The statistical odds against two fatal plane crashes at one smallish airline killing hundreds of innocent passengers in a matter of 3 months must be infinitesimal. Yet that has happened to Malaysian Airlines. Both crashes appear to have resulted from reckless human behavior and were not accidents.

The 100^th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I has a similar resonance for us. A series of stupid high-risk actions by a bunch of autocratic governments in Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia and follow-ups from the rest of the powers of 1914 led to a world war which slaughtered millions, not least the Russian autocrats themselves and their supporters. The world was changed after a series of small missteps whose consequences were totally unexpected not considered.

Today measures taken without enough consideration of their impact are taken over issues ranging from global warming to immigration, from political comity to banking stability, from tax justice to trade flows are all going to come back to haunt us. But the big threat is a renewed Cold War unless the Russians change course.

Vladimir Putin reacted to a Buk missile downing a civilian airplane by again spinning his favorite record, a call for both sides to have another cease-fire. This could allow further arming of his minions in eastern Ukraine who boasted about taking down the airplane on Russuab website vKontakte.

Russia has a history of striking civilian aircraft. During the Cold War, 31 years ago, Russian missiles downed without customary warnings a Korean Airlines commercial jet which had strayed into its airspace.

More follows starting with a disappointing quarterly result and news from Brazil, Portugal, Sweden, Jordan, Canada, Britain, The Netherlands, Panama, Colombia, and Mexico. And a trade.

*Sell Covidien. I fear a retroactive tax on inversion from our Congress and also class action suits by shareholders of COV and Medtronics if this happens. COV is Irish but it was always a matter of tax convenience for the maker of medical devices.

I stupidly sold half the last day before the deal was announced mainly to make it easier to report to Uncle Sam on my profits from its spinoff of Mallinckrodt earlier this year, also taken over.COV was part of Tyco which now is a security company incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland but run from Princeton NJ.

We will miss the 32 cents/sh COV dividend

*Schlumberger Ltd reported higher sales in Q2, mostly from North America, now again its leading market. But it fell short on profits. The Dutch Antilles-incorporated wellhead services company saw its sales rise 7.8% to $12.05 bn while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expects only $11.9 bn in revenues. But the profits came short of the consensus, at 1.6 bn or $1.21/sh vs prior year Q2 levels of $2.1 bn and $1.57/sh. The dividend was held flat at 40 cents.

Offshore drilling and fracking require lots of services but it appears that SLB is not able to charge enough for them. Sales in North America rose 15% to $3.89 bn but the recovery of exploration did not produce the expected profits. Middle East sales rose 11.7% to $2.97 bn; Europe and Africa fell 1.4% to $3.23 bn; and Latin America fell 3% to $1.85 bn. The US is becoming the leading oil and gas producer in the world thanks to fracking, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia, but SLB is not able to cash in with its technology still under development for the process, and because of increased safety rules covering offshore drilling in US waters.

Controlled by the French descendents of its founders, who were Alsatian Protestants, SLB is an example of inversion from the 1930s, an example followed by many other companies in the oil services industry for political reasons. It is now run from Houston and Paris. The current hysteria over drug company mergers to escape taxes is old hat for firms engaged in oil and gas drilling and shipping.

In SLB's defense, had it not had to include its struggling One Subsea jv Cameron International, its profits would have risen 17% y/o/y.

*Investor AB, after reporting its NAV yesterday, today revealed that there may be a profitable spinoff of its 58% owned Lindorff to Nordic Capital. Lindorff is a debt collection firm which also has a minority shareholder, Altor. IVSBF bought into it for SEK 4 bn 6 years ago. Now it is valued at SEK 8.5 bn and Nordic is negotiation to buy a stake for euros 200 mn and pay a kind of royalty, 58i% to IVSBF, at 8%/yr.

*Portugal Telecom has issued a denial that Luis Pacheco de Melo will resign as CFO. Pachreco will resign from the Brazilian PT board and as vice-president of the Portuguese company as well as from Africatel Holdings BT. Pacheco apparently was the one who delivered the money to Banco Espirito Santo's Riofrio holding company in April to make a bit of a return, a month before the BES disaster became clear. However there were plenty of hints in the market before the Luxembourg holding companies went south. The stock fell some more in Lisbon today but that was general rather than company specific.

