least 11 people dead. new evacuations have been issued in the pacific palisades area as it continues to burn. our neighbourhood and neighbours have been eviscerated. it's devastating to see people's lives and livelihoods completely wiped out. rachel reeves has become the most senior official from the uk to visit china for 7 years. the chancellor has announced trade agreements with beijing worth £600 million to the uk over the next five years. a french woman whose father was convicted last month in a mass rape trial says he should never be released from jail. caroleen darian — the daughter of gisele pelicot — spoke to the bbc in her first broadcast interview since the trial. hello. let's return to our top story and those fires in los

angeles, where the authorities have declared a local health emergency due to poor air quality as fire ash and smoke blanket the area. there are at least five fires still raging across the city and the surrounding area and any progress in containing them is very limited. at least 11 people are now known to have died. meanwhile, california's governor, gavin newsom, has called for an investigation into how water shortages have hampered firefighting efforts. these are live pictures from the city. forecast for more strong winds are raising fears that the blazes could spread further and a red flag warning indicating critical fire conditions is in place. it is set to make things even harder for the already exhausted emergency workers who are being reinforced from as far away as canada. as we mentioned, the forecast is for another round of the high desert winds that

have caused such devastation in the last few days in terms of spreading the fire so quickly and making it difficult for the planes and helicopters to get up planes and helicopters to get up there and douse the flames, that was a problem in the first instance, if you remember. forecasters saying that critical fire conditions over the night saturday into sunday, especially in areas that are in high terrain. there were reports that a critical reservoir was off—line when the fire started and the california governor has said he is ordering an independent review to determine why the firefighters ran out of water early. he said it was a deeply troubling situation. as you can see, the smoke is very intense and the fire is raging closer to more houses. so far, we understand around 12,000 buildings have been destroyed by the fires and as we mentioned, at least five if not

six fires throughout the area that are making it more difficult for the response as it is spread over a large area. one of the areas which has been badly hit by the fires is pacific pallisades. 0ur los angeles correspondent emma vardy sent this update from there. we've come for a morning walk today down what is basically the local high street in pacific palisades. this is the bank. cash machine, bank of america. here's where you'd come and get your petrol. just totally gutted. everywhere, there's signs of things people have had to leave behind. a little note on this car here just says, "key melted in shell station." it is really hard to comprehend how life is ever going to get back to normal here. and here's the local supermarket where you come

and do your shopping, grab a trolley. you can see all the shelves where the food would have been. still wearing this mask because, whether you can see or not, the air is still thick with toxic fumes and it stings your eyes and it tastes awful. and you can see why people are comparing it to a war zone. i don't want to diminish the horror of a war zone, but that's what this feels like, just without, thankfully, without the mass death. but it's really the only way to try to describe it. emma reporting there. you can almost hear that the smoke is affecting her breathing there. earlier, we heard from lindon pronto, a senior wildfire management expert at the european forest institute.

lindon started his career as a firefighter in california with the us forest service. 15 years fire management experience across ten countries. he explains whether he's ever experienced something of this magnitude. of course, this is a tragedy of immense proportions. in urban conflagration, this is a new type of fire that we've been seeing. also in european countries as well, just very large fires being blown directly into very urban areas with very catastrophic losses. and just talk us through the firefighters on the ground now, they're desperately trying to contain these fires. how do they do that? it's a combination of tactics. i mean, first priority is, of course, saving lives, helping people get safely evacuated. that's what complicates, particularly an urban situation versus a wildland fire burning out in an unpopulated area. so there's a lot of, you know, first priority on life, which means that there's not directly a strategy yet on how to actually contain the fire itself. it's very much focused on, saving lives and then pivoting to saving

property where possible. and eventually now, you know, we're in day four now of this particular scenario, and we'rejust, you know, as of yesterday, now focusing on, you know, containing the fire itself because as we see now, it's burning into the next residential areas are coming close to. so it's a very, very dynamic situation that's quickly evolving all the time, particularly with high winds. with containment numbers, these are always very conservative. so only once they have the fire contained, which means a barrier or, you know, confirmed extinguished along the flanks, do they start releasing higher containment numbers. so it is always to be expected, particularly in a scenario where mostly it's, you know, properties that are burning, to have a low containment like this, because it was not the priority to contain the fire at first. so i would hope and expect for that containment to go up in the coming days and certainly before, you know, the weather conditions worsen again

and, you know, they're off to the races again if, if it's not contained. but these fires take, you know, usually a couple of weeks to actually fully extinguish, because it's an urban fire in a sense. it's almost like we expect it to be out, like, you know, putting out a house fire, but these are wildland fires, and they do move as such and they're burning both urban and wildland areas and it will take many days, if not weeks, to extinguish fully. now, richard weintraub is a resident of la who was among those who battled to save his home. he told my collague nicky schiller how his family were coping. i think we are in denial. if we were to go through the levels of emotion, it's been a tremendous roller—coaster. we've really blast that our home has been saved, it has tremendous damage to it, we will continue on but our neighbourhood and our

