Freedom Project

BY LARRY NEUMEISTER 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

 Aug 19, 11:22 AM EDT 

 NEW YORK (AP) -- The definition of insider trading has gotten a workout at the Manhattan federal trial of a San Francisco hedge fund founder after he testified that information he elicits from public company executives about earnings or future prospects is legal as long as he is not told exact numbers.

Doug Whitman's testimony over several days last week even raised questions from U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff when Whitman described where he drew the line between illegal inside information and legitimate research at the West Coast hedge fund firm he founded in 1994.

Launching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars). The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest.

Telegraph.co.uk 

Lord Rothschild has taken a near-£130m bet against the euro as fears continue to grow that the single currency will break up. 

9:55PM BST 18 Aug 2012