It isn't April Fool's Day today but from the headlines you might think it is:

*A retired Italian Fiat auto worker learned he owned masterpieces by Bonnard and Gauguin hanging in his kitchen. He bought them for 45,000 lire (about $20) in 1975 at an auction of abandoned railway property. The paintings were stolen 5 years before and were listed with Interpol and other databases.

*The European Central Bank was accused of falsifying growth data to understate deflation and back continued austerity--by Swiss experts.

*The new French cabinet of Pres. François Hollande includes his ex-ex-ex mistress, Segolène Royal, mother of his 5 children, who ran for president while they were together, and was badly defeated.

*A strike by German pilots took down all planes operated by Lufthansa, the by-word for reliability.

*Cong. Paul Ryan's latest budget-balancing exercise counts savings from Obamacare to offset corporate tax cuts he plans. Ryan is committed to repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

*With new Google C-shares coming out tomorrow, the stock symbol for the A shares has changed from GOOG to GOOGL. Multi-share classes enable the founders to keep control. Allowing them is why Alibaba is listing here rather than in more strictly-regulated Hong Kong.

*The US Supreme Court in a 5-4 partisan ruling removed the ceiling on how much companies and unions may donate to political campaigns in the name of "free speech". Money talks.

More on M-Pesa from an Africa-born writer on our team. The Kenya-developed cellphone money transfer system by-passes banks. It can be used to invest in Old Mutual "Toboa" funds by phone using a 4-digit pin and a registered phone number.

Each investment has to be for 7,500 shillings, whereas earlier buys through banks required the investor to put up KSh 200,000. A Kenya shilling is equal to 1.2 US cents. Old Mutual is South African; M-Pesa is owned by Britain's Vodafone, but was developed in under-banked Kenya by its Safaricom sub.

Another app sells M-Kopa Solar systems for Kenyan homes which are off the electricity grid in a jv with Safaricom. Buyers get finance collaterized by a syndicated debt facility from Commercial Bank of Africa, a Kenya big bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other do-gooders.

Kenya customers pay back their solar loands with their phones via the huge dealer network of M-Pesa storefronts. The hope is to replace the KSh 86 bn Kenyans pay annually for dirty and unsafe kerosene for lighting their homes in rural areas without power lines.

More for paid subscribers from Canada, Mexico, Britain, Finland, India, China, and Spain.

*Bad planting weather, a shutdown of its nitrogen plant, and rail overload combined to zap Q1 results at Agrium Inc. the Canadian fertilizer maker, wholesaler, and retailer. It reported that it may not even break even in Q1 2014. AGU now is off 3-4% in Toronto trading. While it stressed that Q2 will make up for some of the losses, Q1 will probably see no profits at all. Analysts expect 56 US cents per share. In Q1 2013 it earned $1.03 in adjusted earnings (AGU trades in Canada in US dollars.) It is now off 1% to $96.5 in US trading but was lower earlier.

*Indian workers at the Nokia plant in Chennai (formerly Madras) rallied against the taxman putting their jobs at risk by putting the Finnish firm's deal to sell its handset operations to Microsoft for over $7.5 bn. They also are talking about a strike after the Indian Supremes backed the tax authorities slapping a huge assessment on NOK and freezing its Indian assets. The workers fear that if their plant is not part of the MSFT deal it may be downgraded to contract manufacturing or even closed. India is in election mode and about half the 8000 Chennai employees were at the rally. NOK is up on the Wall St Journal reporting this.

*Bad things come in three's or four's. Yet more aggro at Glaxo SmithKlinetoday. Another phase III trial bit the dust, this one for a late stage immunotherapy vaccine against non-small-cell lung cancer. Yesterday GSK halted the MAGE A3 phase III trial, conceding that it showed no improved survival in any statistically significant sub-population. Normally after a drug or jab fails in late trials, drug companies seek a subset of patients on whom it works to recuperate some of the hefty cost, either by launching the drug for a smaller number of patients or by focusing research on related products.

And Glaxo had to recall a second drug in as many weeks, this time Paxil, the anti-depressant, which contained weak and contaminated ingredients. Last week it recalled alli, the weight-loss nostrum.

*Fibra Uno continues to plummet, the REIT down another 2 1/2% in Mexico City trading, despite efforts being made to convince investors that its new employee compensation plan will not dilute their holdings.

I learned that FBASF has independent directors and committees plus specific rules to avoid conflict of interest between it and E-group (a major family-owned Mexican real estate). Fibra Uno CEO Andre El-Mann is also head of the family firm. It is internally managed by F1 Management SC and also externally advised by Fibra Uno Administration, an arm of E-group. I learned about the rules after putting a question at the second conference call, yesterday afternoon. I am not sure this is enough.

