this is doubly news live from berlin australia's prime minister is forced to apologize for vacationing in hawaii well vast areas of his country thousands of firefighters are struggling to contain catastrophic blazes across several states will get an update from sydney also coming up afghanistan's president ashraf ghani appears to have been reelected by a narrow bomb and long delayed results from september's elections but his rival up the up the ones he will not concede of course on the left has the details. and

luxation top league german football league heading into the winter break a 3 want to win that home to old school was enough to guarantee their lead in the book to speak at that and coming up later in the show. i knew it was mackinnon thanks very 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 all 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 there is some hope so at last of a break in the weather. the air is acrid the dense smoke is causing

serious health problems. laid waste in the town of lythgoe 80 kilometers west of sydney. and. the fire storm all but wiped the village of balmoral southwest of sydney off the map the flames came so fast that steve harrison had no time to escape. the day before. getting there for. saturday was catastrophic sunday. it was cooler and firefighters could make some progress in containing the flames

but the crisis is far from over. we've got to keep in mind that we're not expecting any rainfall to make any meaningful difference to those farmers until january january february. still talking 4 to 6 weeks at best before we start to see a meaningful reprieve in the weather committee. has already been fighting wildfires for months extreme heat and drought gave this year's fire season an early start. prime minister scott morrison returned from a vacation in hawaii after widespread public criticism earning the nickname smoke for not being present during the country's worst ever fire in the agency he said he was sorry if his absence it caused offense a response that many have branded as inadequate. challenging weeks still lie ahead for the public and the firefighters who are battling not only the flames but also

extreme exhaustion. and journalist roger may not joins me now from sydney rudd just sunday did bring some relief from the extreme heat but has that helped the firefighters much. or 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 passes sydney over the weekend that's 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 a mega fire in the blue mountains west of sydney continues to reach through bush land and this morning there are also details of averting of another major fire loss in south australia at 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 worst of sydney the small community of lowell 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 2 bushfires blue mountains are 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 talk about politicians particularly politicians all prime ministers ago and all of the time

like this he's been know it criticized and lampoon do 'd a certain extent on social media or it 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. second about some of the other stories making news around the world. in hong kong police have broken up assists in protesting against china's treatment of its riga ethnic minority police was seen striking protesters with making arrests the protesters say china is abusing more

than 1000000 muslims held in camps beijing denies the abuse. indian prime minister narendra modi has defended a new citizenship rule that dick the critics say discriminates against muslims addressing his supporters in new delhi he said there was no need to worry for muslims born in india or to indian parents at least 23 people have been killed in violent protests against the. croatians are voting in a presidential election where a tight outcome is expected the current president conservative kalinda keeps a row which cost her vote in the morning in the capital of zagreb the ballot comes days before croatia takes over the european union's rotating presidency. and bad weather conditions have caused a cargo ship to strand of the italian island of sardinia the vessel was on its way to spain when strong winds pushed it against the rocky coastline rescue workers managed to evacuate the crew of 12 no injuries have been reported.

now the afghan president ashraf ghani appears to be heading for a 2nd term preliminary results released a short while ago show he won september's election with just over half the votes i mean outspent had been delayed because of irregularities and the recount turnout was under 30 percent and a 3rd of the votes cast were declared invalid nearest rival abdullah abdullah who currently shares power with him as the country's chief executive says he does not accept the result and that he wants an investigation. and for more let's bring in journalism. who joins us from the afghan capital kabul good to have you with us what's the reaction to the preliminary election results what are people saying. so basically you know people are essentially following the party lines president and he felt like this is really

a man and for him that he's now surely on his way to becoming president for a 2nd term where is his rival doctor after law just recently to press conference last hour or so saying essentially that he doesn't accept the results saying that you know unclean votes were counted that fraudulent votes were counted he even went so far as to say the impact of fraud in an election is just as damaging as a suicide bombing would be in a city so it's really very strong reactions on both sides to this and now the next step is that this preliminary result has to go through the electoral complaints commission which has to sort through all of these issues and see how many of the votes are actually legitimate and worth keeping so given all of this how much could these results still be subject to change i think it will be very difficult to bring them to make them subject to change because i don't think anybody wants a 2nd round and the selection of president in any order if dr abdullah and upward

less than 51 percent in the 2nd round would have to be not only would have to do but the fact that which are it's now winter that makes it even more difficult that means that he would have to push back even further and people have already waited 2 almost 3 months for these election results so i think the biggest issue right now will be for the president to try and convince his rivals that he is legitimately won that he is fairly won and that they should accept the results and possibly even if they are willing to join with in his government what about the people of afghanistan given that it was such a close friend. especially after about 1000000 votes were declared invalid and they then fix that the result. the people at this point are fed up they're tired waited 2 and a have 3 months for these results will be really what this issue sorted out and you know if you look at as you said earlier what only like 30 percent of the people of the eligible voters voted of their their own out so whoever actually becomes

president will only have a mandate of maybe 1514 percent of the population so that raises a lot of questions about you know how powerful these 3 figures who ran the top 3 leading candidates how powerful they really are and how they're able to bring people out it's going to raise a lot of questions in that sense but at the end of the day i think the people just want to sort it out they just wanted to and they want to be able to go on with their lives and know who's leading the government. in kabul thank you so much. german football now unlike say on top of the bundestag as the league and the christmas break the team secured the top spots with a $31.00 win at home. how sport coach martin schmidt managed to smile as he greeted his counterparts in leonardo's mon. 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 need election. and he rose to the occasion opening the scoring for the visitors with their 1st chance in just the 8th minute i'm about the 8th goal of the season for the summer newcomer the been checking video replay for possible offside took 2 and a half minutes which is better to feel the air for opponents of the system who say it kills the mood i have to that leipzig woke up to a but they couldn't capitalize on any of their 1st half chances my but that changed in the 68 minutes when conrad lima got hold of the. the austrian netting the long overdue equaliser my it was like 6 sixteenth's shot in the game and they finally managed to take advantage of one. type save 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 21 have. sick played a clever game the rest of the way stepped on the gas and set up substitute use of pulse and 5 to tap in and round out the 31 scoreline in the final minutes. it's all very tight 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 so next year yeah we'll see in the summer or don't but 1st large city will be having a merry christmas there at the top of the table. now let's take a look at all of the results so far on match day 17 has drew where the glad behind

by and beat well spoke as we just heard lights defeated spork cologne drowned that i blame shaker and turn minds last to 10 man live accusing on friday hoffenheim be don't want and on sunday doesn't offer host only on berlin and frankfurt travel to part of bon. now here's a festive tradition that doesn't involve food or drink but that can make your wallet a lot thicker in spain the winning numbers have been announced in the world's richest lottery called el gordo all the fat one but then do they need a name. that's the sound of 2 school children singing the winning numbers the last 3 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. ready.

for it watching the news live from berlin coming up reports the looks of the legs some families will go in their quest for the perfect christmas tree i'm on your trip as mccann and my colleague helen humphrey will be here with more news for you at the top of the hour thanks so much for watching. earth. or saving google india's tell stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world ideas to protect the climate and boost green energy solutions for global warming to use the umbrella series of global 3000 on d w.