more persistent rain expected. a breezy day and temperatures up a little bit as that breeze comes in from the southwest, 8—12 celsius. warmer air pushes into next week, but at a price — the winds will pick up widespread gales. winds may be touching 70—80 miles an hour in parts of northern scotland and we'll all see some rain at times, too. bye for now.

you're watching bbc news. i'm ben bland. the headlines at 11. two mortar rounds land near the us embassy in baghdad — as huge crowds join funeral processions in iraq, for iran's top military commander, killed by a us drone strike. iranian president rouhani visited the dead general‘s family — promising that americans will feel the impact of their actions for years ahead. fears that high winds and temperatures will push australia's bushfires towards heavily populated areas. thousands of reserve troops are deployed. the shadow brexit secretary, keir starmer, enters the race to become labour leader. he'll launch his campaign in stevenage tomorrow. councils urge the courts to impose tougher fines to curb the surge in fly—tipping. and we ll be taking an in—depth look at the papers with our reviewers benedict paviot and john rentoul —

stay with us for that. good evening. thousands of people have taken to the streets in iraq in a funeral procession for iran's most powerful military commander. general qasem suleimani was killed in an american drone strike in baghdad on thursday. iran has promised revenge for his death. tonight rockets have been fired in the iraqi capital, including near the american embassy. no casualties have been reported. here's our middle east correspondent quentin sommerville. they came in their thousands

to honour qasem soleimani and they called him a hero. to many more in iraq and beyond, he was the region's principal villain. familiar chants rang out, "death to america, death to israel". he served his iranian masters well. its regime has cast him as a proud shia martyr. in death, he has been elevated to the rank of lieutenant general. in iran there were more anti—western protests. president rouhani visited his family and again warned of harsh revenge for the assassination of the general. he said, the americans are not aware of the big mistake they made. they will face the consequences of their crime, not only today, but also in the coming years. president donald trump gave the assassination order. he is facing re—election. he was planning a very major attack and we got

him. but already doubts are being cast over the reason for the strike and there are fears that the us will cast the middle east into another war. i don't believe for a moment that he does want a war and i am sure he has calculated what the response is likely to be, but i think if he is going to be effective, there needs to be a more consistent long—term approach. thousands of american soldiers are pouring into the region. other americans have been told to leave. britain and france is advising against travel to most of iraq. the funeral continued, to karbala. after iraq, qassem soleimani's body will be flown to tehran and then to his hometown for burial. he did more thanjust serve iran overseas, he was iran overseas. and in a rare honour, the country's supreme leader will preside over final prayers, mourning the death

of his most influential general. quentin somerville, bbc news, beirut. jarret blanc was the state department coordinator for the implementation of the iran nuclear deal at the us department of state under president obama. he's now a senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace. it's very difficult to see how things de—escalate. one of both sides need to stop making escalatory decisions. at every moment over the last couple of years, both sides have chosen high risk strategy, that is certainly the case in the us strike against soleimani. so either the iranians need to step back or the us needs to absorb the retaliation without taking the next step. and when you were within the state department, how much of a concern was qasem soleimani?

i think that a mistake is being made here in the personalisation of him. obviously, he was an important, influential and effective operator within iran's regional policy and so to that extent there was concern about him. but quds force, the revolutionary guard corps — these are institutions that can survive without a single leader. so the real concern within the obama administration and everybody should have are about the country's policy at large and are not about a single individual who as important as he was is absolutely replaceable. but given this general‘s role in bolstering and in some cases orchestrating militias

across the region, do you think that, if you put aside the issues of revenge and retaliation, is the region a safer place, as president trump argues, without him? may be the region would have been a safer place had he not existed. his career his and ability to influence the region largely stemmed from us failed interventions, most importantly the iraq war. if we had not destabilised the region, he would not have had the field in which he successfully played. it's not credible that further poorly thought through us interventions are likely to lead to a greater stabilisation. i do not even think the trump administration can say with a straight face that they think that the region is safer or more stable today. there has

