Mayor Boris Johnson won local Newnham council approvals for a GBP 1 bn Chinese offer to build a Chinese business and residential area at Royal Albert Dock down the Thames from Canary Wharf and even further down the Thames from our Mudchute Manor hideaway. The Asian Business Port and associated offices and shops will replace rundown and abandoned public housing estates and car parks across the water from the London City Airport where a new esplanade is planned. City's runways will remain too short to allow planes to fly the Atlantic without a stop in Ireland for now.

This is the largest commercial deal struck since Johnson became mayor and the largest UK-China deal yet. The idea is to create a third financial district, adding to the City of London and Canary Wharf thanks to investment by China's Advanced Business Park outfit, Oxley Holdings of Singapore, Ireland's Ballymore Developments, and British builder Stanhope.

The plan will create 20,000 jobs and already 60 Chinese companies have applied for office sites and serviced apartments, according to ABP. Helping lure them in is the vast Crossrail network to be completed in 2016 which will link Heathrow Airport, central London, Canary Wharf, and Albert Dock direcgtly and also feed into the Docklands Light Railway, our petit train link to the Underground (London Transport System).

It looks like Argentina will default on its debt to avoid having to pay hold-outs who didn't accept its early refinancing terms. Mediation ordered by a US court seems to have failed in NY.

Today we have results from two of our companies, an update on one of my fund recommendations, and news from around the globe: Britain, Holland, Canada, Jordan, Colombia, Panama, Finland, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Ireland, and African countries.

*CBI today reported Q2 adjusted net income hit $148.3 mn, or $1.36/sh, after excluding Shaw integration costs of $5.9 mn, or $0.05/sh. So GAAP net income was an impressive $142.4 mn, or $1.31/sh, up 16% y/o/y, putting those short-sellers who accused the company of fiddling its accounts fully on the wrong side. Earnings are not affected by reserves for delayed contracts; they are taken when the money comes in. Income from operations rose 38% in the quarter, to $270 mn. Q2 revenue hit $3.3 bn, vs $2.9 bn in Q2 2013. The best news was the $4.2 bn in new awards pushing the backlog to $31.5 bn.

CEO Philip Asherman boasted that the integration of SHAW was helping sales: "Our unique business model provides allowed us to maximize our competitive position within the global energy infrastructure market.” He added, ''we remain confident in our ability to deliver revenue and earnings growth consistent with our expectations for 2014 and convert new awards activity into long-term earnings growth."

The contract business is lumpy and there may be some hitches on the way including the impact of politics on the award for a refinery in Russia booked in the last quarter. US deals in nuclear and gas co-generation received from power companies and the EPA further undermine the short-sell case made by a wild contributor to www.seekingalpha.com whose work I criticized on-line. This resulted in my being denied further rights as a contributor to the site which I joined at the beginning of its existence under serious editors all of whom have been removed.

Separately CBI did a 2nd major deal in petrochemicals this week, this time with a sub of Italy'sENI, Versalis. The two firms will jointly develop technology for both tubular and autoclave production of low density polyehtylene (LDPE) and ethyl vinyl copolymer (EVA) which CBI will offer to build for chemical producers.

*An even more surprising good quarter was reported by Royal Bank of Scotland which forecast it would earn GBP 2.65 bn in pretax profit this year vs a mere 1.37 bn in 2013. The common RBS stock is up over 14% in UK trading this morning. However there was a caveat in the profit forecast. It was made ''unless there are bumps in the road''. These might include a vote for independence for Scotland. We do not own the common stock, but the preferreds of the British bank group currently 82% owned by Her Majesty's govt. It is a key privatization candidate and the good result forecast has a political component of course. The coalition govt wants to sell off some RBS profitably before the next election. However, criticism of a prior big sale allegedly made too cheaply, of Royal Mail, may hinder the plan to sell RBS soon. The nationalization was done to keep the bank going by the prior Gordon Brown Labour govt, and the Tory-Liberal coalition wants to show how much better at banking it is. I like the preferreds best when the common shares are controlled by the government as it offers a kind of guarantee. Bank shares traded in London are up across the board in reaction.

