The emerging world is divergent, something which catch phrases like BRIC might hide.

*China suffers from the contradictions of Communism. Two Chinese anti-corruption activists were sentenced to 6 ½-yr jail terms yesterday because they took photographs of themselves holding banners urging government officials to disclose their wealth. A third activist was given a shorter sentence after a show trial over charges Amnesty International called “preposterous”. While the current Beijing regime is formally cracking down on ill-got wealth in the hands of relatives of top officials, any populist movement with the same goals counts as a threat to Pres. Xi Jinping whose own family members have vast wealth of occult origin. What would Karl Marx say? What would Confucius say? Neither would lock up the critics of corruption and backhanders;

*India's new premier, Narendra Modi, is a follower of Maggie Thatcher. He is proposing both closer ties with Russia and partial privatization of government controlled companies. He wants to cut the level of state ownership of companies to a maximum of 75% over the next 3 years. The can cut the New Delhi government deficit by $9 bn, money that is needed, while also reducing the interference in business by India's sprawling government bureaucracy. The sales will probably also boost the Bombay bourse which has already risen sharply after the election of a free-marketeer;

*Argentina is expected to hold its nose and negotiate with hold-outs against its refinancing of government debt and make partial payment to them of the $1.33 bn it owes under new US court rulings. According to Bloomberg, Cristina Fernandez's ratings are so low that the population no longer is following her left-wing lead against hedge-fund “vultures” and supports negotiations. Approaches have reportedly been made to Elliott, a US hedge fund owner of the original bonds which refused to restructure them in 2005 and 2010. The bonds defaulted in 2002 and were purchased at a pittance.

We got into the Argentina debt mess early. Back in 2003 I researched in Buenos Aires a yankee (US$) bond issued by two offshore subsidiaries of Telefonica de España (TEF) and determined without any doubt that the bond was guaranteed by Spain's TEF, regardless of what went on in the government bond sector under Cristina's late husband, Nestor Kirschner. So we piled in and made a packet and were bought out 18 months later. I guess we were vultures too.

This week JP Morgan is launching its new Diversified Return Global Equity ETF (exhange-traded fund, ticker: JPGE) which uses multi-factor analysis to select stocks in the FTSE index, mostly from developed countries. The factors include relative valuation, momentum, low volatility, and market cap size. The fund as launched holds 450 different stocks. It is offered as an alternative to ETF's based on market cap or yield. The fee is 0.38%. The managers will use indexes selectively. They are Beltran Lasta who covers global and Europe shares and James Cook, an emerging markets and Asia equity specialist.

While it is always great to run into a new way to slice the global investing cake, the use of multiple factor indexes is unlike to reflect the news (as reported above) because indexes are by definition backward looking. That is why no ETF will really beat the performance of selected stocks.

Peter Schiff claims his Euro Pacific Precious Metals arm offers the cheapest physical gold for US owners. That's false. Without delivery (for which Schiff charges $25), our physical gold advertiser BullionVault (advertising on our website, www.global-investing.com) beats Euro Pac prices (7.5% to 8.5% over spot) by charging a maximum of 0.50% on any trade. And our advertiser only charges 0.12% per year for storage. Gold is up about 2.5% after the Fed projections yesterday, heading for $1300/oz.

More news from Spain (neither about the World Cup nor the new king), Israel, Ireland, Cyprus, Canada, Britain, Portugal, and China, India, Russia, and Brazil (the BRICs). Plus (of course) Argentina.

*Our most recent India buy, turnaround candidate Infosys, INFY, is up about 1%. Our Ascendas India Trust, ACNDF, a Singapore property firm, hit a new high and kept it. To benefit from the partial privatizations we will probably have to add an India country fund to our portfolio.

*Our China-Hong Kong large stocks are doing much less well. I suspect they are not hiding links to the Beijing power elite but just suffering in sympathy. Anton Oilfield Services (ATONY) is off 4.1%; Canadian Solar (CSIQ) -2.5%; Guangshen Railway (GSH) -0.6%. The UK-listed contingent diverge: China Chaintek (GB:CTEK) is up 5% while and Naibu (GB:NBU) is off 7%.

*Spain's Banco Santander hit a new 52-wk high today in Madrid trading. SAN sold 50.1% of its securities custody business to Warburg Pincus of the US and Temasek, the Singapore wealth fund. This raised $1.3 bn of which euros 410 mn (~$555 mn) is capital gains. Moreover getting the asset off its accounts, SAN has boosted its core capital as it doesn't have to hold funds for this business. The price was actually marginally below the target SAN expected to achieve, possibly because it refused to sell the securities custody assets (with euros 738 bn under custody) to a rival bank.

Royal Bank of Canada analysts raised SAN to sector perform from underperform which doing the reverse to BBVA. This may lead to hedge trades selling BBVA and buying SAN.

*Teva is also on the up mainly because analysts at Jefferies say that it has converted 57% of its new patients and 40% of its existing one to a new formulation of its multiple sclerosis drug, Copaxone. This offers a 3x/week jab of a stronger does vs the earlier version (whose patent may have run out) which is injected 5x/wk. EU regulators are planning fines against TEVA and others over “pay for delay” moves by patent holders to stop generics, Teva's main business. The planned fines are euros 300 mn over a delay in marketing a copycat rival to Servier's blood pressure drug, perindopril. A half dozen generics firms plus mostly Servier can probably afford the penalty which is about $400 mn split 7 ways.

