and four other ex—ministers. they are accused of rebellion and sedition. a belgian prosecutor will study the document before deciding whether to pass it to an investigativejudge. president trump has begun a tour of the asia—pacific region with a first stop in hawaii. it will be mr trump's longest foreign trip so far, with visits to japan, china, vietnam and the philippines. during the tour he's expected to unveil a new american strategy for trade and security in the region. president trump has expressed outrage at a decision by an american military court to spare a soldier, bowe bergdahl, from prison, after he admitted deserting his post in afghanistan and was captured by the taliban. in a tweet, mr trump said the sentence of dishonourable discharge was a disgrace. in around ten minutes you can see newswatch. but now on bbc news, it's time for click. if it feels like the weather

is getting weirder, well, that's because it is. in many parts of the world, meteorological records seem to be tumbling virtually year after year. and as gets more erratic and extreme, the need for accurate forecasts becomes vital. this is the bbc‘s weather centre at new broadcasting house. this is where they take their best guess at what the next two days will look like. we kind of take it for granted, these days, but as you would expect, there's an awful lot of numbercrunching that goes on, which is what ben is doing right now. hi, ben. you might recognise ben, he's on the telly! ben is taking raw data

from the met office on this screen and turning it into something more akin to what we see on the tv. it all goes to make up that familiar weather map that we know and love. and for the uk, each likm square gets its own individual forecast from the met office. other services can provide an even more granular forecast. but swing around to africa, and it's a very different story. here we're working at much lower resolution. the squares here are only 25 kilometres across. one of the reasons is because data is particularly thin on the ground here. now, over the coming month or so, we're going to be looking at how technology is changing this continent. and to start ourjourney, dan simmons has travelled to tanzania to meet a chap who used to work here, but who is now on a mission to improve the forecast for africa. sub—saharan east africa is lush. the soils are rich.

it's the end of a very wet rainy season. too wet for some farmers, who saw their crops rot. angus and asha farm in lushoto. they tell me climate change has made it difficult to predict the seasons. they've gone from drugs to flood in recent years, and lost harvests in both. next door, peter's been planting a type of runner bean which can take as little as six weeks to grow. in september to october, the rainfall are very harsh. it rush the topsoil to down there. but last season, he lost his entire crop to sudden, heavy, early rains. the farmers here know what they are doing, theyjust don't quite know any more what the weather's up to.

former bbc weather presenter and keen gardener, peter gibbs, wants to do something about that, and he's found a pretty neat way to explain it to me. i think you're like this, though. all right. the big reveal... oh, wow! oh my word! look at this! is that grand or what? that is huge! that goes on forever, doesn't it? it just. .. yeah. this gives you some idea of the scale of africa. the drop here is about 1,000 metres from where we are. no, no, no, that is close enough! that's not... from the west usambara mountains, where we're standing, down to the masai plain. we're looking at hundreds of square kilometres. lots of weather going on. you can see clouds building over in the distance. most of its farmed as well... exactly. there's lots of people living out

there, but no weather station you can see. so how do you do a good forecast here without that information? that's incredible. you know, back in the uk, you would have, at least, half a dozen, perhaps 15 weather stations in that sort of area. so you can see the problem. so the satellites can't do it. because we have satellites, don't be? the satellites can do some of it. the satellites can pick up some of the clouds we can see, but can't estimate the rain how much each cloud can produce. you need those measurements of the ground. was the other parameters, like temperature, humidity, and pressure... you know, it's like any commuter programme — garbage in, garbage out. peter's advising a start—up, kukua, that wants to pepper africa with these. fully automated, self—reporting low—cost weather stations. they can be monitored from anywhere, looking up to africa's extensive mobile cell network. kukua placed their first station last year, and will have more

than 100 operating by christmas. so what do we get on our fully automatic weather station? well, we've got a bucket up here, which measures the rainfall. there's a little seesaw device in there which goes backwards and forwards for every drip that comes through. that tells us how quickly the rain is falling, as well as how much rain is falling. an anemometer a bit of giving us the wind speed and direction by the vane there at the very, very top. this is the solar panel, which powers the whole thing and is also rather cleverly used to tell us how much sunshine we're getting. just behind it in this hive kind of affair is the temperature gauge. it also measures humidity and it's stuck in there so it can't be affected by direct sunlight or more heat coming from the ground, which is dissipated by this housing. all of that data has to be collected by a panel