*On Thursday in US trading Nokia rose 8% to $8.32 thanks to its upbeat management outlook forecasts, raising its expected earnings rise this year to the high end or over its earlier 5%-to-10% forecast mainly because of NSN growth more than compensating for higher capex in HERE. Its operating margins, a key metric, hit 11.8% in the quarter, 3% ahead of analyst forecasts. It has euros 6.5 bn incash from the sale of its cellphone division to MSFT and analysts are now expecting this will translate into euros 1 bn of extra cashflow after capex this year and next. I didn't have the full release in English or CEO Rajeev Suri's remarks when I wrote my blog yesterday and I don't read Finnish. Sanford Bernstein argues there is no more upside and rates NOK neutral but they are up some more in Helsinki and London today.

*Another day another Mexican mega deal. Fibra Uno followed up on its Masaryk deal Thursday, which involves upgrading an existing office block, with a new deal, the biggest purchase yet, buying the Samara Hotel, shopping mall, and its own corporate HQ site in the Santa Fe commercial corridor of the capitol. The site totals 144,00 sq meters around the top hotel and the 2^nd largest mall in Mexico City with a 9-screen movie theater, department stores, and offices besides Fibra Uno's. The hotel is 100% booked; the retail area 97% booked, and the offices 95% booked.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval on competition grounds. FBASF's independent directors must give governance approvals. These will be required because the El Mann family, the controlling shareholder of Fibra Uno, and other related parties, own 54% of the complex. New rules were imposed on FBASF in the spring to prevent self-dealing by the family.

Another reason is that the purchase price is NMP 5.4 trillion, a huge sum, which will be reduced by NMP 100 bn for back rents. It will eventually earn NMP 460 bn in annual rents. FBASF will pay the sum via assumption of NMP 900 mn of debt and issue more of its shares to the related parties if the deal gets approved. This is an incredible deal and I expect it will ultimately pay off, but there are clear governance issues.

*Also up is Guangshen Railway, a bellwether for Chinese growth. GSH is still below the price paid.

*Banco Latino-Americano de Comercio did a 2nd issue of certificados bursatiles for 3.5 years Thursday, raising NMP 2 bn at a 38 basis point premium over the floating Mexican interbank rate. BLX is a Panamanian multinational bank financing exports.

*Veresen was downrated by CIBC to neutral from outperform, almost certainly not in revenge for US holders not getting their new shares in lieu of dividends at a % discount which applies only to Canadians. CIBC is a broker for Canadians.

*UBS put a sell on GlaxoSmithKline today, a rarity in brokerage advice. It had been rated neutral. The last straw seems to have been the news that GSK is implicated in a bribery scandal in Syria, of all places, which it is investigating in house. Apart from the big China corruption mess, GSK already was implicated in alleged Arab world bribery in Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. Now Syria joins the hall of shame. UBS cut the GSK TP was cut to GBP13.5 from GBP15 (it closed Thursday at GBP 14.7). It also cut forward earnings forecasts from 2015 to 2018 by 10 to 15%, orabout 20% lower than levels last year. This followed an 8% fall in Q2 profits reported by GSK earlier this week along with a downward revision of its full year forecasts, partly on loss of market share in its respiratory franchise, and partly because of the impact of high sterling exchange rates in its key markets. We are US$ investors and the latter factor does not play in our return. Note that UBS has clout in the market and British trading saw GSK lower by another 1.6% so far today to GBP 14.46/sh. I think matters are so bad that there will be major upheavals at GSK and we are hanging in there.

GSK today won US FDA okay for its Flonase allergy relief OTC drug which will go on sale early next year in tine for the hay fever season.

*Hikma Pharma bought from Boeringer Ingolheim for no cash up front its shuttered Ben Venue pharma plant in Bedford OH which may be used to produce injectables by the Jordanian company mainly listed in London. HKMPY is upping its US manufacturing of generics and jabs.