When Fibra Uno is offered an E-group property, the deal must be approved by the technical committee, with 3 independent members.

However, only 36% of the technical committee are independent. I cannot figure out how many members the technical committee has, assuming that each is an individual and there are no fractions but it must be at least 25.

The technical committee has to vote dividends, creating another potential split between the interests of outside shareholders and the in group management under the latest compensation plan.

Moreover, under the terms of its 2012 acquisition of MexFund properties in return for shares, the trust's controlling shareholder has the right to remove directors of the technical committee.

I am supposed to reassured that so far no more than a third of all acquisitions have come from E-group holdings. To date most purchase were of external properties. If the sellers then join the technical committee the stage is set for another form of insider trading.

Finally the 2013 annual report is being delayed.

Under Mexican rules the shares are called Certificados Bursatiles Fiduciarios Immobiliarios. I am worried about who the fiduciarios or fiduciaries represent. More fund notes below.

*Orocobre announced that it got an upgrade in the estimate of measured and indicated resources for its Jujuy borox leases in Argentina. The share fell for some reason on the news. OROCF will be able to beat its 16% cut-off level for the site because the B2O3 level is 20.4%. The site holds ~4.3 mn metric tonnes and is 3 meters deep. The Australian firm is in the process of relocating its borox plant, to be completed by June 30 within budget and on time. The move will cut loss of minerals and cost of dry magnetic separation and cut freight hauling costs. While we are mainly in OROCF for its Olaroz lithium project, we accept borox sales too. Lithium is a key to advanced battery technology while boron is used for fire prevention, in different electronic application, and as an additive to detergents, foods, and as a trace mineral in vitamin pills. Borox is among the good things found in red wine and coffee!

*Standpoint Research set a $66 target price for Teva, which is up on the news. Following delay on the end of its Copaxone patent (so our US Supreme Court can rule on it), the share is ratcheting up daily as Tel Aviv and the NYSE react to each other. It worked the other way last year.

*Our China choo-choo stock, Guangshen Railway, GSH, is up sharply today. The only news I can find is that there was a riot by demonstrators near Guangzhou, its main terminus, formerly Canton, who opposed the building of a chemical plant which might further dirty the air they breathe.

*Tencent  was briefly up along with Naspers, its 38% shareholder, maybe on the news that its archrival, Alibaba, has bought for $700 mn a minority stake in the Chinese retailer most like Victoria's Secret, Intime Retail Group, perhaps viewed as a step too far. It says it wants to do on-line and off-line selling for Intime. Both TCTZF and NPSNY then fell on fear of the other internet firm aiming to go Amazon to sell distribution rather than only buying.

*If you want to own an AAA bond, one you might want to buy is Bank of Nova Scotia's Global Registered Covered Bond Series 1 which won a rare AAA rating fromMoody's today. BNS.

*Our Telefonica sale was well-timed. TEF faces hefty divestiture requirements in Germany under the 2-pronged pressure for the EU competition authorities and the German ones for taking over E-Plus.

*I am still waiting to sell Dr Reddy's Pharma, at a limit price not yet reached. RDY is up 2.55% today after it was tipped by TheStreet.com.

*Covidien will fall about 32 cents tomorrow as it goes ex-div. COV.

Fund notes follow:

*New Ireland Fund month-end data for Mar. 31 show it is 18.52% invested inRyanair (2 ways, in Ireland and with the ADR), its largest position, plus 0.6% in Aer Lingus, a RYAAY takeover target.

There follow: Kerry Group, maker of dairy products, at 11.26%; CRH, producer of aggregates for construction at 10.42%; Arzyta AG, a Swiss maker of frozen baked goods at 9.29%; and headhunter CPL Resources at 4.37%. Our Paddy Power plc is now at 2.27% partly because of underperformance.

*Aberdeen Asia Pacific Income Fund is a play on the Oz dollar. It closed Mar. with 45.5% of its NAV exposed to Australia and 38% exposed to the A$. Its other Asian currency exposure is minimal: South Korea 11.4%; Philippines 5.1%; Malaysia 4.4%, Thailand 4.3%; Singapore 2.4% and New Zealand 0.1%. It also has 34.5% exposure to US$-denominated bonds but only 3.1% of them represent US risks. This means dollar-denominated bonds issued by the same Asia country borrowers and international agencies account for almost all the Greenback exposure.

*Aberdeen Global Income Fund is still living up to its old name (and FCO ticker) with 20.4% of its NAV in Australian bonds; 18.3% in New Zealand bonds; 13.9% in British bonds; and 27.8% in US$ ones, almost all from multilateral agencies and foreign issuers.