TOP-LEVEL INSIDERS SELLING THEIR STOCK

America's corporate chiefs are unloading their own stocks at one of the boldest paces in 20 years.

In cases of the very rich, such as Microsoft's Bill Gates and Google's top brass, the executives are selling a whopping $63 for each $1 of stock they bought, says a report by Bloomberg.

In November alone, leaders of public companies dumped $8.4 billion worth of stock they owned as insiders, most of it awarded as compensation, bonuses or other management incentives.

But the vast majority of the executives put their windfall cash to work elsewhere, with just $133 million being plowed back into purchases of more company stock.

Analysts say a take-the-money-and-run flight from their own companies signals a growing lack of confidence in the economy's future course, as well as fears of a possible global meltdown if the Iraq crisis escalates across borders.

It's also a good time to take profits, with the Dow Jones industrial average up nearly 15 percent this year, the S&P 500 ahead 13 percent, and the Nasdaq 11 percent higher.


Wall Street investors are displaying fresh worries that the Federal Reserve might pull the trigger too quickly on hiking rates again, possibly plunging the U.S. into a recession as the Fed did in 2000.

Just before the worst of the 2000 recession, insider sales were also at a near record.

Leading the latest wave of insider selling is Microsoft, with $594.2 million of stock sold by insiders during November, with Gates unloading $581.1 million.

Gates has been selling shares regularly - including $2.1 billion last year - as he whittles down his once mammoth stake, putting a big chunk of his wealth to work in a not-for-profit foundation that invests in a wide range of securities and other deals.

Billionaire Paul Allen also sold off 28 percent of his stake last month in DreamWorks Animation SKG for $224.2 million, keeping about 21 million shares.

Insiders at Seagate sold $311.8 million in November, while Google insiders unloaded $182.1 million in the four weeks.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt and its co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have usually led the insider-selling parade with sales of hundreds of millions as the stock rose steadily to break the $500 mark.

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Last Act Of Congress Preserves Internment Camps

"Notorious internment camps where Japanese-Americans were kept behind barbed wire during World War II, including a camp in Honouliuli Gulch, will be preserved as stark reminders of how the United States turned on some of its citizens in a time of fear."

"The National Park Service already operates facilities at two of the 10 War Relocation Authority camps: Manzanar National Historic Site in California and the Minidoka Internment National Monument in Idaho. The money in the bill the House passed today on a voice vote and sent to Bush would go to them and eight others, to be operated by state and local governments or organizations."

Precise details of exactly what the "restoration" of these camps will entail remain absent from news reports, but suspicions will undoubtedly be cast as to whether making the camps accessible again to process people in whatever form is part of a wider agenda to set up a network of internment camps that will be used to forcibly detain American citizens under emergency provisions.

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Somalia-Ethiopia fighting reported

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A top Islamic official said Friday that militiamen are fighting Ethiopian troops in a southern Somalia town, and he called on Somalis to defeat "the enemies who have invaded our land."

If confirmed, it will be the first time the Islamic militias that control most of southern Somalia have fought directly with Ethiopian troops.

"New fighting has started in Dinsor. Our forces have been raided by Ethiopian troops, so people get up and fight against the Ethiopians," Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told a crowd of hundreds after Friday prayers. Islamic militiamen seized Dinsor on Saturday without encountering resistance or firing a shot.

"Stand up and overcome the enemies who have invaded our land," he told the crowd, which had gathered to protest a U.N. resolution allowing an African peacekeeping force into Somalia.

Demonstrations were held in several towns throughout Somalia against Wednesday's U.N. resolution, which eases a 14-year arms embargo on Somalia so an African force can equip itself. The resolution stopped Somalia's neighbors _ Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya _ from contributing troops.

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US outlines privacy safeguards – and reveals plans to mine personal data

The US Government signalled some willingness this week to address concerns over citizens' privacy, but also launched a scheme which will analyse secret airline passenger risk profiles and keep them for 40 years.

The US Government released guidelines which it says will protect the privacy of US citizens in an era of increasing data collection and information sharing by and between Government bodies.

Congress had previously mandated greater information sharing within government and law enforcement, but there have been concerns that that process undermines individuals' privacy.

The office of the US intelligence chief John Negroponte has now released a set of guidelines for state agencies to follow in dealing with individuals' data.

The guidelines say that Government bodies must ensure that information is being gathered lawfully and that sharing with other bodies is legal. Information can only be shared if it is to do with homeland security, terrorism or law enforcement, they say.

"Protected information should be shared through the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) only if it is terrorism information, homeland security information, or law enforcement information," said the guidelines. "Each agency shall adopt internal policies and procedures requiring it to ensure that the agency's access to and use of protected information available through the ISE is consistent with the authorized purpose of the ISE."

Meanwhile, however, the US Government began a planned scheme this week which creates risk assessments of airline passengers, assessments that passengers can never see and which are kept on file for 40 years.

A programme has been identified by digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which collects information about individuals, stores it in a database and performs a risk assessment about whether or not the individuals concerned are likely to break US law.

"Personally identifiable information is collected to ensure that people and cargo entering or exiting the United States comply with all applicable US laws," said a privacy impact report on the Automatic Targeting Scheme (ATS). "Relevant data, including personally identifiable information, is necessary for CBP to assess effectively and efficiently the risk and/or threat posed by a person, a conveyance operated by person, or cargo handled by a person, entering or exiting the country."

Information will be gathered and stored on US citizens and foreigners, including EU citizens. A major source of data will be passenger name records (PNR), themselves the subject of data protection controversy in Europe.

The US has agreed a controversial deal with the European Commission to allow airlines to pass 34 pieces of information to US authorities every time an EU citizen flies into the US. The European Parliament opposed the deal, as did privacy activists, in part because US data protection is weaker than that in the EU.

"Generally, data maintained specifically by ATS will be retained for up to forty years," said the ATS privacy report. "Certain data maintained in ATS may be subject to other retention limitations pursuant to applicable arrangements."

European PNS data will not be kept for as long as 40 years, said the report, because of the conditions of its transferral.

The EFF says that the system is invasive and unprecedented. "The government is preparing to give millions of law-abiding citizens 'risk assessment' scores that will follow them throughout their lives," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. "If that wasn't frightening enough, none of us will have the ability to know our own score, or to challenge it. Homeland Security needs to delay the deployment of this system and allow for an informed public debate on this dangerous proposal."

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Investigative Reporter Breaks Israeli 9/11 Foreknowledge

Alex Jones was joined on air this week by investigative reporter Ed Haas to discuss an important story he has broken concerning direct evidence of Israeli prior knowledge of and possible complicity in the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

Haas details in his expose how in October 2000, approximately 11 months prior to September 11, 2001, a former Israeli Defense Force member and veteran of the Yom Kippur War overheard a conversation at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery, located in Newark, NJ., concerning the attacks and spoken in Hebrew between three men.

“The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September.” Hass's contact said he heard one of the men say. After 11 months of desperately attempting to alert the authorities and being systematically ignored all along the line, the contact watched in horror as the attacks unfolded exactly as he had overheard.

Haas revealed on air that he had been asked by a reader to contact the source, who has asked to remain anonymous for fear of his own safety, as he had in depth information about prior knowledge of the attacks and no one would listen to him.

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