The Tactico Geomaster Is A Crowdfunded Watch I Could Get Behind

GNN - There are more Kickstarter watches out there these days than grains of sand on the beach. Everyone with a quartz movement and a NATO strap figures they can make and sell some kind of fashion watch to the masses, a concept that is as silly as it is flawed.

That’s why the Tactico Geomaster GMT is actually interesting. First, it uses a mechanical ETA movement – an rare movement these days given their scarcity – and the design is at once familiar and unique. In short, it’s what I wish more watchmakers were doing in crowdfunding circles.

The Geomaster is a GMT watch. This means it can display the time in multiple time zones – depending on how to read the bezel. It’s great for travelers and pilots. It also features Superluminova hands, coat steel case, and a custom date dial. In short, it’s very unique and very clever. It was created by Compañía Relojera Especializada para Actividades Subacuáticas aka CREPAS, a custom diver manufacturer in Zaragoza, Spain.

At about $900 you’re paying an awful lot for a GMT watch but based on the quality and design as well as the movement, it’s not that much. My pet peeve is the date wheel. These sorts of open date wheels – where they show multiple days in order, usually three to five, with today’s date specified by a pip – annoy me because they clutter the dial.

That said if you’re into mechanicals and want something that decidedly can’t send winking smiley face emojis to your friends, this might be a nice starter watch.

Syngenta may seek partners, JVs after product review: chairman in paper

GNN - Syngenta AG (SYNN.VX) may seek partners to help improve its product lineup after a thorough review in the wake of a rebuffed takeover approach from Monsanto Co (MON.N), the agrichemicals group's chairman told a Swiss newspaper.

Syngenta's board is under pressure from shareholders to show how it plans to generate value after turning its back on Monsanto's $47 billion cash-and-share offer, which it said undervalued the company and had too great an execution risk.

In an interview with Finanz und Wirtschaft, Michel Demare said it was too early to discuss what steps Syngenta planned to boost its results.

But he added: "We will subject our product portfolio to a total review, especially on the seed side. Then we will see if there are appropriate transactions to improve ourselves, perhaps with partnerships and joint ventures."

Asked about short-term steps it could take, he said: "Some of these things can be done in the short term. But what we do not want is to improve earnings in the short term at the expense of the future. We must remain responsible."

Demare said he had no concerns about activist shareholders and had no immediate plans to try to forge a group of core investors from the company's fragmented investor base.

"But if we made a major acquisition, it would be possible for example to take a major investor on board who co-financed the transaction by purchasing Syngenta shares," he added.

Demare said he took six calls from Monsanto boss Hugh Grant in the first two weeks of August alone and had no idea what Grant planned next.

Some Syngenta investors have expressed dismay that the company did not at least open talks with Monsanto. "For me it is clear that the chairman did not behave as many shareholders would have wished," FuW quoted Artisan Partners fund manager Richard Logan as saying.

Demare acknowledged Syngenta had to "explain ourselves, regain trust and deliver results" but also dismissed as "illusion" the offer price of 449 Swiss francs and then 470 francs per share that Monsanto said it had proposed. He noted the 18 months it would have taken to wrap up any deal.

Syngenta shares fell 18 percent on news Monsanto was abandoning its approach and closed on Friday at 323.70 francs.

Demare noted the stock was slightly above the level it was when Monsanto emerged as a suitor, while rivals' shares were down by as much as a fifth.

He said Syngenta's cost-cutting program was ahead of plan but could be expanded should it find more room to cut.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; editing by John Stonestreet)

Erika no longer a tropical storm, loses steam over Cuba

GNN - Erika, a tropical storm that was losing strength as it hit Haiti with heavy rains and strong winds, fell apart on Saturday over eastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

"Erika has degenerated into a trough of low pressure," the Miami-based hurricane center said in a Saturday morning forecast advisory.

Erika's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 35 mph (56 kph), just below the tropical storm threshold.

Dominica in the eastern Caribbean was the island worst-affected by Erika, with 20 killed and some still missing.

Still posing a threat of wind gusts and flash floods, the remnants of Erika were now expected to move over central Cuba, potentially providing welcome relief from a drought, before heading out into the Gulf of Mexico and skirting South Florida.

The NHC said the weather system could still regenerate into a tropical storm before reaching the northwest Florida Panhandle.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Friday, noting the storm could travel "up the spine of Florida." He planned to give an update on its potential impact later on Saturday.

Forecasters have described Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, as unusually hard to predict due to disruption from wind patterns and interaction with mountainous terrain.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters with the private U.S. forecaster, Weather Underground, said the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, "has saved us so many times in the past", thanks to its 10,000-feet (3,000-meter) peaks.

"It's probably saved thousands of lives in South Florida over the years," he said.

Impoverished Haiti also appeared to have dodged a bullet as Erika's sustained winds dropped to 45 mph (72 kph) as it moved over the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Friday night, the NHC said.