BES is selling non-financial assets in Brazil and Portugal. The Brazil Tivoli hotel chain is on the block and worth Reais 1 bn; the Portuguese Tivoli chain, where we have often stayed in Lisbon is also for sale. Apart from PT, the victims of the BES collapse include Banco Bradesco which owns 3.9% of BES and has put up money for private equity and other investment banking products with its partner. The largest foreign holder of BES stock is French, Crédit Agricole, with 25%.

*Pure Technologies of Canada had two big wins. It was raised to a buy by Jenningsbrokerage. And it landed a $5 mn water pipeline acoustic fiber inspection contract for a biggie water company, Cuzamela, which supplies Mexico City with drinking water.

*Also active down Mexico way is Banco Latino de Comercio of Panama, Bladex, which issued a 3 1/2 yr bond for NMP 2 billion at 0.38% over the 28-day interbank rate. This is a new source of funds for BLX which reports on Q2 July 24. BLX is an odd bank, owned by central banks, state export support entities like Ex-Im, and commercial banks from 23 countries. It is NYSE listed and the stock I will always tip to people whom I meet who ask for an idea from the editor of Global Investing. You can get them to run away the moment you say Banco Latino. It has 38.7 mn shares out but there are different classes for the state sector owners from the NYSE ones we own. It pays 35 cents/quarter in dividends. Panama uses the US$ as its currency.

*A reader contacted me about Coca Cola Hellenic, NYSE-CCH, now a Swiss-incorporated stock with the UK as its primary listing place. Not Chug-chug it is Zug-zug these days. It exited Greece during the country's crisis. The controlling shareholders apart from Coca Cola in Atlanta are Cypriots who made their fortune in African soft drinks and then expanded in Greece, Eastern Europe, the 'stans, and bits of the world tossed in as well like Northern Italy and Northern Ireland (which accounts for the UK listing.) I will meet with the company next week but so far apart from the reader query I have heard nothing from my brokerage, E-trade. It offers free or cheap switching between US and foreign accounts for the same security, which TD Ameritrade, where the reader trades, may not. (I recently moved from Hong Kong to the US my stock in cosmetics and skincare firm l'Occitane en Provence, which despite the southern French name is Luxembourg-incorporated. There was no fee at all.)

If your broker doesn't do conversions regularly the fee for the CCH conversion to ordinary British shares will be 5 cents/sh plus a $17.50 cable fee. Alternatively you can accept unsponsored ADRs from the depositary, Citigroup, and also pay 5 cents/sh. Going British will probably boost the liquidity over a pink sheet ADR which will also incur annual depositary fees as it will not be supported by CCH. It yields over 8%.

*Panmure Gordon has downrated GlaxoSmithKline to neutral from overweight today based on reduced forecasts for 2014 and 15. It kept its target price at GBP 1650; GSK in London is at 1547 p now. The Panmure UK customer is being told to worry about exchange rates which affect us less, since global drug markets operate in US$s.

*Jordan's Hikma Pharma was raised to a buy by UBS. Its GDRs trade in London and Dubai. The Middle East and North Africa generics firm is also active in the US market, and is focusing on injectables, a high-demand sector.HKMPY, the ADR, is a healthy way to play the Middle Eastern market.

*What does the London gold fix I wrote about yesterday mean for our portfolio? The main loser is Bank of Nova Scotia, one of the 5 (now 4) dealers taking part in the pool and also the affiliation of its head. This has been a poisoned chalic for Scotia bank which is probably happy to give up being the only North American player in the fixing. As I noted yesterday, despite all the criticism and the prospect of new regs, nobody has proved that the fix was in at the fixing.

*It is a bad day to count up airplane sales but Bombardier has apparently broken its target of 500 aircraft sales at Farnborough although some of the deals are repeat orders or subject to conditions. The planes involved are the current Q400 line of feeder jets for hubs, and the still delayed C-series regional jets. The latter will now have a maiden voyage only in 2015 because of problems with the engine and the use of new lightweight materials which are the Cs' key selling point for airlines. BDRAF is also in the rail business on which we reported yesterday.

*Oops. Ecopetrol owns 28.5% of the Shell consortium which found oil offshore in US Gulf waters, not 20% as I wrote. EC, 85% state-owned is being subject to Colombian Senatorial inquisition over its delay in implementing new STAR hot water extracting technology at the field it shares with Pacific Rubiales. It responded to the senator that the acceptance of the new fracking system depends on performance, not politics.