been a prudently dramatic increase in security arrangements around embassies and telling us citizens to get out of the area. all of that is proof that they know that the situation is more unstable and more dangerous today than it was three days ago, and that's certainly the case if you look further down to a few months as tensions between the us and iran go from a shadow conflict into a more open conflict. the queen has sent a message of condolence to australia, saying she is "deeply saddened" by the bushfires. a number of new fires have taken hold in the state of new south wales, and some residents have been warned it's too late to leave. since late september, 23 people have died. shaimaa khalil reports. it promised to be a day of danger and these bushfires have lived up to every emergency warning. the hellish combination of high temperatures, strong winds and dry conditions have

made some of these blazes too fast to control. —— vast to control. in kangaroo island, a famous holiday destination, a couple died trying to escape the inferno. they were found near their car. in victoria, the blazes continued to rage in the east. evacuees from mallacoota were getting ready to board the navy ship taking them to safety. a moment of relief, after a harrowing few days stranded in the fire—ravaged town. our only option was to go down to the foreshore and sit it out and at one stage we had 25 fire trucks with us. sorry. the prime minister, scott morrison, has said 3000 reserve troops will be deployed to help tackle the raging bush fires. the first time this has happened in australia's history. but this video he posted on twitter, showing the government's response,

accompanied by upbeat music, drew angry criticism. many accusing him of using this catastrophe as a pr opportunity. this gusty wind is now picking up very strongly and it is bringing heavy smoke to southern new south wales, here on the coast. this is what the firefighters are dreading, because it fans these blazes, making them unstoppable, but it also spreads those embers, making the fire behaviour quite unpredictable. the howling winds and billowing smoke were enough of an alarm for people in this holiday park in this coastal town. some were hosing their cabins, others took to the beach to seek refuge. this woman did not take any chances. she gathered her family, her pets and her son's wheelchair and headed straight to the shore. ijust got a phone call from a friend, whose brother is a police officer and he said, get the hell out. we have just had the police come up our street and said that they expected it

to impact our houses in the next 20 to 30 minutes. the authorities have warned that the situation is still volatile and could get worse. a foreboding and now a familiar message to the people in australia. shaimaa khalil, bbc news, on the southern coast of new south wales. the death toll in the worst flooding to hit indonesia's capital, jakarta, in over a decade has risen to 53, according to the kyodo news agency. indonesian authorities say over 170,000 people are taking refuge in shelters. the wet weather is forecast to continue until sunday, with the possibility of more extreme rains in the coming weeks. china has sacked its most senior official in charge of relations with hong kong. wang zhimin was the director of beijing's liaison office in the territory, which has seen six months of often violent pro—democracy protests. his dismissal is being seen as a sign of china's dissatisfaction with how events

have been handled there. the shadow brexit secretary, sir keir starmer, has joined the race to become the next labour leader. sir keir, who's a prominent remain supporter, will launch his leadership bid in stevenage tomorrow, calling on the party to listen to voters in order to regain their trust. he's the fifth mp to enter the contest, with prominent backbenchers lisa nandy and jess phillips also announcing their leadership bids in the past 2a hours. theyjoin the shadow treasury minister clive lewis and the shadow foreign secretary emily thornberry — who have previously announced their intention to stand. earlier, our political correspondent jonathan blake had this update on how the leadership contest is shaping up. there are already some clear differences with sir keir starmer the latest to set out his pitch to labour party members are doing on a pitch in the sunday mirror tomorrow that labour cannot hide its head in the sand and needs to rebuild

fast but in an apparent pitch tojeremy corbyn‘s support base he says the party must not lose sight of his values or retreat from the radicalism of the last few years. there is no mention of brexit at all in his pitch, and as a leading remain campaign and someone who argued half a second referendum, might be seen as out of step with labour's leave voting constituencies and voters who turned their back on the party at the election, and others in the running, permit backbenchers jess others in the running, permit backbenchersjess phillips and lisa nandy argue that the party must change direction and choose someone as leader and as much —— more in touch with their working class support base. the shadow business secretary rebecca long—bailey has yet to declare but she has long been seen as yet to declare but she has long been seen as a yet to declare but she has long been seen as a natural yet to declare but she has long been seen as a natural successor yet to declare but she has long been seen as a natural successor to jeremy corbyn, emily thornberry and clive rose from the shadow cabinet also expected to be in the mix. expect about 12 weeks now of debate about labour's future, and its future leader. two lorry drivers have died in a crash on the mi. the motorway was closed

