this is d w news alive a from a in australia's prime minister is forced to apologize for vacationing in hawaii while parts of his country but thousands of firefighters are struggling to contain a catastrophic blazes across several states will go to sydney for the very latest also coming up pakistan sentences a professor to death so blasphemy some celebrated the ruling in court but rights groups are condemning it and. to reverse course and like to say she told me

german football league heading into the winter break a 31 win at home to old school was enough to guarantee that least in the bundesliga all action i'm much more coming up later in the show. mackinnon thanks so much for joining us australia's prime minister scott morrison has been forced to apologize for taking a holiday at the height of the devastating bushfire crisis emergency crews are struggling to contain hundreds of blazes around sydney a combination of record temperatures drought and powerful winds is fueling the inferno at least 9 people have now been killed since the fires began but there is hope at last a break in the weather. the air is acrid the pool of smoke. dense the impact

on people's health can be serious smoldering ruins in the town of lythgoe in the blue mountains. there's a. lot of. logs last year. you. know. the village of balmoral has been almost entirely destroyed the fire came so fast steve harrison didn't have time to escape the day before i had actually built myself a small down the back. side to kill. just big enough for me to crawl inside my head in there for half an hour before. saturday was catastrophic sunday less so it was cooler firefighters could make some progress in containing fires but the fire chief made very clear the crisis is far from over. we've got to keep in mind that we're not

expecting any rainfall to mike any meaningful difference for those 4 hours until january january february that's the way to go i was still talking 4 to 6 weeks at best before we start to see a meaningful reprieve in the weather australia has already been fighting wildfires for months extreme heat and drought brought about an early start to the fire season challenging weeks still lie ahead for the public and the firefighters who are battling not only blazes but also exhaustion. and journalist roger may not joins me now from sydney roy just sunday did bring some relief from the extreme heat but has that helped the firefighters much. well to a certain it's in the air some of the weather is a lot cooler here today and that's given firefighters a much needed breather and doesn't mean the emergency is over but it's certainly looking a little bit easier to control a strong southerly wind sydney over the weekend cool temperatures and also

dissipated much of the smoke we've been suffering here for the past few weeks but that's the good news is the bad news is that omega fire in the blue mountains west of sydney continues to reach through bush land and this morning there are also details of the merging of another major fire loss in south australia. cuddly creek in the adelaide hills it's now known that 70 homes have been destroyed there and $227.00 motor vehicles and in another major fire which you were alluding to were just now wist of sydney the small community of moro has been literally devastated by a ferocious blaze overnight which seems to have destroyed much of the village now balmoral is home to about 400 people i was very close there only yesterday a lovely part of the world normally but many of the $150.00 houses are not believed to be lost i will say where to bushfires blue mountains are also causing problems

you say extraordinary levels of destruction you're talking about here the prime minister has now apologized after returning from his holiday in hawaii given the situation how's that gone down with australians. well not particularly well i mean australians are basically pretty cynical people and they have girl over top of politicians particularly politicians all prime ministers ago and all in a time like this he's been known to criticized and lampoon do 'd a certain extent on social media pilloried in the newspapers here and he's under a lot of pressure politically so he's pulling out all the stops to repair the damage and try to enhance his image this morning he went to the rule far service headquarters in sydney then to all the offices there for their efforts and up at a press conference he did accept criticism leveled at him and apologize for any offense caused by his absence over the past week all right fred jemaine out in

sydney think he say much. like. ok let's have a look at some of the other stories making news around the world. in hong kong police and activists have clashed over china's treatment of it's an ethnic minority police was seen striking protesters with batons and making arrests the protesters say china is abusing and estimated one to 2000000 muslims detained in camps beijing denies the abuse. at least 18 prisoners have been killed during riots in the jail in honduras the fighting broke out in a prison located in the northern port town of tele relatives of the dead prisoners gathered to collect the bodies for burial. the president of afghanistan ashraf ghani seems headed for a 2nd preliminary results suggest he wanted september's election with just over half of the votes the announcement had been delayed by irregularities and

a recount is nearest rival abdullah abdullah is currently the country's chief executive. and cuber is getting its 1st prime minister in more than 40 years tourism minister. cruz takes over the post last held by communist leader fidel castro is expected to share responsibilities with president. a plan to decentralize power. now of course in pakistan has sentenced a former university lecturer to death for blasphemy tonight have feasts was accused of making social media posts insulting islam when he was a university that in 2013 prosecution lawyers celebrated the verdict by handing out sweets in the courtroom the trial took place in the mall tahn a city in central pakistan tonight how faeces lawyer denounced the decision.

