Lugano (Switzerland) (AFP) – A revolution in forecasting natural disasters is underway, say researchers in Switzerland who are training AI models on vast troves of NASA climate data to produce potentially-lifesaving data at lightning speed.

They are feeding the NASA file stash into one of the world's most powerful supercomputers so artificial intelligence can speed up and expand vital weather and climate forecasting, and spot patterns scientists could not have seen.

AI models are increasingly used in weather and climate forecasting and for early detection of natural hazards.

As well as speed, they carry the promise of spotting previously imperceptible patterns in satellite and other data, potentially making it possible to flag in advance disasters like Nepal's devastating flood, which last month left thousands dead or missing.

But training such AI models requires vast amounts of high-quality climate and Earth observation data, and significant computing power.

Researchers at Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) say they now have both, after copying around 100 petabytes of publicly available NASA data onto servers adjacent to one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, known as Alps.

"This is a huge scientific opportunity," said Thomas Schulthess, an ETH computational physics professor and head of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in the southern city of Lugano.

Standing in front of rows of what look like giant filing cabinets that contain Alps, he told AFP he was excited to have all of NASA's climate data plugged directly into the machine.

"It's really enabling scientists to do things we would not even have thought of before," he said.

It took approximately a year to copy the roughly six billion NASA files onto servers connected to the supercomputer, said Reto Knutti, a climate physics professor who heads ETH's Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM).

That is equivalent to around 20 million feature-length films in terms of data volume, or around a million times the storage on a typical computer, he told AFP.

Now the researchers are using the mass of information to develop AI models that can speed up and expand vital weather and climate forecasting.

"Data is essentially everything," Knutti said.

"The next step will be making sense of the data".

That is where the proximity to the massive computing power of Alps comes in, Schulthess said, nodding to the clusters of servers humming loudly just metres (feet) from the supercomputer.

"It matters whether you can move the data within a few seconds or whether you have to wait days for the data to come," he said

New AI-generated statistical models are far faster than the traditional process of using mathematically equations to simulate the complex processes taking place in the oceans and atmosphere.

There is "a revolution in weather forecasting", Knutti said, describing the statistical models as "really, really powerful" and "incredibly fast".

Instead of the hours traditionally needed to produce a forecast, a statistical model based on pattern recognition "can run a global weather forecast for multiple days -- the whole globe -- in a minute or so", he pointed out.

And while expensive to train, the models are "cheap to run", he said, meaning "you can do more iterations, maybe every few minutes, to see if some specific weather pattern exists".

"That allows us to do early warning systems to save lives."

Not all disasters are foreseeable but those that relate to geology, like landslides and glacier collapses, can often be detected early in the data, if there is capacity to spot the pattern.

Kutti pointed to the case of the Swiss village of Blatten, which was wiped out by a dramatic glacier collapse in May last year, "that was visible in satellite data more than a year before it actually happened".

Thanks to close monitoring, Swiss authorities evacuated the village a week before the collapse, avoiding mass casualties.

Closer monitoring could also possibly have sounded the alarm before the devastating August 26 glacial collapse on the Nepal-China border.

Nature reported last week satellite image analysis showed some warning signs before the disaster, which, had they been spotted, could have flagged the area "as a hotspot warranting closer attention and monitoring".

Knutti agreed that this was a good example of how satellite data could potentially be used for "systematic observing systems for disaster prevention that could save hundreds or thousands of lives".

Tokyo (AFP) – Donning doll-like dresses with voluminous skirts, young women on stage roar in rage about rape and sexism they experienced in Japan, using theatre and "cute" fashion to denounce male-dominated society.

Meet TremendousCircus, Japan's self-described radical feminist theatre troupe that embraces the flamboyant Gothic Lolita aesthetic as a powerful symbol of womanhood and defence against sexual violence.

The global #MeToo movement hasn't caught on in Japan, and many survivors are too scared to come forward despite a handful of high-profile cases that have forced a reckoning.

Driven by what it terms "radical victim feminism", the fringe group weaves its shows with accounts of sexual violence and harassment faced by members and their fandom, collectively dubbed "militants".

During a recent performance in Tokyo, actors screamed slogans such as "war for women" as they portrayed stylised revolutionists fighting an AI tyrant dubbed "Big Father" in a dystopian future.