*Colombia's ultra deep offshore is luring in bids from major oil companies like Shell, Anadarko, Repsol, and Statoil, mostly on the Caribbean side of the country where there were 26 bids for 96 blocks on offer. This may hinder the development of unconventional oil like shale, where an extraction pilot test using heat to extract oil by Ecopetrol and Pacific Rubiales of the latter's STAR system (for Synchronized Thermal Additional Recovery) has now been halted to examine the results. STAR is a political hot potato in Caracas where congressional figures claim the industry and EC are trying to squeeze PEGFF of Canada out of its concession which runs out in two years. EC is also developing its own capacity in deep water drilling thanks first to exiled PDVSA experts who moved across the border from Venezuela, and also thanks to its participation in a US Gulf of Mexico project with Shell. It is ~90% state owned. EC is our horse in the Colombia race which features unhelpful official bureaucrats, a guerilla war with periodic cuts in vital oil pipelines to refineries, environmental and native Indian community objections and irritants, and a half dozen other features. EC is likely to become the local partner of any winner of an offshore block.

*Even in London where it is listed, it is hard to get info on Africa Opportunity Fund, AROFF. I just bought more shares in the closed-end fund, averaging down at $1.13 for the British-listed Cayman Island incorporated US$-denominated fund because there is a reason for the lack of transparency. The last in-house estimate of the NAV per share as of June 30 was at $1.108. NAV per C share was 97.2 cents so I paid a premium. The stock is now at $1.11 and my total holding is down 7%.

AOF is held mostly by institutional investors, not slobs like me. Only 22% of the shares outstanding of the common stock we own are not held by insiders or institutions, plus and institutions also dominate the shareholdings of C shares convertible into common later. This is typical of the London market where closed-end funds are traded and owned mostly by institutions, not by individual retail investors as in the USA. In fact the by-laws of the fund allow it to prevent buying by US ERISA eligible pension plans or if there are enough US investors to require it to file under the US 1940 act governing closed-end funds.

The existing stockholder group is made up of QVT Financial with 27.66 mn shares; Tudor BV Global Portfolio (Paul Tudor Jones group) 14.8 mn; Advanced Frontier Markets, 10.87 mn; Lazard Asset Mgm (fund of funds) 6.04 mn; Gramercy Fund Mgm 5.38%; and most comforting of all, South Yorkshire Pensions Authority 1.49 mn. Moreover, corporate insiders Robert Knapp and Francis Daniel own another 11.2 mn shares.

*Vale reported that it produced a record amount of iron ore in Q2, up 13% from prior Q2 thanks to its Carajas mine beginning production at very low overheads. The stock rose to $14.56 on the news.

*Dow Jones put out a note that Coca Cola Hellenic Bottling Corp will be covered under the ticker EEE in Athens. This is wrong. It trades on the London Stock Exchange as HBC where 262,000 shares changed hands.

*I decided that my last buy of Portugal Telecom stock at $2.30 Thurswould be the last purchase. The stock went up 6 cents afterwards. PT is still down mainly because of its 23% dividend (paid July 20 to shareholders of record in May) is now ancient history. It was always going to be a one-off as the merger with Oi proceeded, and without the cash lent to BES Luxembourg holding co,Rioforte the future payouts will surely be lower than expected. But it will not die completely. even if PT has to accept stretched paybacks from its reorganization it should wind up being compensated for this. Yesterday the former head of the BES bank in Portugal was arrested to face charges of fraud, abuse of confidence, insider trading money-laundering, and tax-evasion and released on euros 3 mn bail. The charges related not only to use of Luxembourg as a shelter, but also Switzerland, under the Monte Blanco investigation by Portuguese tax examiners as well as those looking into the bank's problems. Separately a 3^rd Luxembourg entity of the family's, Espirito Santo Financial Group, also filed to be protected from its creditors.

*Oops. I wrote yesterday that Paddy Power probably had seen another big institution sell its stock, which pushed own the price. It turned out that a Labour Party platform calling for extending the bookie tax was at fault. The problem is that the other parties may simply copy this popular Labour plank in their own proposals.

*Under our test of reporting on my US holdings, I had results from Xerox today with 22 cents/sh in earnings, beating estimates depending on how you count. Adjusted total earnings were $266 mn, off from the $271 mn earned a year earlier but there are fewer shares out so last year saw EPS at 21 cents. Outsourcing and services did well but CEO Ursula Burns warned that margins were under pressure in the govt healthcare services. XRX expects Q3 earnings at 21 to 23 cents and full year levels at 92 to 96. There are higher numbers for adjusted earnings across the board. Do your own due diligence as this is not a recommendation.