Haiti is acutely vulnerable to landslides due to widespread deforestation of its hillsides.

After a rainy night, the city woke up Saturday to clear skies and no signs of serious damage. Normally dust-covered trees were a lush green as bulldozers cleared mud from Route 1, the main road north out of the capital.

Dominica's prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit confirmed in a Friday night address that 20 people had died from swollen rivers and rain-triggered landslides that swept away homes, roads and bridges.

He described the loss of life and economic damage as "monumental", with some communities cut off on the small, mountainous island with a population of about 72,000.

(Reporting by David Adams in Miami and Peter Granitz in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Alison Williams)

Libya arrests three suspected smugglers over migrant boat disaster

GNN - Libyan authorities have arrested three people on suspicion of involvement in launching a boat packed with migrants that sank off the country's Mediterranean coast, killing up to 200 people, a security official said on Saturday.

The vessel, with up to 400 sub-Saharan, Syrian and Asian migrants on board capsized on Thursday, after setting off from the town of Zuwara, a centre of operations for people smugglers exploiting the anarchy in a country with two rival governments.

Libya has turned into a main transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to make it to Europe.

Three Libyan smugglers involved in launching the ill-fated boat and other vessels to take migrants to Italy have been arrested, said a security official, asking not to be named.

"They are in their twenties," he said. "We think that more are involved which we are still chasing."

By Saturday, 115 bodies had been recovered and about 198 migrants rescued, officials said.

Arrests of smugglers are rare in Libya, where the judiciary has little power since the country is effectively controlled by former rebel groups which helped to oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

On Thursday, Zuwara residents staged a protest to demand authorities clamp down on smugglers who use the town to launch boats due to its proximity to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Libya has asked the European Union for help to train and equip its navy, which was largely destroyed during the 2011 uprising.

But cooperation was frozen in 2014 as the European Union boycotted a self-declared government controlling western Libya, which seized the capital Tripoli a year ago by expelling the internationally recognized premier to the east.

Western and most Arab powers only deal with the eastern-based government, which has no control of western Libya where smugglers operate.

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe has passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami, Writing by Ulf Laessing, Editing by Mark Heinrich and Angus MacSwan; Reuters)

Satellite images confirm Syrian temple destruction: U.N

Satellite images have confirmed the destruction of a Roman-era temple in the Syrian city of Palmyra, a United Nations agency said, after the hardline Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blowing up the structure a week ago.

Islamic State detonated explosives in the ancient Baal Shamin temple on Aug. 25, an act that cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime aimed at wiping out a symbol of Syria's diverse cultural heritage.

An analysis of an image taken in June and others taken several days ago show the obliteration of the temple in the central desert city, the Geneva-based United Nations Institute for Training and Research said in a statement.

"We confirm the destruction of the main building, while surrounding columns seem to be less affected."

Activists have said Islamic State is tightly controlling communications in the city, making its reports of events difficult to verify independently.

Islamic State has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory it holds in both Syria and Iraq. It has often carried out mass killings in places it captures and demolishes monuments it considers sacrilegious.

Islamic State published a photo report of the destruction on Tuesday. The group also beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, an 82-year-old Syrian archaeologist who had looked after Palmyra's ruins for four decades, and hung his body in public, according to Syria's antiquities chief.

The group seized the desert city of Palmyra in May from government forces but initially left its historical sites unharmed.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

Report/ Retures

Verdict a blow for Egyptian press freedom: Deported Al-Jazeera journalist

GNN - A decision by an Egyptian court to sentence three Al Jazeera TV journalists to three years in prison was politically motivated and aimed at intimidating the press, one of the three, Australian journalist Peter Greste, said on Saturday.

Greste, 49, was deported from Egypt in February and convicted in absentia by the Cairo court on Saturday for operating without a press license and broadcasting material harmful to Egypt. The case has drawn international condemnation.

His colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalized Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian, were present at the sentencing and are back in jail.

Greste said the decision was a major blow for Egyptian democracy and no evidence was presented in court which would back it up.

"I am feeling quite sick. We suspected that they might have to give us convictions just to save face. But we thought the most likely sentence would be a suspended sentence," he told Reuters in an interview.

The three men were originally sentenced to between seven to 10 years in prison on charges including spreading lies to help a terrorist organization, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood which the military toppled from power two years ago.

Rights advocates say their arrest was part of a wider crackdown on free speech.

Greste described the work that led up to the three men's arrest in 2013 as "very mundane, routine journalism". He denied the court's finding that they had fabricated news or supported the now banned Muslim Brotherhood.

"It is outrageous," he said. "It is simply not true. We spoke to the Muslim Brotherhood, absolutely. But the Brotherhood at the time was not a banned organization. It was banned after we went to prison."