round at the back, which is sent to this communications unit. it has a sim card that works in every african country. what some of us would do for one of those... and then it uses this transmitter to send it all back to base. that goes back to europe, and then from the guys in europe, they will produce a model, which will give people back here a more accurate weather forecast. it's already making a difference. farmers like peter get daily text alerts, giving them a steer as to what to expect. and this farmer told us his texts have helped him decide when to add fertilizer and pesticides. we can actually make a massive difference to the farmers themselves. up to 80% yield increases. that makes the difference between eating to stay alive and sending your children to school. and it's not just the personal impact. health agencies can use improved forecasts to better predict

outbreaks of malaria or cholera. and insurers want to know if they need to pay out on policies. this information gap is holding the continent back. the coco belt in west africa is shifting. multinationals want to know which way and by how much. and it'll be selling on the big data that kokua collect that will help pay for what is looking like a pretty big job. well, across the whole of africa at the moment, there are around 500, just 500, reliable reporting weather stations. to get good coverage, you need to get up to something like 20,000. from my point of view, after my years in meteorololgy, i think it's fantastic, to me, that i feel i can make use of that experience, to actually make a difference to people's lives. that was dan simmons with peter gibbs in tanzania. we will have more reports from the african continent later this month on click.

microsoft boasts its new xbox one x is the most powerful games console in the world! they've stopped short of calling it the most powerful console in the galaxy, i suspect they're saving that accolade for the machine comes after this one. but there's good reason for all this talk of power, and that is down to what lurks under the hood of this console. it has an eight core processor running at 2.3 gigahertz, a six teraflop gpu, i2gb of memory and a 4k blu—ray player thrown in as well. this means that the machine can throw out 4k 60 frames per second graphics in hdr. stunning... what those numbers and specs mean is that this box is capable

of producing much sharper, richer and more detailed graphics than the old xbox one s, which had a maximum resolution of 1080p, which is eye—offending high definition, as it's probably now know. look at this porsche that i'm driving in forza. i've managed to bump and scrape it of a couple of times, and you can see every single dent and ding that i've put in the car, every single bit of chipped paintwork. it really is very detailed. the one x can play games made for the older xbox, but some titles will be enhanced, like rise of the tomb raider, which boasts upgraded 4k graphics and a higherframe rate, which makes everything look smoother. these enhancements won't be standardised, though. microsoft says it is up to developers to choose how they will use the brunt the one x provides. this new digital virtuosity is great if you own a 4k tv. but if you are using a hd screen,

the one x can give you a graphics bus, as well, making games look better than they would on the old machine. but how do they achieve this? witchcraft? or more precisely, super sampling, a technique that allows all the detail and information in a 4k image to be scaled down to fit into a 1080p screen, which, i suppose, is a form of silicon sorcery. apart from prettier visuals, the new machine should enjoy faster load times and, unlike its 4k console rival, the playstation 4 pro, the one x has a 4k blu—ray play fitted as well. so the box does more stuff, but the x box one is more expensive as well. microsoft is keen to see this in the world's most powerful console, but it is also the most expensive, at £a49. and i think that might be

the biggest hurdle that the xbox one x has to overcome, its price. and, as the games the machine plays are essentially the same as those on its least powerful older sibling, the one s, this console is probably appeal only going to appeal to those with spare cash burning a hole in their pocket, or those with a 4k tv on which to watch the prettier pictures the console produces. that casts gloom over everything, doesn't it, lads? what a drag he is! thanks for watching and we'll see you soon. hello and welcome to newswatch. has bbc news been too sympathetic to those wanting catalonia to be independent of spain? was newsnight right to label its special this week the problem with men? first, the week's news has again by dominated by accusations of sexual impropriety

and inappropriate behaviour. we discussed on this programme a fortnight ago complaints that the allegations against harvey weinstein had dominated the agenda to excess. now we've heard the same charge in relation to the latest slew of cases now focussed firmly on westminster. theresa may wants a new code of conduct to protect those working for mps from sexual harassment. a woman tells the bbc how a senior labour party figure persuaded her to drop allegations of rape by a party member. tonight at ten: the defence secretary michael fallon has resigned following allegations of inappropriate conduct. the allegations made against michael fallon which prompted his resignation as defence secretary and the attention given to it by bbc news prompted this anonymous telephone message. hello, i am phoning to complain about this continual witch hunt on people being sexual predators.

more worrying things are going on in the world. i agree that serious sexual predators should be in the noteworthy news item, but somebody putting their hand on your knee is not. that phrase used there, witch hunt, was picked up by other viewers, including tom parkinson, who e—mailed: and eleanor in london asked: newsnight tackled this fraught topic with a special edition on wednesday, subtitled, to the dismay of some viewers,

the problem with men. good evening. tonight, we want to reflect the new national conversation about an age—old problem. sex, power, abuse and allegation. have the rules changed?