Dressed in pink, white and black, the nine women sported Japanese Lolita fashion, a substyle that fuses the bell-shaped silhouettes of Victorian clothing with macabre goth motifs.

"My goal is to be a role model who can show that a joyful future can await sexual violence survivors," 28-year-old actor Chino, a rape survivor who co-founded the troupe, told AFP.

Having recently concluded a legal battle surrounding her own case, Chino is determined not to let that assault define her life.

"I want to wear pretty clothes and go explore a lot of places," she said.

"That single moment when I was raped is far shorter than a whole life ahead of me that I should care about and try to enrich."

TremendousCircus, whose members agreed to be identified using their professional names, debuted in 2016 with a focus on LGBTQ rights.

The all-women group -- except for one co-founder, an openly gay man -- now charges men up to twice as much as women spectators in a dig at Japan's doggedly wide gender wage gap, double the OECD average.

From blouse to jumper skirt and drawers to petticoat, TremendousCircus's multi-layered garments are the "exact opposite of form-fitting, scant and sexually arousing clothes many men crave", said Chino.

"We can repel men while wearing pretty clothes," she said.

Members say in Japan -- which ranked 118th out of 148 economies in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index last year -- women are regularly bumped into and ogled at by men on crowded trains while subjected to patriarchal expectations for marriage and childbirth, especially in rural areas.

A 2024 government survey found that around one in 10 young people in Japan have been groped at least once, the vast majority women.

Even off stage, member Hina Haruka braves the sizzling summer heat in Gothic Lolita-style "armour", with a white lace parasol and bonnet.

"These cannot be easily taken off, so they help protect women from rape as well," the pigtailed 27-year-old told AFP.

In the Gothic Lolita world "we can wear pink and go all out with frills and cuteness no matter how old we are", she said.

"That makes me think I'm fulfilling the version of myself that I love, and valuing my feelings as a woman -- there's something very feminist about that."

Arguing that every woman in Japan is in some way a victim of its misogynistic society, Chino said radical victim feminism, which centres on the needs of sexual violence survivors, "has the potential to unite all women".

During their latest performance titled "Unite", TremendousCircus actors depicted killings of men and ferociously ripped apart AI-generated photos of men's faces.

The group does not outright disavow dating, marriage, childbirth and sex with men like some radical feminists do in South Korea, for example, Chino said.

Instead, "we welcome all women", including mothers and sex workers, because "women should be free to live however they want", she said.

Formerly in prostitution, Mizuki Shikyoin recalls being systematically "groomed" by her male boss.

"Now I know. Everything I thought was 'given' by a boyfriend or a pimp through rape and sex was in fact what was taken away from me," the 27-year-old bellowed in an anguish-filled monologue during "Unite".

"I used to think I was helpless without men, but I was wrong. I can't do everything alone, but when women help each other we can do anything," Shikyoin told AFP.

The message resonated deeply with the dozens of audience members, most of them women, who smiled and sobbed as three-hour "Unite" ended.

"It made me realise how our society is centred around men and understand why my life hasn't gone well sometimes," Ayaka, 37, told AFP, only giving her first name.

"I can live a bit more positively now."

Hong Kong (AFP) – A Hong Kong court handed three Tiananmen vigil activists jail sentences of between five and seven years on Friday for national security crimes, following a trial that has drawn international condemnation.

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, Albert Ho, 74 and Chow Hang-tung, 41 have been behind bars since they were charged in 2021. Their sentences are expected to include time already served.

The United Nations, rights groups and foreign governments have condemned their convictions under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.

A court ruled in August that the activists had breached the Chinese constitution by calling for an "end to one-party dictatorship".

Lee and Chow, who pleaded not guilty, were sentenced to seven years and seven years and three months respectively, AFP journalists in court heard.

Ho, a former lawmaker who pleaded guilty in January, got five years and two months.

The verdict read that although the case did not involve violence, and the defendants had not put forward a specific timetable to carry out an "end to one-party dictatorship", their offence was still of "a serious nature".

Chow, a barrister who represented herself, told a hearing last month that she had "nothing to repent for".

She raised both arms and waved at supporters as she was escorted out by officers.

Supporters outside court hugged her mother, Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun, who said her daughter had maintained high spirits during the trial.

"She is not a competent barrister. She is simply an outstanding defendant," her mother said.