The three men have always denied all charges against them.

"We never did any of the things that we are accused of," Greste said.

"The only conclusion that we can come to is that it is a politically motivated verdict. I think it is devastating for press freedom in Egypt. I have always believed that our arrest was intended to send a message to the press in Egypt."

Greste said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spoke to him on Saturday evening and told him she intended to pursue diplomatic means to get the sentences overturned. She repeated this in a statement in which she said the verdict was a "distressing outcome".

Greste said the implications of the sentence on his own career were unclear since many countries had extradition treaties with Egypt. But he also expressed concern for his Egyptian colleagues.

"We are going to pursue every legal, diplomatic and social means," Greste said.

(Reporting by Chris McCall, Reuters; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

China passes new pollution law, sets sights on coal consumption cap

GNN - Legislators have approved amendments to China's 15-year-old air pollution law that grant the state new powers to punish offenders and create a legal framework to cap coal consumption, the Asian giant's biggest source of smog.

The draft amendments were passed by 154 votes to 4, with five abstentions, Zhong Xuequan, spokesman for the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, told a media briefing on Saturday.

The ruling Communist Party has acknowledged the damage that decades of untrammeled economic growth have done to China's skies, rivers and soil. It is now trying to equip its environmental inspection offices with greater powers and more resources to tackle persistent polluters and the local governments that protect them.

The amendments are expected to make local governments directly responsible for meeting environmental targets. They also ban firms from temporarily switching off polluting equipment during inspections and outlaw other behavior designed to distort emission readings.

Tong Weidong, vice-director of the NPC's legal work committee, told the briefing the law would improve the way local authorities were assessed and allow them to draw up their own plans to meet environmental targets.

"Amendments to this air pollution law have strengthened pollution treatment from the source - from sources such as industrial policy, energy consumption and automobile pollution," Tong said.

However, researchers said the changes do not go far enough and that the third reading of the bill should have been postponed until all its shortcomings had been resolved.

Tong said such criticism was "very normal" and that it was impossible to include all proposals in the law.

Chang Jiwen, an environmental researcher with the Development and Research Council, a government think tank, has described the new law as "not very useful".

"It is filled with many slogan-like clauses and is more like a policy document than legislation," Chang told the state-backed newspaper China Business. He said many experts had said the bill should have been postponed.

Lawmakers had rejected proposals to include specific coal consumption targets in the law and also ruled out a clause allowing local authorities to set their own restrictions on car use, the official Xinhua news agency said earlier this week.

Wang Yi, head of the policy committee of the China Academy of Sciences and a member of the NPC's standing committee, has told Chinese media the law fails to set clear goals on emissions and air quality standards.

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, concentrations of hazardous breathable particles known as PM2.5 fell 17.1 percent in the first half of 2015 to 58 micrograms per cubic meter. China doesn't expect to meet the state standard of 35 micrograms until 2030.

(Reporting by David Stanway and Kathy Chen, Reuters; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Paul Tait)

Military plane crashes in northern Nigeria, killing seven

GNN - A Nigerian Air Force plane crashed into a house in the northern city of Kaduna on Saturday, killing all seven people on board, a military spokesman said.

The air force said the Dornier-228 aircraft crashed into a house shortly after taking off from Kaduna Military Airfield around 06:45 (0145 ET). Nobody on the ground was hurt. "The plane was on a daily routine flight to Abuja when it crashed within the premises of the barracks, killing the four crew members and three civilian passengers," said military spokesman Colonel Abdul Usman.

An investigation has been launched to establish the cause of the crash.

(Reporting by Isaac Abrak, additional reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by John Stonestreet, Reuters)

Nigeria says uncovers Boko Haram spy ring at Abuja airport

GNN - Nigeria has uncovered a spy cell run by militant Islamist group Boko Haram at the international airport in the capital Abuja apparently aimed at selecting targets for attack, the country's national security agency said.

In a statement late on Friday, the Department of State Services (DSS) said it discovered the ring on Monday and was working with aviation authorities to pre-empt any attack.

President Muhammadu Buhari has made halting Boko Haram's six-year-old insurgency a priority, but a Reuters tally shows the jihadist group has killed more than 700 people in Nigeria in bomb attacks and shootings since he came to office on May 29.

The DSS said it had arrested a 14-year-old boy who said he had been instructed to spy on the airport's security procedures, including passenger screening and boarding processes, and report what he had learned.

It said the man who directed the boy had not been located.

"The service, in liaison with the aviation security of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, disrupted a spying network mounted by the Boko Haram terrorists," DSS spokesman Tony Opuiyo said in the statement.

"The service is working closely with major aviation stakeholders, especially the Aviation Security Department, to forestall any possible attack and to ensure adequate security at the airports."

Boko Haram, whose insurgency mainly focuses on the northeast, has carried out some attacks in Abuja including the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in the city four years ago, which killed 23 people.