neighbours have been eviscerated. it's really devastating to see generations of people's lives and livelihoods completely wiped out. it's really hard. you've centred some videos of how you defended your home which we are going to show, just tell us first what happened and what you did? so, in 1993, my wife and i had lost our home in a fire in malibu, ironically. i saw how that played out and i didn't like the end of that story and so i decided against advice to stay and to fight the fire and i got three houses going with powerful nozzles to wet down all the foliage around us and to wet the ground and to put out the embers. the smoke was incredibly thick, you could not breathe, but i was there for many hours alone. by the grace of god, and a lot of blessings and prayers, our home was saved. but it was not without danger in doing so. by the grace of god, and a lot of blessings and prayers,

our home was saved. but it was not without danger in doing so. we are seeing the pictures, and the flames are so close to you, why did you decide to stay? i think when you get to situations like this, just being realistic... when it comes down to it, people can say, we feel so bad for you or whatever, but you are on your own, when you are on your own, you have to protect what is yours, and i talked to some firefighters, not in this neighbourhood, who have said, keep the embers away from the house, you have a reasonable chance of success. so, that's what i chose to do. i was told by my wife and by our friends to get the hell out of there, excuse my language, but i realise that if worse came to worse, i could jump on a fire truck and get out of the neighbourhood. i'm not saying i did the smartest thing in the world but at the end of the day,

our home is still standing and i stand by what i did. it was very, very hot. and it was actually quite painful when some of the embers came, and... briefly, where do you go from here? we have friends, we went to their homes in the hills, fortunately we were evacuated from there, we have our three dogs with us, our kids are in college that we aren't as concerned with them, we were evacuated to a house in hollywood, a couple of hours later we were evacuated to a house in beverly hills, where we were able to stay the night and now we are down in the coachella valley which is around two hours away, which is well known as palm springs, palm desert area which is where we are now, where we go from here i am not sure. a major search is continuing

for two sisters who were last seen in aberdeen city centre on tuesday. eliza and henrietta hoostee�*s brother has told the bbc they seemed "fine" in the days running up to their disappearance. 0ur correspondent catriona renton is in aberdeen and sent us this update. a lot of concern for the two sisters, who are part of a set of triplets. now, they were last seen at 2.00 in the morning on tuesday. of course, now we're well into saturday morning. we've seen some police officers in the last few minutes walking along the banks here of the very icy river. i don't know if you can see the chunks of ice floating on the surface of the water. that gives you an idea ofjust how bitterly cold it is here. and with those sisters having been gone for such a long time now, we are hoping for some updates about their safety and that they are, we hope, still safe and well. but of course, people are searching. there is this enormous search

yesterday with the police divers looking in the river dee and in the land around about. there are a lot of industrial units in this area of aberdeen, and people have been asked to check their cctv footage, and drivers have been asked to check their dash cam footage in case there are any clues to where eliza and henrietta could be now. and as we said, they were last seen here at around 2.00am in the morning of tuesday. now, the women are triplets. they are originally from a small village in eastern hungary. the bbc has spoken to their sister, edith. she said that she spoke to the women on new year's eve and that they seemed happy and cheerful, and their brother joseph has also spoken to the bbc, and he said that their mother spoke to them on saturday for a ao—minute long conversation, and that there was nothing out of the ordinary that came up. now, yesterday, police told us that extensive inquiries were continuing to try and find the women.

as i said, businesses, drivers, anyone with any sort of footage that might have been filmed in the early hours of tuesday morning or indeed after that. they are hoping people will get in touch with them. it's unusual, we've heard for these ladies to be out at this time of night, and of course, concern growing. but police have said that at this stage, there is nothing to suggest anything suspicious has happened. the far—right party alternative for germany has for the first time nominated a candidate for chancellor ahead of next month's snap general election. alice weidel, who is the party's co—leader, was chosen by acclamation without a formal vote at the alternative for germany's conference earlier today in the eastern town of riesa. it comes after the conference was delayed by thousands of protestors outside the venue shouting, "no to nazis." the police said at least 8,000 demonstrators were present. the two—day conference is hosting some 600 afd delegates who look to agree on the party's election programme.

let's speak to dw journalist hans pfeifer, who specialises in far—right politics. he is speaking to us from riesa, where the conference for the afd party is taking place. thank you very much for being with us. tell us a little about the afd position as we go into the afd position as we go into the election campaign, how are they doing?— they doing? alternative for germany — they doing? alternative for germany is _ they doing? alternative for germany is presenting - they doing? alternative forl germany is presenting itself very strong and united, if you have in mind that this party still has a lot of friction and they are not united in all their wings and all their parts. this is something they managed to do, they managed to present themselves as highly professional in front of these upcoming elections as highly and tight migrant party. that is a core agenda. they are opposing migration to germany and still, they said that alice weidel should be the next chancellor of germany. they are prepared to be in opposition.

with the latest poll, it suggests they have around 20% support, they are even with that they are unlikely to get close to power. explain why that is. , u, close to power. explain why that is. , _, ., close to power. explain why that is. , . ., ., that is. they could not reach to become — that is. they could not reach to become the _ that is. they could not reach to become the second - that is. they could not reach - to become the second strongest party, but there are no other party, but there are no other party is willing to form a coalition with the afd, because of their strong far right ties, even with extreme organisations and we have to keep in mind that some of the most popular afd politicians, like the leader of the rink was convicted twice last year for using a national socialist parole form out of hitler's stone tutors. this is... no one wants to form a coalition with them. ., , ., wants to form a coalition with

them. . , ., , them. talent is a little bit about afd _ them. talent is a little bit about afd and _ them. talent is a little bit about afd and elon -