Lee crossed himself, smiled and bowed at his wife Elizabeth Tang Yin-ngor and supporters, including high-profile activist Cardinal Joseph Zen, who stood outside gripping each others' hands.

"I'm really sad, and very angry," Tang told reporters, saying Lee would "definitely appeal".

Dozens of police swarmed around the court and set up cordons holding back crowds.

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Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – At least five people were killed and nearly 70 others wounded on Thursday when a Russian strike hit a shopping centre in Pavlograd, central Ukraine, the authorities announced.

The attack came as both sides step up long-range barrages on each other hundreds of kilometres behind the front lines, increasingly targeting civilian sites alongside factories, refineries, warehouses and ports.

According to statistics verified by the United Nations, civilian deaths in Ukraine are running at their highest rate since the first months after Russia invaded in February 2022.

"The Russians struck a shopping centre in Pavlograd city centre. It happened in broad daylight whilst the streets were packed with people," Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said on Telegram.

Regional governor Oleksandr Ganja gave an updated toll of five dead and 67 wounded, including eight children, as well as damage to commercial premises and vehicles.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga called it "deliberate terror against civilians".

"Russia is systematically attacking places where it knows people will be spending their time going about their daily lives, seeking to maximise casualties, spread fear, and put pressure on Ukrainian society," he added.

"This is a tactic of coercion. Russia believes that relentless attacks on civilians can exhaust Ukrainians and force Ukraine into concessions."

Just over the border in Russia's Belgorod region, a Ukrainian drone strike on the town of Novy Oskol killed one person and wounded six others, according to the rescue services.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that talks on ending Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II could happen this month but the Kremlin has said it was "too early" to discuss a venue or dates.

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Rabat (AFP) – Morocco said on Thursday there were "no facts" establishing its involvement in the massive migrant rush into Spain's North African exclave of Ceuta in July.

More than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco on July 30 and 31 in an unprecedented, chaotic surge that left scores dead and sparked European Union infighting over the touchy issue of migration.

The Moroccan foreign ministry said there were "no facts or reports proving any involvement by the Moroccan authorities".

The ministry added that Rabat refused to become the "scapegoat for political score-settling" in Spain.

The statement marked the kingdom's first official reaction to a Spanish police report accusing Morocco's security forces of "total permissiveness" when the mass crossing took place.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has consistently avoided blaming Morocco, noting that there was no "solid proof" that the North African country orchestrated the migrant rush.

On Wednesday, Spain declassified intelligence reports that had warned of potential "mass entries" by migrants into Ceuta just before the incident happened.

A declassified military intelligence document on July 30 states that it is "highly likely that the Moroccan authorities are not actively encouraging the migratory wave, but have so far acted in a negligent and passive manner".

But Sanchez on Wednesday said on X that with the information available "no one could have foreseen the migration crisis that unfolded".

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Kabul (AFP) – The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid group, Jan Egeland, criticised on Thursday what he called the "hypocrisy" of countries demanding rights for Afghan women while cutting humanitarian assistance.

Afghanistan has seen a sharp decline in international aid since 2021, when the Taliban authorities returned to power. They have since imposed a series of rules limiting women's access to education and public life.

In an interview with AFP in Kabul, Egeland said that it was right of foreign countries "to demand, like we do, education for Afghan girls, work rights for Afghan women".

"But it is hypocrisy when one does that from abroad in a seminar in some capital in Europe and cut aid for food to Afghan girls and even for primary education for Afghan girls," he said.

International aid to Afghanistan has dropped sharply, with the United Nations saying it had received less than 30 percent of the funding needed to provide life-saving assistance as of late August.

The humanitarian situation has been further worsened by several natural disasters and the forced return of millions of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan since 2023.

Acute child malnutrition has reached critical levels this year, affecting around one million children, UNICEF warned in August.

"The funding cuts are disastrous for the girls and the women of Afghanistan and those who believe that it is a good thing punishing the Taliban by taking away aid from the Afghan people, as some seem to believe, haven't understood anything of the realities here," said Egeland, who was touring his organisation's projects across Afghanistan.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) employs around 400 people, including women, in the country, providing food aid, education, shelter and protection for vulnerable communities.

Egeland said the NRC was forced to lay off "female aid workers and female teachers on the primary school level for girls because we don't have enough money".

Some 175 centres offering services related to combatting gender-based violence have shut down due to a lack of funding in the first six months of this year, affecting 1 million people, according to the UN.

