like battle fronts seen from the sky freeways and fires you go right there in northern and southern california tonight 26000000 people are under a red flag warning meaning that conditions are perfect for combustion now this is what tens of thousands of residents around los angeles see as they flee the flames for now but beginning later today hurricane strength diablo and santa ana winds are expected to blow in giving new life to the deadly blaze is that all burning california i'm burned off in berlin this is the day. a little bit will people will not be returning to their homes this evening. before

there was any flames or anywhere and so i. went outside and i saw the sky lit up bright red we will see some a very strong right jill zarin drove right up to the fire line those extreme wind events can pick up and transfer the fire miles away sometimes as it was embers blowing right across the street into these houses. also coming up in the eastern ukraine soldiers are entrenched in a conflict with russian backed separatists after 5 years of fighting can both sides be asked to trust each other. yeah you know i'm against withdrawing from here it would mean leaving this village unprotected things would just go back to how they were before the ukrainian army arrived here you have to make him. look at the

storms. but to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all the around the world welcome we begin the day with the flames consuming california again and again for the past 3 years the u.s. state of california has found itself in a battle against a massive fast moving wildfires 2 years ago you may remember it was the tubs fire north of san francisco one year ago we reported on the camp fire that consumed an entire town known as paradise in 2 years more than 100 people killed 25000 buildings destroyed and now it's the kincaid fire and this is what it looks like from outer space an image from nasa shows the plumes of smoke risen originating just north of san francisco 75000 acres consumed 200000 people forced to leave their homes. now this image right here it

tells the proximity of this fire a red sky orange juice of haze and smoke on the horizon with san francisco you can see the bridge there barely visible there are many reasons for california's annual season of wildfires mother nature provides the wind in northern california they're known as diablo winds in southern california they're called santa ana winds but this year hurricane strength gusts are fanning flames like never before high wind events they tend to dry out the education in california has lots of vegetation that vegetation then becomes an endless source of kenley climate change is also exacerbating conditions but human activity the way we live is making these fires possible communities with asphalt and concrete have replaced areas where brush used

to thrive and another important reason for this disaster powerlines p.g. and e. the local power company there in northern california has a dismal record of improving old equipment and of clearing away brush this is created an electric power tinderbox if you will meaning planned power outages to prevent any more new fires i know you're frustrated i know you are impatient i know you really want to go home so do our 1st responders they know what they are doing they have looked at the science they have looked at the wins they have looked at the maps they are eager to let you go back they let folks go back as soon as possible last week in the palisades fire they will let you go back as soon as it is safe and practically possible you know thirty's they're letting people know it is still not safe to think about going home when my 1st guest tonight he is one of the world's authorities on fires wildfires he has written more than 30 books and in his

most recent book fire a brief history he predicts the coming pirate scene age which is i guess you could compare it to an ice age but with fire. stephen pyne joins me tonight from the u.s. state of arizona stephen welcome back it's good to have you back on the program you and i spoke about a year ago when just like tonight parts of california were burning you told me then that one of the biggest problems is our lack of an understanding or our misunderstanding of fire and its role on this planet have things changed at all since we last spoke well yes and no. i think people most people at industrial in the industrial world and that includes most to california don't have any personal connection with fire anymore that's that's gone out of their lives wave substituted fossil fuel combustion basically for all the things fire used to do so the only way they understand fires as

a disaster they don't really understand how it how it functions in the world and why it is inevitable in many parts of the world like california which is frankly built to burn on the other hand i think this sense of fire is a disaster not only fire and living landscapes but what i think of as the burning of lithic landscapes as fossil fuels the whole climate change effect of our combustion practices is combining i mean where we're remaking we're remaking the planet and i. miss a it's slightly tongue in cheek but i do think we are creating a kind of fire age or piracy in that will. the comparable to the ice ages of the pledge to same we're starting to sort of wind up comparable with something at that scale i don't think we really appreciate what we've done well i mean i know it's easy i've noticed in the coverage of the california wildfires it's easy to want to