and. it will. be. the. i can join now by shamming all shams from de w.'s asia desk channel the verdict has been called a gross miscarriage of justice by rights groups what other reactions have there been to this. most marcus not human rights are terrorist and organizations have got to go do you condemn their decision. it's a travesty of justice there was not 6 fair trial for a few days he was accused like 6 years ago and he was put in prison he was a solitary confinement there has not been any fair trial so there are huge question marks about the trial and the organization has the sections have condemned it

at the same time. many people in congress i'm just blast i mean it's a very sensitive issue here in pakistan very kind of assume that it was a good decision because any. should be fun i got it just not now pakistan's tall tough blasphemy laws are controversial critics say they used to actually target minorities and liberal activists is that right it is right because their own. laws that were introduced in the 1980s bahrain and islam this military dictator have been used against religious minorities the diamond again and also very secular people in pakistan so whenever you have to start to look 1st let's go all or there are certain. laws. in those laws so

they are used against religious minorities as well as secular muslims or they should be condemned and mug now has his lawyer says he wants to appeal the court's ruling is there any chance that all of the defendants death sentence could be reversed. well the owners i believe will take it to the supreme court we hope there will be a fair trial. blaster me a sponsorship death in pakistan so it is very different girl even for the course as you saw a christian woman on the skase that she spent 10 years in prison on false accusations of blasts of blasphemy and at the same time. mobs do to punish the culprits themselves the so-called culprits so it is a very difficult situation the hope that there would be a fair trial supreme court. will be allowed to present as lawyers will be presenting their viewpoint and also another way that have the script be pardoned by

the president of pakistan. it's read it but we have to see but we have to. be sure not to. not many. blasphemers have been punished by the supreme court they have not been executed i think chinatowns from the desk thank you very much thanks very much for having me. some sports news now and german football lights all on top of the. christmas break the team secured the top spot with a 31 win at home to alex book. how sport coach martin schmidt managed to smile as he greeted his counterpart helio not bill's maan. against leipzig of all teams philip max would have to sit out the match with a sore throat leaving it all up to his strike partner saw the need election.

and he rose to the occasion opening the scoring for the visitors with their 1st chance in just the 8th minute was the 8th goal of the season for the summer newcomer up my checking video replay for a possible offside took 2 and a half minutes which is bad just fuel the fire for opponents of the system who say it kills the mood was after that leipzig woke up to a but they couldn't capitalize on any of their 1st half chances was but that changed in the 68 minutes when conrad lima got hold of the ball. the austrian netting the long overdue equaliser my it was like 616th shot in the game and they finally managed to take advantage of one i might say wanted to make sure they went into the winter break top of the table and that was guaranteed 12 minutes

later when patrick shit i shut off felix. and headed in to make it to what my might say played a clever game the rest of the way team obana stepped on the gas and set up substitute use of pulse and i to tap in and round out the 31 scoreline in the final minutes of my. own it's all very top. all the top teams are there in the mix they'll be a lot of big things happening for us in spring we won't. be doing this. next year. we'll see in the summer origins but 1st leipzig will be having a merry christmas there at the top of the table. and let's take a look at all the results so far on match day 17 has. ended schoolis by and beat will spoke as we just saw their lights came from behind to defeat spork

cologne downed that blame in cheika and drew last to 10 man leave our crews in on friday hoffenheim beat dortmund and on sunday descent off. and frankfurt travel to pot a ball. now here is a festive tradition for you that does not involve food or drink but can make your wallet a lot in spain the winning numbers have been announced in the world's richest lottery called el gordo all the fat. that is the sound of 2 school children singing the wind winning numbers the lottery is hugely popular and is handing out more than 2000000000 euros in prizes this year people in the spanish capital madrid stood in line all night for the chance to be part of the television audience and watch the drill. you're watching news live from berlin coming up next well stories reports on melting ice

in the russian arctic that's really releasing dangerous bacteria and the indian swimming champion. it's an extraordinary story there's a get you can always get the latest news on our web site that is now in the new coopers mackinnon in berlin thanks so much for playing. with different languages we fight for different things that's fun but we all speak up for freedom freedom of speech and freedom of press. giving freedom for its global news that matters w made for mines. for 15 years of religions for peace people from many different states are working together toward a common goal.