An Afghan woman working for an international humanitarian group told AFP this week that "when you see the cuts every year in aid, you start to feel hopeless".

"These organisations are one of the last opportunities for us" to work, said the woman, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

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Berlin (AFP) – The leader of the United Arab Emirates was on a state visit to Germany on Thursday that resulted in a promise to invest 40 billion euros ($46.5 billion) into Europe's top economy.

The money would partly pay for data centres with a capacity of up to one gigawatt, Berlin said, and an "Investment Council" would be set up to boost business links between the two nations.

The Gulf is a key source of capital for the AI boom as oil-rich states in the region seek to invest their energy wealth.

"The UAE invests for the long term and builds partnerships that endure," UAE Industry Minister Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said.

"Germany has been an important strategic and economic partner for decades and the additional 40 billion euros intended investment reflects our ambition to invest in that relationship."

Berlin had earlier rolled out the red carpet for President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who met Chancellor Friedrich Merz after earlier being received with military honours by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Security was tight for the visit, with Berlin cordoning off flag-lined streets and deploying large numbers of police.

The visit comes as the US war against Iran has roiled the Gulf region, with President Donald Trump's erratic diplomacy unsettling many midsize powers and leading them to diversify their strategic and economic partnerships.

Merz visited the Gulf region in February, shortly before the US-Israeli war started against Iran. He said then that "we need such partnerships more than ever at a time when major powers are increasingly dominating politics".

The UAE is Germany's largest trading partner in the Gulf, with bilateral trade topping $15 billion last year, and many big German companies have a presence there including BMW, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp and rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

German and Emirati companies had signed a further 29 agreements with a total value of 9.4 billion euros during the visit, Berlin said.

The UAE meanwhile has made major investments in Germany, including in the chemical industry and offshore wind power.

During Merz's visit in February, German energy giant RWE and Abu Dhabi's national oil company ADNOC signed a memorandum of understanding on LNG imports over the next decade.

Gulf countries have also long bought defence equipment from Germany and have shown interest in start-ups that make drones to bolster NATO's deterrence efforts against Russia.

Germany, the largest EU economy, supports talks towards a European Union free trade deal with the Emirates.

The group Human Rights Watch called on German leaders during the visit to "publicly call out the United Arab Emirates' human rights record and its role in regional conflicts".

In the Sudan war, the UAE is widely accused of arming the Rapid Support Forces, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

"The German government's lack of will to publicly address the UAE's devastating role in Sudan is deeply troubling," said HRW Germany director Philipp Frisch.

No joint press conference between Merz and Sheikh Mohamed was scheduled.

Bukavu (DR Congo) (AFP) – A fire ripped through a school in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu on Thursday, sparking a stampede that killed at least 14 children, local and health sources said.

The blaze began while the children were in lessons, forcing some to try to escape by jumping from higher floors, a teacher told AFP.

"In the middle of class, I suddenly heard students screaming, some were jumping from the upper floors, and others were running away through the doors," Simon Kasamira, a teacher at Ujamaa primary school, told AFP at a clinic where he had been admitted.

"Parents came from all over looking for their children. That's when I saw a huge fire engulfing our school built of wooden planks," he added.

Smoke rose from the site of the fire and locals picked through the wreckage, an AFP correspondent saw.

Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, has been controlled since February 2025 by the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group after stepping up its campaign to seize swathes of mineral-rich eastern DRC.

The city on the shores of Lake Kivu is known for its wooden houses built on hillsides, where deadly fires often break out.

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Sanaa (AFP) – Yemen's Houthis seized control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha on Thursday, a Yemeni military source told AFP, as the Iran-backed group reported fresh strikes by Saudi forces.

The Houthis, who control large parts of northwest Yemen, launched a large-scale offensive last week against Yemeni government forces, who are backed by Saudi Arabia.

They also launched attacks on Saudi territory that left dozens of people wounded, in a conflict that has reignited during the Middle East war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.

Witnesses told AFP they saw Houthi forces entering Mokha on Thursday while chanting "death to America, death to Israel".

The Yemeni military source said they were advancing towards the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait "after having taken control of Mokha".

The waterway, which links Asia to Europe via the Red Sea and Suez Canal, has gained importance as a transit route since the start of the wider Middle East war, which saw Iran blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

The military source said the Houthis also seized Zuqar Island, in the southern Red Sea, "after rocket attacks and a ground assault carried out using boats transporting fighters".

