This is the last blog for 2013 as I am off this weekend for a break with the extended family in Washington, DC. I will take my laptop with me but I hope markets will remain calm and boring and I will not have to file.

Here are two commodities that may do better in the short term, Zinc and Tungsten. The Indian government is investigating billionaire Anil Agarwal for corruption in a deal for partial privatization of a zinc company, which will delay the closing. His Vedanta Resources acquired state-controlled Sesa Sterlite which the government sold without the required Parliamentary permission. Meanwhile Bloomberg boasts that its articles about a mid-Amazon FARC tungsten mine are about to lead to an attack on the facility by Bogota (although why they would tell reporters before hitting the mine is puzzling.)

We used to own Sesa through Templeton Emerging Markets Fund, but sold before well before the graft may have occurred. It no longer among the top 10 holdings of EMF.

No news from our relatives in Bangkok who I think are old and wise enough to stay away from the demonstrations. They support the yellow-shirts but given that the husband is British I think they will restrain their enthusiasm. I have no family in Turkey to worry about. In Thailand the risk is that the military will intervene on behalf of opponents of the beleaguered red-shirt government. In Turkey the risk is that the military will not resume its traditional interventionist role and leave the leadership dangling.

We got a family update e-mails from a divorced South African cousin who, besides being white is also half-Boer. She mourns Nelson Mandela with obvious sincerity and grouses about her ex failing to pay her alimony, leaving her probably the poorest white woman in the country. She further tells about serious crime affecting relatives and Johannesburg neighbors around "the beloved country."

I was most troubled by her telling of a violent robbery at the Zulu victory site at Isandlwana where another family member lectures tourists. What an unlucky omen!

My husband did his military service in the King's Africa Rifles when drafted before university, learning Swahili during the tail end of the Mau Mau uprising. Then he traveled north to south in French and British colonies in West Africa when only Ghana was independent.

He later covered the Biafra challenge to Nigerian unity and business stories in South Africa while a reporter. Our Canadian reporter, Martin Ferera, began life in what was then Rhodesia, now is Zimbabwe, great training for a value investor. We hope another Africa hand will come back in 2014. I'm nowhere as knowledgeable. In their glory days I visited Ivory Coast and Senegal. I've been to South Africa as a tourist, and to Kenya on safari. I hit the pyramids when Egypt was a somewhat safe tourist destination and Marrakesh when it wasn't, if they count.

News today from a few companies that don't know it is siesta time, from Israel, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, Argentina, Russia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador and Minnesota.

*Dow-Jones reports that Toshiba Corp. is in talks with Bechtel Corp. and Chicago Bridge & Iron to sell a part of its 87% stake in nuclear equipment-manufacturer Westinghouse Electric Co., as reported by Kyodo News this morning, citing knowledgeable people. TO wants to keep more than half of Westinghouse despite Japan going off nuclear. CBI is Dutch.

*ANI Pharma (ANIP.Q, of Baudette, Minnesota), a start-up generics firm, yesterday announced that it has acquired 31 previously marketed generic drug products from Teva Pharma for $12.5 mn in cash and a percentage of their future gross profits. ANIP bought 20 solid-oral immediate release products, 4 extended release products, and 7 liquid ones which will begin to be transferred to its plants for anticipated launch in Q4 2014. All are already approved by the FDA via abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs). The total current annual market for these products is $860 mn according to IMS Health. ANI is a specialty pharma firm with two plants producing prescription drugs. It specializes in narcotics and products having to be manufactured in a fully closed environment because of their their potency or toxicity like hormones and anti-cancer drugs. ANI also does contract manufacturing for other pharma companies, among them an FDA-approved testosterone gel, licensed to TEVA.

*AllianceBernstein Global High Income Fund (AWF) reported its top 10 bond holdings:

Portfolio %

1) U.S. Treasury Bonds 3.625%, 8/15/43 1.30%

2) Brazil Notas do Tesouro Nacional Series F 10%, 1/1/17 1.11%

3) Argentina Boden Bonds 7.00%, 10/03/15 1.04%

4) Russian Agricultural Bank OJSC Via RSHB Capital SA

7.75%, 5/29/18 0.98%

5) Ivory Coast Government International Bond 5.75%,

12/31/32 0.83%

6) Dominican Republic International Bond 8.625%, 4/20/27 0.68%

7) Argentina Bonar Bonds Series X 7.00%, 4/17/17 0.61%

8) U.S. Treasury Bonds 5.25%, 2/15/29 0.53%

9) El Salvador Government International Bond 7.65%, 6/15/35 0.53%

10) VTB Bank OJSC Via VTB Capital SA 6.875%, 5/29/18 0.52%

*Africa Opportunity Fund (AROFF or UK.AOF) is up 2.5% today as the British have opened their market.

We bought in a bit of a hurry to get the 2013 Q4 dividend and to beat the (anticipated) higher net asset value (or appraisal) I expect in January for Dec.

I think it is now trading on the main London Stock Exchange rather than on the more dicey Alternative Investment Market because I can track it at E-trade and on Yahoo Finance, which you can't do with an AIM share. But I'm not sure; I'm also uncertain of the definition or source of "appraisal" at a UK-regulated closed-end fund (investment trust.) Maybe Martin's brother the lawyer or CEF expert Barry Olliff at City of London (a fund of funds) can help.