The insurgents have waged a bloody campaign to create a state adhering to strict Islamic law in the northeast of Africa's most populous state that has left thousands dead and forced around 1.5 million people to flee their homes since 2009.

Boko Haram scattered earlier this tear after an army counter-offensive ousted it from most of the territory it had gained. But the jihadists have since returned to a strategy of selective attacks in which they have bombed or fired on targets in public places such as markets and places of worship.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Reuters)

Judge’s Order To Shut Down NSA Phone Surveillance Reversed By Federal Appeals Court

GNN - A federal appeals court has just ruled against a 2013 decision ordering the NSA to stop its bulk metadata collection program.

The three-judge panel issued its ruling Friday, contending that conservative privacy activist Larry Klayman had not adequately argued the likeliness that his own data had been collected as a part of the metadata collection program.

Judge Stephen Williams wrote that the plaintiffs “claim to suffer from government collection of records from their telecommunications provider relating to their calls. But plaintiffs are subscribers of Verizon Wireless, not of Verizon Business Network Services, Inc.—the sole provider that the government has acknowledged targeting for bulk data collection.”

Judge Janice Rogers Brown’s separate opinion stated that the plaintiffs had failed to show a “‘concrete and particularized’ injury” in regards to the NSA program. Brown ended her opinion quoting Daniel P. Moynihan’s book Secrecy: The American Experience. “Regulations of this sort may frustrate the inquisitive citizen but that does not make them illegal or illegitimate. Excessive secrecy limits needed criticism and debate. Effective secrecy ensures the perpetuation of our institutions.’’

This court decision’s importance really isn’t as critical as it would have been before the recent legislation passed in Congress, as today’s ruling is more procedural and doesn’t touch on the program’s constitutionality. The law passed by Congress allows bulk phone data collection to continue until the end of the year, but it severely scales back the NSA’s phone surveillance program thereafter.

FEATURED IMAGE: SAUL LOEB/GETTY IMAGES

Mobile Gaming Live-Streaming Service Mobcrush Has Raised Around $10M

GNN - We’ve heard from sources that Mobcrush, a live-streaming service centered around mobile games much in the same way Twitch is known for streaming popular eSports desktop games, has raised around $10 million in new financing, though the number could have gone beyond that.

Mobcrush’s bet is that mobile game streaming will be as big if not bigger than some of the competitive game-streaming services that already exist. The gorilla in the room, of course, is Twitch  which Amazon bought for nearly $1 billion last year and has tens of millions (if not hundreds) of monthly viewers. Mobcrush raised $4.9 million in a round that round was formally announced in May, and in July Mobcrush came out of beta.

To be sure, mobile games are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some of the most popular games on the App Store are strategy games like Clash of Clans. And while these games are lightweight, phones are becoming more and more powerful and gaining more touch points — meaning it’s ever more likely that someone will figure out a way to replicate the complex nature of mobile games (with one new example of a new touch point being Force Touch, which is expected to end up in the next iPhone).

We heard Kleiner Perkins participated in the most recent funding round, with two sources telling us the firm led the round. We were told the round was incredibly competitive, as you might expect for a company making a bet on a mobile Twitch.

“Mobcrush does not comment on rumors or speculations about our financing,” CEO Royce Disini said. “We’re focused on our execution, excited about our growth and the big opportunity for mobile game live streaming, and have added [three] key hires from Apple, Google and Microsoft to help accelerate our growth.”

So, what does this funding round mean? It could be that investors are salivating over the potential of a next-generation Twitch that’s geared entirely toward mobile. On Twitch, games like Starcraft, League of Legends and Hearthstone are insanely popular. It’s not clear if mobile games are going to hit that sort of trajectory, but already there are lots of competitive games on mobile devices (including Hearthstone). Given the success of Twitch, there’s a good chance that investors believe there’s a huge market for streaming mobile games alongside more complex online games.

The counter argument to all this is that there isn’t a set of games like Starcraft that will eventually end up on mobile. Given the lightweight nature of mobile games, it’s possible that there just won’t be a market for hardcore games like League of Legends, even though several well-funded companies like Super Evil Megacorp are going after the space with games like Vainglory.

And, to be fair, Twitch could build something similar and crush Mobcrush (no pun intended). It already has a huge presence on mobile devices and has broadcasts of Vainglory. Twitch is not unfamiliar with finding its way to new markets, pivoting originally from a live-streaming site to focus on video games and creating a $1 billion company in the process.

Mobile’s Starcraft moment hasn’t happened just yet. However, all roads do lead to mobile — and it seems more and more likely, especially with the arrival of Hearthstone (which is of course on PC) on smartphones, that it’s possible companies will find a way to build a hit game that will be popular among the esports crowd.

FEATURED IMAGE: MOBCRUSH WEBSITE