for hours in both directions between flitwick and milton keynes after the incident just before 7 this morning. it was reopened northbound this afternoon, but police say the southbound carriageway will remain shut until further notice. police have begun a murder investigation after a man was stabbed to death in north london. the man in his 30s was attacked in finsbury park yesterday evening. friends at the scene said he worked as a food delivery moped rider. no—one has been arrested. councils in england have urged the courts to impose biggerfines to tackle the growing problem of fly—tipping. the local government association says there were more than a million offences last year, but only 5% of fines were above £1,000. richard galpin reports. this cctv footage captures the moment a lorry starts illegally dumping huge amounts of waste in the middle of the night. the premises of a small company, used by the fly—tippers to get rid of

the rubbish. in recent years, fly—tipping has been getting steadily worse, blighting the environment, causing pollution and threatening public health and wildlife. it tends to be business as trying to avoid the cost of disposal. rural areas tend to be badly affected. people walk by in quiet places to find sometimes quite large lows. —— loads. fly—tipping in england was at a comparative low ofjust over 700,000 incidents back in financial year 2012—2013. but by 2018, there had been a sharp rise to more than a million incidents. putting local councils under more pressure. that is because they are involved in clearing up and investigating the incidents. but to their frustration say too many fly—tippers are getting away with light fines when they should face heavy punishment. richard

galpin, bbc news. the headlines on bbc news: two mortar rounds land near the us embassy in baghdad — as huge crowds join funeral processions in iraq, for iran's top military commander, killed by a us drone strike. fears that high winds and temperatures will push australia's bushfires towards heavily populated areas. thousands of reserve troops are deployed. the shadow brexit secretary, keir starmer, enters the race to become labour leader. he'll launch his campaign in stevenage tomorrow. sport and for a full round—up from the bbc sport centre, here's chattan. it's fa cup third round weekend — and we've seen two top—flight sides knocked out, and some great comebacks — and what a story we had at rochdale. the league one side

held newcastle to a 1—all draw — their ao—year—old subsitute, aaron wilbraham scoring the equaliser that earned rochdale a replay at st james' park and he was almost ready to play that game, straight after today's 90 minutes! it today's 90 minutes! was a great feeling obviously. was it was a great feeling obviously. i was just happy to come on and be involved. and the second half seem to go so quickly. i could have carried on playing for another hour. i enjoyed it, and it was a great feeling to get the girl, like you say. —— to get the goal. championship side sheffield wednesday knocked out premier league opposition in brighton — adam reach blasting them into round four with a deflected long—range strike. and aston villa are also out — an absolute cracker from harry arter giving fulham a 2—1 victory at craven cottage. ca rlisle united almost

caused an upset — they're really struggling in league two but were leading cardiff city 2—0 at half time. harry mckirdy getting their second. but the championship side came back and gavin whyte earned them a 2—2 draw and a replay. league one tranmere pulled off a stunning fightback at watford. they were 3—0 down until the 65th minute, when connorjennings pulled a goal back. it was initally disallowed for offside but var overturned that decision and paul mullin completed the comeback from the penalty spot in the final minutes of the game. all the goals from all today's games are on the bbc sport website and app. to come back from 3—0 down against any team is an upset and i come back but it is a special moment against the premier league side to get the replay and get them back to our

ground ona replay and get them back to our ground on a tuesday or wednesday night. after the first goal it was a snowball effect and i thought we could go on and win it but they kept the ball better after that and realised what had happened so they area realised what had happened so they are a good side, so it was hard to get it off of them. england have the edge over south africa, after day two of the second test in cape town. the hosts slipped from 157—3 to 215—8 at the close of play — and it was ben stokes again who was the star of the show with four superb catches. adam wild reports. in cape town, a beautiful, warm day. watching on, english knights were heating up, too. into battle once more, jimmy anderson. but after yesterday's batting problems, today's opening stand was england's last and anderson didn't. not for long, anyway. gone! all out for 269. now, it may be one of the world's most picturesque grounds but right then for england, things weren't looking great. that was until stuart broad found the edge of pieter malan's bat. the ball, the game, suddenly moving at quite some pace. time, then, to get a grip of it. ben stokes, another