blame climate change on these fires we have more of these fires and they seem to happen more frequently but this year i understand it's p.g. and e. the power provider in northern california which could be responsible for some of these blazes and this speaks to what you are saying california is built to burn and we don't really have a connection to fire like we used to would you agree. you know i think that's the case but we're finding it we're reconnecting unfortunately we're doing it in a in a disastrous way and i really think california is finally facing up to the issues and is trying to respond but we're talking about an enormous backlog a huge deficit. of what needs to be done what the deficit with p.g. and e. is is tiny compared with the larger for the state but you know as bad as power lines are not just a problem in california they're across the nation and many of the largest fires in

other states have resulted from the same issue it's really a national infrastructure issue that needs to be addressed and in many ways we have we do have a historic president for which is the railroads in the 19th and early 20th century railroads were notorious for starting fires sort of up ending landscapes by allowing logging a land clearing and then casting sparks with abandon i mean they were huge infrastructure component of the country they were an armistice. economically powerfully politically and we wrestled that down i mean we had mega fires an order of magnitude larger in scale and we thought that what we're seeing now so it is possible but it does take a collective response and ultimately it takes a political response. even what would you like to see done immediately i mean if you could get it you know everything possible what would you say has to be done as

soon as these fires are contained and controlled. well the primary concern of course is people being killed and houses being destroyed and we have a pretty good idea where the winds come from we know where the more most vulnerable areas are we need to harden those houses and most of them are taken out by numbers and so that it's not that you have to level and rebuild entire cities you can be selective we know how that works that's where i would put the most effort and money immediately the 2nd thing would be the power line is a really insidious ignition source because the winds that cause the breakdown are also winds that make it impossible to control the fire when it starts so that is something that that has technical issues we can begin solving again we can a dental fi the worst. the worst areas put immediate attention having to block

out a large section of the country it is just absurd we should be able to reroute the power there should be other solutions to that it's going to take some time and money but not enormously we can get the worst of it i think fairly quickly and then it's going to take a very long time to sort of readjust how we live on the land how we get our power i want to have the things that are contrary to. that if i could just before we run out of time steve i want to ask you this notion of a a piracy age or an ice age you know except with fire i mean if we are moving towards that what would that look like because you know if you look at the ice age you see landscapes with glaciers and and of frogs in terrain everywhere are we talking about a world where most of the planet the land could be on fire one day i mean how do you envision that. no i think there will be some areas i mean one of the big difference ice is a substance fire is a reaction so fire doesn't stay on the land it brands the land it leaves

impressions it makes it more or less combustible we will see areas that will be routinely burned in ways that we don't see now i think we will see other areas where there are knock on effects whether the smoke whether it be and base of species that reclaimed burned areas we will be reshaping it all in a large way and we should you know and part of that. part of that fire thing is of course the climate effects and we're going to say change at sea levels extinctions i mean all these things were sort of signature effects of the ice age we're going to find i think equivalent unless we can begin to reverse things very quickly well let's hope that we do come to our senses in taking action sooner rather than later stephen pyne author of fire a brief history steve it's good to talk with you again and you know when we do talk again let's hope that it's under better in less fiery circumstances thank you for your time tonight thanks. you're welcome thank you.

will give up your hard won positions and trust that your opponent will do the same that is in essence what ukraine's president golda meir's alinsky is asking his troops to do 5 years into the conflict that has claimed more than 10000 lives a durable cease fire has proven to be out of reach that could now change at least along one small stretch of the 400 kilometer front line both ukrainian government forces and pro russian separatists have today begun withdrawing from their frontline defenses in the town of zillow to the idea is to create a wider demilitarized zone between troops on both sides improving the chances of a ceasefire actually holding. all right for more on this i'm joined now by our correspondent nick connelly he is in kenya good evening to you nic this is just one

tell along a very very long 400 kilometer front line if this withdrawal is is it really that big of a deal. seen from abroad this might look like small fry but this is something that has proven incredibly difficult to achieve even on a small scale in the past 5 years of this conflict time and time again after a few days the shooting got back underway even if the front lines have stayed unmoved and this is also a huge deal within ukraine they've been huge demonstrations here in kiev people calling for a no caps elation people him streets of kiev really taking their protest to present administration here in the heart of kiev present the going to that town of trying to convince soldiers and also volunteers there that this is the right thing to do.

