Civility is a function of traffic congestion. Here in NYC, the new Bloomberg Citibike lease racks and lanes have achieved a higher level of users than in the much older Boris bike system in London. Launched 5 months ago, the NYC Citi Bikes each did about 6 trips per day, more than London's Barclays Cycle Hire.

However, 13 London cyclists have been killed so far this year (mostly by what the British call lorries and we call trucks); the death risk is apparently higher than for British troops in Afganistan.

But famously anti-social New York drivers have so far failed to kill any bike-riders. I think it may be a function of the sprawl of London, which means cyclists are going much further on every journey. New York is more like Paris where the bike-hire idea was originated, compact.

Also we don't have to compete with trucks on far away roads; so far any road share protects bicycle riders with their own designated lane.

With the NYC cycle system's first winter coming, bikes may have to be removed for snow clearance or to keep riders from icy roads.

More tidbits from Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Israel, Norway, France, Ireland, Britain, South Africa, Singapore, Sweden, and Mexico.

*Call in the Marines. No sooner had we bought our shares in supposed green fish-farm operator Marine Harvest than a freak storm in its native Norway released farmed Atlantic salmon into the fjords when an underwater fence gave way. The number of farmed salmon (each weighing c2 kilorgrams) which liberated themselves is unknown. The danger is that they cross-breed with wild salmon and endanger the survival of the latter. There are about 60,000 wild salmon for every single farmed one currently. The company is offering a bonus to fishermen who catch the escapees.

And I thought the danger was sea-lice, which afflicted Chilean fjords. Our Scandinavian reporter FH bought today at the equivalent of $1.13; I paid $1.14

*GlaxoSmithKline is selling 1/3 of its stake in Aspen of South Africa taking its stake down to 12.4% and raising GBP 425 mn. It will continue on the board of the South Africa drug firm specializing in emerging markets products. Investors' Chronicle of Britain reaffirmed its 'buy' on GSK.

*Zurich Insurance sold 9.4% of the Hong Kong-traded shares of New China Life Insurance Co., vendor of life and hearlth insurance. ZURVY sold 292.5 mn shares, a total exit and plans to invest the proceeds, c$943 mn, in other Asian interests. Swiss Re pounced and bought 153 mn of the shares on offer for $493 mn (HK$25 per share, $3.23). The remaining shares were underwritten and will be sold on the market, at a 7.7% discount to pre-offer prices.

*Challenged by a Euroland reader on why I won't hang up on Alcatel Lucent despite it not being bid for by Nokia, here's why: ALU last week nailed down contracts for c25% of the China Mobile 4G LTE internet protocol and broadband systems. China Mobile is the largest telco in what will become the largest 4G market on earth. Besides, ALU is up nicely today, +3.6%, on talk of lower interest rates in Euroland.

*Here's why I am so grateful to Max Deml for finding Canadian Solar. Uniquely among vendors of China-made photovoltaic cells and arrays, CSIQ builds scaled-up electricity generating plants using these solar bits in a major power market, Canada, with some spillover to the USA. This business appears to be much more profitable than selling homeowners modules to put on their roofs. Margins are about 20-25% even in Canada which is not a very sunny place.

From that experience I expect CSIQ will move southward. Already it has signed up one global company to build a solar power utility plant in Canada, Samsung. Its target this year is to get half its revenue from electricity generating power plants. CEO Shawn Qu said with the Q3 report that CSIQ, now firmly in the black, achieved 41% of revenues from power plants, up from 26% in the prior quarter.

CSIQ reportedly has a tech edge as well, cell architecture increasing the efficiency of the silicon wafers, all of which is too specialized for me. But if it produces more juice for every sunny hour in Canada it will do even better in sunnier climates.

*Global Logistic Properties of Singapore is falling 1.5% because of suspicious minds. GBTZF reported to the Singapore authorities that it had bought 90% of Vailog HK SPV4 of Hong Kong, capitalized at HK$10,000, which in turn owns all of Weilong (Shenyang) Storage Service Co of China, capitalized at $25 mn. The Hong Kong outfit had a negative net asset value at end Sept. There was no prior linkage between GBTZF and its new holdings and it will have no impact on the assets or earnings of Global Logistics. A bunch of subs of Vailog are being deregistered as they become part of GBTZF.

Global Logistics' co-Chairman Jeffrey Schwartz is an American with a checkered business past, having filed for bankruptcy over a prior venture. But given that the Singapore sovereign wealth fund is a major shareholders in Global Logistics, I think we need not panic.

*PWL's muddled report on its outlook, reported yesterday, has resulted in a drop in the PDYPF holdings of Fidelity Management & Research to under 4% and of Standard Life Investments to under 7%, according to notifications made to the Dublin Stock Exchange. Fido is American and Standard is British.

*Compugen should gain from the higher price at which the NYSE ipo of its 20% sub Evogen is being priced. It will sell 5 mn shares today or tomorrow at $16.60 raising up to $95 mn. Other owners of TASE:EVGN, a specialist in finding seeds with desirable characteristics like low water need include Monsanto with 8.6%, which it may raise. EVGN's price in pink sheet trading rose 94.5% this week to $16.98.

*Galapagos NV reports that its Biofocus sub has signed an integrated drug discovery deal with Boehringer Ingolheim for an undisclosed target and an undisclosed amount of money. GLPYY employs our former Milan-based biotech maven which is why we put up with sort of uninformative news. It is Belgiun.

*Teva was upgraded to positive from neutral at Susquehanna Brokers today with a target price of $43.50, up 7% from current levels. Ex-CEO Dr Jeremy Levin told an Israeli business school graduating class that he is "an unemployed emigrant" to the Jewish state and that they should help him find a job.

*Medivir of Sweden won approval from Health Canada for its hepatitis genotype 1 drug in combo with interferon and ribavirin. This is a former global-investing-pro minutewoman share that I and some readers still own. It also won approvals in Japan.

*Eduardo Garcia reports from Mexico that Mexichem (MXCHF), a Mexican chemical and petrochemicals firm, was upgraded by Fitch to BBB from BBB- in international loan markets; and to AA+ from AA in Mexican ones. Eduardo writes sentidocomun.co.mx with which we trade news.