brilliant catch from him. zubayr hamza the latest batsman to wonderjust how he does it. and while south africa were still working it out, stokes caught hold of another. england's day brighter by the moment. rassie van der dussen too caught by an england hand but wait. replays showed a no ball. south africa with a roar of reprieve. van der dussen, along with dean elgar, added more than a hundred. still, fortune remains fickle and with stokes, england really are in great hands. here, he finally got van der dussen. moments later, he caught dwaine pretorius as well. four catches — quite a day for him and for england. jimmy anderson striking with the final ball and celebrations really started. england's day for england's knights. adam wild, bbc news. to rugby union's premiership now and gloucester had an excellent

29 points to 15 win over bath to move up to third in the table. bath led at the break, but gloucester put on a show of force in the second half, scoring three tries — this from gerbrandt grobler — to secure the bonus point. england fly—half george ford scored a try and added 11 points with the boot, as leicester tigers beat bristol 31—18, for only their second premiership win of the season. saracens ran in ten tries as they thrashed worcester warriors by 62 points to 5, to continue their recovery from that 35—point deduction at the start of the season. glasgow warriors ran in six tries to see off benetton in an enthralling pro14 contest. george horne touched down twice, as the warriors won by 38 points to 19, to stay in touch of the play—off places. there were also wins for dragons and zebre. that's all the sport for now. there are calls for

a review of surrogacy laws — to allow a child's intended parents to be recognised as such at the time of their birth. currently, parents have to apply to the courts for a child to be legally recognised as their own, which often doesn't happen. bbc scotland's, carole erskin reports. they‘ re really cute. for laura and stephen, penelope is their miracle baby. ten years ago, laura was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia. she manages her illness with daily chemotherapy tablets, but knew she always wanted a family. in 2016, she began trying for her own child. when i was first diagnosed and i went to hospital, i had a list of questions i wanted to ask. you know, am i going to die? am i going to lose my hair? will i be able to have children? and the cancer increased and increased quite rapidly and, one day i went to hospital, a nurse said to me,

"if you did get pregnant, and the cancer continued to increase, it could get to five or six months into the pregnancy and we would have to decide whether we save your life or save the baby's." and that was the most devastating blow. i felt really, really useless, and that cancer had not only taken a kind of chunk of my life — because obviously it plays on your mind that what is my life expectancy going to be? but also that it had played with my chance of having a family. and, yeah, thankfully, there was someone there to help with that. that someone was her sister—in—law, jayne. i am blessed to have a family and i know what the feeling is like to have your child and i wanted that for my brother and sister—in—law and we would do anything, as we have done, to make that happen for them. i don't see her as my child. ithink, if i had had issues and had the baby blues or post—natal depression, then, as we talked with the counsellor, then maybe surrogacy may not have

been a good option for me, but i have had no problems before. penelope's special book of herjourney. i think we always felt it was important to do so that we could write down everything we were feeling and all of the states we had gone through so that when she is old enough, maybe five years old or so, we would be able to tell her how she came into the world. baby penelope jayne tessa was born on november 23rd after being conceived by ivf on the nhs. penelope is biologically ours, so i had to go through ivf and have my eggs removed. jayne had to have injections herself as well, so there were two of us going through that and, for me to watch jayne having to go through that and know it is for us as well was really tough to take. we had a lot of ups and downs. it's not easy at all. it did not work the first time, there was a lot of upset and, actually, at the point when jayne came to tell us that

she was actually pregnant, i think i had given up hope. i really thought it was not going to happen. jayne arrived at our door with a positive pregnancy test and that was just the most incredible moment of my life. in the eyes of the law, jayne is penelope's mum and laura and stephen can apply to change this when she is six weeks old and officially become recognised as a parents. for them all, the long journey to get to here has been worth it, and it means laura has more reasons than ever to stay positive about her own health. it gives me something to live for, more than ever now, so i am determined to just carry on and stay as healthy as i can for her. it's honestly been the most wonderful, wonderful thing, so we're eternally grateful forjayne, sorry... but we all love her, so... you know... she is special. yeah. sir rod stewart has been charged