within the last few weeks speaking to the people on the ground and heard very diametrically opposed opinions on the ground about what people think about this move. looking the enemy in the eye just a few 100 meters separate these ukrainian army positions from pro russian separatists for years now the front line has not shifted it divides the town of the latte into. in kiev the talk is of demilitarized zone and pulling back troops from these front line positions but in the east freshly dug trenches tell a different story. these troops it seems don't expect to go anywhere in a hurry. yeah but yes i do i'm against withdrawing from here it would mean leaving this village unprotected things would just go back to how they were before the ukrainian army arrived here you have to make him. forget that . this isn't the kind of situation where the people up there know best

it's only down here that you really get it you know it's the ordinary soldiers who understand the risk is that only our side withdraws and gives up these positions. are opponents might not do what they've promised they could come in here and take these positions even. if it's not often soldiers are so willing to talk politics let alone diverged from the official government line that's a sign of the strength of feeling among the troops what was that. was an incoming it sounded a lot like a rocket propelled grenade but you see. has lost 16 of its residents to the fighting since the conflict began and many more have left no longer willing to stick it out in a town driven by the front line. this is where the show landed another landed over there we were sitting outside if it hadn't been for the ship that protected us we wouldn't be here today. well xander and his wife tatiana live on the edge of the

lot today for them the ukrainian pullback can't come soon enough. well she did i'm sort of thinking this withdrawal will put an end to the heavy artillery fire when they shoot at each other it's the ordinary people that suffer houses get destroyed people are killed by the shrapnel can you feel that but their neighbor marina a pro ukrainian activist is far from convinced the soon as the withdrawal how the separatists troops will take over. if i don't think so well you're going to have their territory they're not going to go further. you know that this is a surrender it's ukrainian territory and we've always had ukrainian troops here and that's how it should stay we shouldn't capitulate those shoots everyone who supports ukraine it will be a disaster. at its most basic this is an issue of trust soldiers trusting their opponents to stick to their side of the bargain and civilians trusting the

government to protect them after 5 years of war that kind of trust is in short supply but for now at least ukrainian seem to be giving president selenski the benefit of the doubt. it is amazing nic that you got these soldiers to talk politics and we've got polar opposite opinions about this withdrawal shown right there in your report assuming the withdrawal and the stable cease fire assuming that they can be achieved in the last 3 what comes next. so brant the aim is to continue along the 400 kilometer front line section by section this is going to be pretty difficult because there are a whole array of different situations different distances separating ukraine government troops at some points only a matter of tens of meters from the progress of separatists and other places further apart places where there's been a lot of bloodshed in those positions were basically achieved at great cost to

human life so more emotional pull the more difficulty for those troops to then withdraw from those positions i think in the medium term the big is now on a meeting the so-called normandy format that would be the 1st time the present selenski of ukraine meet in person along with them would be germany and france present seemingly investing a lot of political capital in making this meeting happening he seems to think that that personal chemistry could really change things and bring about some real qualitative change to all of this part of that will also be talk of so-called steinmeyer for me that means giving some good or tony to donbass but basically this is a game of chicken who compromises 1st who's willing to make the 1st big step and as yet we've got no real indication to either side is willing beyond these 1st kind of . steps of trying to create some kind of understanding to really compromise on the

on the on the big big stuff and a game of chicken while europe watches i mean where does this leave you know europe's sanctions for example and its relations with russia. well you definitely get a sense that there is a great weariness with this conflict in european capitals and further afield this is a conflict that's basically gone nowhere in the last 34 years and there is a real desire to big these efforts even if it's not clear where they go from here russia is obviously interested in some kind of reduction the sanctions regime hoping that if it shows goodwill here and is seen to be doing stuff to convince the separatists to enable separatists to somehow engage with kiev that that will play off well for them but i think that doesn't change the basic conflict that russia wants some kind of leverage over ukraine as long as ukraine is trying to get close to the west that conflict is not going anywhere this is not a conflict that's about doma this is about ukraine and russia and how they relate

