will close this month regardless of Indian tax claims which resulted in seizure of the Chennai factory. If it is not delivered to MSFT because of Indian obduracy, the Chennai basic handset manufacture will be done in other cheap-labor countries, and the big loser will be India.

*Our Hong Kong-listed insurance firm AIA (HK:1299) is gaining from the boom in Chinese banks shopping in Hong Kong, and also the rise in cross-border trading between Shanghai and Hong Kong.

*With archrival Alibaba buying into store-front non-internet retailing, Tencent may be tempted to copy this strategy by buying into companies like our beaten down kiddy purveyors Camkids and Naibu, CAMK and NBU listed in London's alternative investment market. While buying a Victoria's Secret clone may sound like a good strategy for Alibaba, most underwear buyers like to try it on. However, a granny buying childrens' clothes or shoes has much more leeway on fit. So the internet can work better selling child or teenage fashion items than brassieres. Alibaba's eventual ipo price will become clearer this week when its 25% shareholder Yahoo reports this week.

*Bombardier is among the victims of Canada's extra-firm sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. BDRAF is very close to a C$3.4 bn jv deal with Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostech for building its Q400 turbojet which now may never be finalized. As is often the case with boycotts, both sides will suffer, as Russia needs short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (STOL) because of bad weather and poorly-maintained runways. Even before the jv, about 7% of BDRAF aircraft were sold to Russia and former east bloc countries needing STOL capacity. Apart from the politics of selling planes to Russia, the Rostech talks included using Ukraine to produce spare parts and do maintenance of the Q400 using facilities which had built Russian Antonov airplanes and helicopters. Ukraine managed to fly a dozen functional AN naval aircraft from Crimea to mainland Ukraine during the crisis, leaving behind ones that were undergoing maintenance.

However Canada will benefit as a producer of plant nutrients to support alternative growers of wheat and corn in western Europe and North America not planting now in the famous Ukrainian black earth.

*Colombia's considerable surplus in oil and natural gas (when the pipelines have not been bombed by the FARC) has resulted in two new pipeline initiatives.Pacific Rubiales, a Canadian oil firm, is building a $200 mn 84-kilometer line to carry oil to the Caribbean coast under a new 5-yr contract with Gazprom of Russia. Presumably the FARC will be disinclined to interfere. And Ecopetrol, the Colombia state-controlled hydrocarbon firm is considering building a reversible gas pipeline that can be run either to the Pacific or to the Caribbean depending on where export demand is greatest. This is to be in partnership with Conoco, a certified gringo firm, and therefore unlikely to be headed for OGZPY or a deal with the FARC.

*Belgium's Galapagos raised euros 2.4 mn by its staffers exercising options to buy shares. GLPYY is moving its primary listing to The Netherlands.