Also on Thursday, the Houthis reported airstrikes.

"The Saudi enemy's air force conducted around 40 strikes in recent hours in the governorates of Taiz, Hodeida, Al-Jawf and Marib," Houthi news agency Saba said.

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Paris (France) (AFP) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called on Europe to develop its own crewed spaceflight capability within a decade as part of a broader push to strengthen the continent's space sector.

Macron made the call during an international space summit held in Paris this week, which was shown the cold shoulder by several US companies including SpaceX and Blue Origin.

"We want Europe to assert its ambition in crewed spaceflight," he said.

"Our European space programme remains fragile and we must step up our efforts."

His call follows that of European Space Agency (ESA) chief Josef Aschbacher who late Wednesday appealed to ministers and dignitaries in a closed-door meeting for more resources to develop an independent European space sector.

"Will we be passengers or pilots?" Aschbacher asked, in a copy of his speech provided to AFP.

Aschbacher pointed to the rapid development in space technology by countries around the world from satellite development to the exploration of the Moon and Mars.

"In this emerging context, Europe must position itself as an indispensable partner, with its own capabilities," he said.

Europe has in recent years sought greater independence in space but has never sent a manned mission, instead relying on the rockets and capsules of Russia and the United States.

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Colombo (AFP) – Sri Lanka's Supreme Court overturned Thursday a presidential pardon granted to a hardline Buddhist monk and ordered him to serve the remainder of a six-year prison sentence for intimidating the wife of a missing cartoonist.

The ruling marks a major setback for Galagodaatte Gnanasara, 51, a Buddhist nationalist monk whose critics accuse him of fuelling anti-Muslim sentiment and religious tensions in Sri Lanka.

A three-judge bench ruled that the pardon granted by then president Maithripala Sirisena in May 2019 was "arbitrary and invalid".

The court reinstated Gnanasara's sentence and ordered his return to prison.

The case was brought by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and Sandya Eknaligoda, whose husband, political cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, disappeared in 2010 and remains missing.

Rights groups had opposed the clemency, arguing it undermined the rule of law.

Gnanasara, leader of the nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, was jailed in 2018 after being convicted of intimidating Sandya Eknaligoda during proceedings linked to the investigation into her husband's disappearance.

The monk had appeared at a magistrate's hearing to support military intelligence officers accused of abducting Prageeth Eknaligoda, whose cartoons were critical of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

During heated exchanges in court, Gnanasara accused the missing cartoonist and his wife of supporting Tamil extremists and damaging the reputation of the military.

The court later convicted him of criminal intimidation and sentenced him to six years in prison.

However, Sirisena personally intervened and granted Gnanasara a presidential pardon in 2019 after the monk had served less than a year of his sentence.

The decision drew condemnation from rights advocates.

The monk remained politically influential after his release.

In 2020, then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him to head a committee on legal reforms.

Gnanasara later served a separate nine-month prison term over remarks deemed insulting to Islam and for inciting religious hostility in the Buddhist-majority nation.

He allegedly has close ties with Myanmar's ultranationalist monk Wirathu, who is accused of stoking religious tensions there.

Wirathu visited Sri Lanka at Gnanasara's invitation shortly after anti-Muslim riots in 2014 that left four people dead.

Both monks have portrayed themselves as defenders of Buddhism against what they describe as Islamist extremism, although Gnanasara has denied any role in the riots.

Vienna (AFP) – The IAEA board of governors on Wednesday voted to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear "non-compliance" in a diplomatic move to pile pressure on the Islamic republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not had access to key nuclear facilities in Iran since Israel, joined by the United States, launched a 12-day conflict in June 2025 that included strikes on nuclear sites.

Nuclear facilities have also been hit in the latest war, which erupted on February 28, and the IAEA has repeatedly urged to be given access.

The resolution, seen by AFP, was adopted by 23 votes in favour, three votes against and eight abstentions, two diplomats told AFP. Russia, China and Niger voted against it.

It "requests the (IAEA) director general to report" Iran to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The resolution, submitted by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, marks the first time Iran has been referred to the Security Council in 20 years for failing to comply with its nuclear reporting obligations.

The move is seen as largely symbolic as Iran allies China and Russia hold power to veto any sanctions against Tehran.

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