to each other in the world. connelly explaining it to us from kiev tonight nic as always thank you. in syria the cease fire which was brokered by turkey and russia officially ended today russia's foreign minister saying kurdish forces have withdrawn from the border area in fact and said they've with withdrew earlier than planned turkey says it will verify the withdrawal with joint patrols with russian troops kurdish militias agreed to retreat from the area under the deal which was struck last week syrian forces have clashed with turkish backed rebels in the region since for the 1st time since on korea launched its offensive against the kurds earlier this month. are for more now i'm joined by our correspondent dorian jones he's on the story for us tonight is stamboul in turkey good evening to you door you know moscow says that

the kurdish forces have left the syrian border area with turkey but we're not hearing much from anyone else from the kurds or from turkey for example why not do we know. well a senior turkish diplomat speaking anonymously is quoted as saying well we have to take the words of the russians of the kurdish militia but we don't trust them turkey will now be looking to these joint patrols with russia to verify this withdrawal these patrols will go as far as 10 kilometers deep into syria and also in the last hours of the cease fire has been marred by reports of heavy fighting a russian patrol reportedly operating close to the turkish border in syria came under fire from fire reportedly from turkey while there has also been reports of heavy fighting between militias linked to the turkish army fighting against regime forces with reports of casualties and the turkish defense ministry saying as many as 18 soldiers from the regime have been captured but despite all of this all sides

of peace be downplaying this and that's because all sides really want this process to continue to work we know there will be joint turkish russian patrols in this border area this safe zone whose interests are better served by this serious or turkey's. this certainly is a win for turkey they this under this agreement they lock in these 120 kilometers of territory they have secured inside syria and beyond that there is now removal of this kurdish militia which are considered as terrorists back to 30 kilometers the key objective of this military operation but the key winner here is seen as damascus because under this agreement they have now taken over up to a 3rd of syria back under its control and have taken control of the turkish border with syria a key objective of assad's the syrian president so ultimately assad is seen to be the big winner here but going forward we'll have to see how this plays out in the

future that's what i was going to ask you during just briefly i mean how do you expect this situation to evolve we've got these 4 players about the kurds we've got the syrian army we've got turkey and russia all 4 of these what's the future. will be a very delicate balancing act between these full conflicting powers of difference of objective the syrian cuz all seem to be the big loses they've been false towards damascus and in fact the russians are expected to pressure them to join the syrian regime me but they will post be looking to america who are now moving back into syria to probably give them some leverage full of putin the russian president he will see the 19 objective now is putting damascus an uncritical currently there's no tomorrow diplomatic relations but the message from putin is you have to work together to resolve the key issues of her turning the syrian regime and security issues and we will see if they can in fact work together now during the jones on the story for us in istanbul during as always thank you.

they say a picture tells a 1000 words what about 2 pictures this week a photo taken inside the white house post that very question 2 photos photos are of the u.s. president and his team one during the special ops mission in pakistan which osama bin laden was killed the latest picture taken during saturday's mission in syria in which isis leader. died now we want to show you both photos because we were struck by the very different messages the different worlds even that can be read into these images we see presidents as they watched the takedown of their errors most wanted terrorist here you've got obama with his team around him there's that iconic hand over her mouth hillary clinton there watching and then you've got the photo with president trump and his team definitely one that

was planned and more of opposed to pick journo's spontaneity caught on camera here after the photo was taken it would be a day before donald trump and his. team informed democrats the speaker of the house nancy pelosi for example of that the mission although trump did notify russia before the raid began we understand that barack obama phoned his predecessor george w. bush as soon as osama bin laden had been killed reaching across the aisle reaching across administrations that's a characteristic not expressed in the truck photo or one that we've seen in the trump white house. the day is almost done the conversation continues online to find us on twitter news you can follow me a brit go off t.v. every member whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you then everybody.

reducing the risk of flooding and erosion by creating hillside terrorists is. it homeland well financed fear losing their harvests and initiative using take to create new solutions. that successful.

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