*As part of its cash collection to finance offshore Israeli gas development, Delek Group is in negotiation with CNOOC of China which is interested in building a floating natural gas liquefaction platform off the coast of Cyprus. There the Aphrodite site holds about 4 trillion cu ft of gas, and Delek via two subs owns 30% of the concession with Texan Noble Energy owning 70%. Woodside Pete of Australia is also after the Cyprus field but its relations with DGRLY and Israel are strained.

Delek sold 55% of its Republic Cos US insurance arm for ~$80 mn, well short of the original target of raising $220 mn for the total US insurance company stock. However now it will not finance the payments of the unnamed buyer over 3-years as originally proposed. Cashing out is hard to do. DGRLY is up on the news.

*Mysteriously, Hadasit Bio Holdings broke upward to $1.10/sh today, up 22.2% despite the rumored buyer, Phillip Frost MD, stepping down from chairmanship at TEVA. The US volumes are tiny but the shares also trades on Tel Aviv. Let's see what happenstomorrow when the TASE is closed. HADSY is a holding company for startups created by doctors and other scientists at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospitals, which filed for bankruptcy.

*Nokia created a finger-writing homescreen app for Android phones, marking NOK's break from Microsoft smartphones. Z-launcher's home page shows your favee apps and contacts for quick linking.

*Reckitt Benckiser, a supposed takeover candidate, is up again to a new high. RBGLY is British.

*Yandex has created a search service for Russians looking for businesses called Yandex City which will help you find sites for dining, having your hair done, or getting a prescription filled. The on-line system works in all major Russian cities (but I am not sure about Sebastopol in Crimea) launched with reviews provided by about 70 YNDX partner companies. . The selection is up to the searcher: by popularity, location, or reviews and ratings. Eventually further inputs will be tallied so the service is updated. Furthermore you can use Yandex City to make restaurant, entertainment, and haricut reservations, so far only in Moscow and St. Petersburg currently only via the Internet rather than phones. There are measures in place to stop artificial ratings boosts.

*Pure Technologies, PPEHF stateside and PUR in Canada, was started with a 'by' rating by analysts at Jennings, a brokerage. We told you first.

*Barrick Gold and its African Barrick sub are accused of bribery payments of $400,000 to land a gold mine concession in Tanzania, according to the Wall St. Journal. We own ABX US $ bonds, the 4.4% of 2021, cusip 06849RAF9, not the common.

*Covidien is expected to shutter its Minneapolis endovascular business leaving 1000 Americans jobless under the merger with Medtronic, according to experts. The unit is only 1/6 the size of the power MDT vascular unit, which accounts for over half MDT sales. So the only victim of the merger will not be the IRS alone. Meanwhile if COV top brass are sacked they will get up to $80 mn in compensation. Nothing like that for the workers of course.

*Cosan of Brazil is among the shares underperforming as attention is being focused on its economy and politics by soccer fans. CZZ grows sugarcane and makes ethylene, but it is diversifying into ports and railways, and gas stations.

*Orocobre, of Brisbane, Australia, mining for lithium, borax, and potash in Argentina, is up today, I assume on the outlook for Argie government bonds avoiding default. OROCF.

*Andreia Afonso Alexandre, who appears to be the chief legal eagle at Portugal Telecom, finally deigned to reply to the spate of letters I sent regarding delays in payments of its dividends to US and Canadian owners of its ADRs held in normal taxable brokerage accounts. She described a process whereby Lisbon charges 35% withholding on “bank omnibus accounts” which I think means brokerage accounts, despite the US-Portugal double taxation treaty which sets withholding at 15%. (I am pretty sure the same rule applies to Canadians.)

She said US holders must provide a “form 21-RFI” “certified by the competent authorities” “accompanied by a residency certificate” “prior to the deadline for delivery of the withholding tax”, in this case I think June 20, amanha or tomorrow. If this paperwork is not delivered on time, the procedure is for the taxpayer to file form 22-RFI for a refund which however does not apply in “the specific case of income paid in bank omnibus accounts where the identity of the beneficial owner of the income is not disclosed.” “Investors should ask their local brokers to provide them with a formal statement whereby it can be demonstrated the number of PT share held by the time the dividends were paid.” (Her English is better than my Portuguese but it has a few lapses.)

The this paperwork has to be delivered to “the Portuguese sub-custodian of PT shares to sign box VII of Form 22-RFI”. “Alternatively, this can be liaised directly between the broker and the Portuguese sub-custodian.”

When all those steps have been completed you send a copy to the Portuguese tax administration at:

Direção de Serviços das Relações Internacionais, Av. Eng.º Duarte Pacheco, 28 – 4.º, 1099-013 Lisbon, Portugal. Be sure to stamp your letter airmail.

The fandarole is being imposed by Lisbon and causing long delays in payment some readers need to pay their living expenses. Until this year's tax reform we got our PT dividends including the special divvie 2 years ago when PT sold its Vivo sub in Brazil to Telefonica without such complexity or delay, and with no withholding tax imposition. The new regulations will reduce the appeal of Portuguese ADRs for legitimate foreign portfolio investors.

While I appreciate that Portugal is cracking down on tax “heavens” (actually tax havens) including the use of its offshore island of Madeira, this new set of obstacles goes well beyond any normal procedures for shareholders in a listed company. I had no idea that this was in store.

*I yesterday mentioned a cancer diagnostics stock I learned about from Dr KSS, a writer on www.stockgumshoe.com, Biocept Inc., BIOC. It is up 7%+ today on huge volumes. I hope you all went and signed up for Stockgumshoe before buying, because I was trying to help that service get subs, not give you free advice on US shares. Do due diligence.