by police in florida, after he allegedly punched a security guard at a hotel. a police report says the altercation occurred after the singer and his son failed to gain access to a private event on new year's eve. he'll appear in court next month. the government's being urged to take urgent steps to tackle the rising threat of the synthetic opioid, fe nta nyl — which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin. a new report says the number of fentanyl—linked deaths in the uk rose from eight in 2008, to 135 in 2017. jamie coleman is professor of clinical pharmacology and medical education at the university of birmingham, and also chair of the government's opioid expert working group. he told my colleague lukwesa burak about the particular dangers of fenta nyl. the report suggest that actually fentanyl is getting in and being used illicitly mainly through the illicit channels and being cut

with heroin and because of its potency, it is potentially opioid abusers that might be subject to heroin that has been cut with fentanyl and because of its potency, therefore the risk of overdose through respiratory depression, eventually, is much greater than with heroin alone. but this is getting in through the illicit market rather than prescription drug diversion. when you say illicit market, what you mean by that? as heroin would get in, there are some ability to get through very convoluted online supply but also where heroin is coming into the country through illicit channels is that actually fentanyl is there as well. although it can be made and certainly in north america where the problem is much greater, there is a problem where there are people making synthetic opioids

such as fentanyl in illicit factories to sort of sell on to the black market. because it is 50 times stronger, when it is made illicitly in these drug labs, it is very difficult to control. how do we stop this? what steps need to be taken? there has been a great awareness about opioid use over the last few years. we know certainly in north america and the usa there is this opioid crisis and we want to try and prevent the uk getting into that same situation. the committee i am chairing has been looking mainly at the regulatory framework within prescription opioid use, to try and make sure that is tightly controlled. trying to make sure that health care professionals are very well educated in the use of opioids and fentanyl is a particular example where we need to educate because often health care practitioners are not aware about how potent this

drug is. is there help there for people who are using fentanyl or have been addicted to it? are the resources there within the nhs? i think the report notices and we have noted as well that at a national level, sometimes one of the reasons people do go from prescription drug use to misuse is because perhaps there isn't that support mechanism there or they don't know where to go, so it is about making sure the resources that are available to patients are much better advertised, that health care practitioners and maybe carers and patients' families are aware about the signs of potential opioid abuse and that we try and put people into the channels to try and get people off drugs. because actually of course one of the reasons people take drugs and keep taking drugs is because they are very dependent and people get withdrawal very quickly, so that needs to be managed. i'm sure there is more that can be

done in the nhs but there is a lot there already and we need to make people much more aware of that. and we ll be taking an in—depth look at the papers with our reviewers benedique paviot and john rentoul. now it's time for a look at the weather with matt taylor. overall, like today, a lot of cloud for many areas tomorrow. mostly dry with a lot of passing light showers in the west but things will turn that little bit breezy. clear skies across eastern areas tonight. this is where they could be a touch of frost into the morning. very isolated. mostly for three in the west. lots of cloud, some glimpses of sunshine but those fleeting, light showers could push through on that strengthening these in the west. the rest of scotland,

the hebrides, the highlands and shetland at time seeing that rain. shetland seeing a boost in temperatures compared with today. there will be some sunshine in the north—east of scotland, wales and parts of the midlands, and where you have got sunshine, temperatures around 10 celsius. the wins will become more southerly as we go through the night and into monday morning. it should not be too chilly to start with. some cold conditions to east anglia. those southerly winds keeping conditions around 9 degrees taking us conditions around 9 degrees taking us into monday morning. then we see a succession of low pressure system is heading our way. a deep low across iceland on monday throwing these weather fronts in our direction. a wet start for northern ireland with rain spreading across scotla nd ireland with rain spreading across scotland during the day with strong to gale force winds, then the wet and windy conditions spreading into wales and west in england for the afternoon. some parts of central england staying dry. turning sunnier to finish with over northern

ireland, and temperatures in double