>> hello. our top stories, memorials take place to mark the 10th anniversary of the tsunami that killed almost a quarter of a million people we hear from those who lived through it. >> i thought there was nothing left. that no one had survived. only me. i walked through the bodies and then found my brother. >> these are live pictures where a memorial service for the victims is being held. we'll have the latest from our

correspondent who is there. xbox and playstation online services suffered technical issues amid reports that a hacker group disabled them. a man on trial in thailand for the murder of two tourists earlier this year. >> hello. a very warm welcome. special prayer services and memorials have been taking place across southeast asia to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the tsunami. people held traditional ceremonies to remember those they lost. many on holiday also lost their lives. their families and friends placed wreaths.

memorials were held in india and indonesia. for many of the survivors the memory of that day a decade could go is raw with hundreds of unidentified bodies laying in unmarked graves. our correspondent joins us now. >> reporter: this is one of the areas that was worst hit by that wall of water some 10 meters high, 30 feet from the ground that slammed into this region ten years ago today. some 8,000 people died in all -- most of the westerner that perished were here. we're hearing from the deputy prime minister and wreaths have been laid on that giant police boat just behind me. it weighs several tons and it's a symbol of the tragedy here. it was picked up and tossed like

a toy about a mile inland when that tsunami wave hit. and there are flowers all around representing those people that died. as i say, this is the official ceremony marking what happened a decade ago. there are have been other ceremonies throughout the day. the first began at 10:19 this morning. that's the exact time when that tsunami hit ten years ago. this is a day of mourning and prayer. here in thailand, they pay tributes to thousands that died exactly ten years ago. victims of one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. it happened on a clear day just like this. those in its path had no chance. the wall of water that hit the shore here was 30 feet high. of the 8,000 or so people who

died here in thailand, around 5,000 were tourists. >> we were still asleep when the first wave came in. >> reporter: this man was in a beach chalet with his girlfriend when the wave hit. >> it was getting more violent and it slammed into the bungalow and took them down with those inside it. that was the last time i saw her. >> reporter: the whole area that was washed away has now been rebuilt. in the event of a similar tragedy, there's confidence a better early warning system for tsunamis would save lives and greater public awareness of the destructive power of the sea. >> even recently, for example at the beach here, they have sirens and they have a very close link with the authorities so everyone is now working together in a way they didn't do before to make sure that warnings reach the end

of the chain and secondly the fear factor is there. everyone knows tsunami. >> reporter: the mental scars will take much longer to heal than repairing the physical damage caused by the tsunami. the hope is that a decade on lessons have been learned. southeast of here lies the nation of indonesia and that is the land that suffered the most as a result of that tsunami ten years ago. 160,000 people died when the tsunami waves slammed into the region of aceh, which was the worst affected. we have traveled to that area to see how life has changed in the last decade. >> reporter: this was the destruction the tsunami brought. all that remained were the bodies and the mosques that were

unharmed. ten years later and this is downtown banda aceh. there are families out enjoying the afternoon sun. in the aftermath of the tsunami, billions of dollars worth of aid money poured into this place transforming aceh's physical landscape. it wasn't just the infrastructure that changed here. families were torn apart and then brought together again. the tsunami ripped through this family home. he wasn't in aceh at the time and when he returned, he thought he had lost everything. >> translator: i thought there was nothing left. that no one had survived. only me. i walked through the bodies and found my brother. they said all our families are gone. >> reporter: what he didn't know at the time was that his 4-year-old daughter was alive.

in an emotional meeting, rina was reunited with her father by aid workers nearly one month after the tsunami struck. >> reporter: i was so happy to see my dad again. i just wanted to return to him as soon as possible. i didn't want to stay there anymore. after that i was always at my dad's side. i was so afraid to lose him again. >> reporter: there are reminders of the tsunami everywhere here. this fishing boat was swept two kilometers inland by the waves landing on a house where 57 people were convinced they were going to drown. they were saved by climbing onboard the boat which is now a tourist site and to some a symbol of their god's power. >> translator: perhaps this is a reminder so we can become better people. we should be more faithful in our prayers and we should look after our family.

now that i lost family members, i need to care more for the ones that are still alive. >> reporter: protecting those still alive is now a priority here. aceh schoolchildren regularly run through earthquake drills so they know what to do if another disaster strikes. the lessons learned on that day ten years ago will live on in the next generation. >> a look at just how life has changed in the last decade for that worst affected area in indonesia. what else has changed in terms of an early warning system preparing people for a possible tragedy on the scale of what happened a decade ago if it were to take place in the future. there's now an early warning system for the indian ocean. there wasn't one back in 2004. a lot of the concentration of efforts as far as scientists was concerned was doing the ring of fire looking at potential

earthquakes off the coast of japan and down the western side of south america. there's no recorded history of tsunamis in the indian ocean so therefore there was no real attempt to monitor the situation down there and that's partly why the catastrophic losses were so high back in 2004. now, australia, india and a number of other countries in the region are now monitoring the situation deep beneath the sea and the hope is that those lessons, very difficult lessons have been learned and if there is another one there will be time for people in communities like this to get out of the way. back to you. >> you can find out much more on the anniversary of the tsunami on our website. there you'll find the latest on the commemoration ceremonies and striking pictures of the devastation after the disaster hit and what those places look like now. that's at bbc.com/news.

let's get other news now. a court in turkey ordered the release of a 16-year-old high school student arrested for insulting the president following an outcry over his detention. the teenager was taken into custody after he accused the president and party of his corruption during a speech. the talks between ukraine's government and pro-russian rebels have been called off. no immediate reason was given. the talks to try to end the conflict in eastern ukraine which left 4,700 dead. in september, a cease-fire and frame work peace deal were announced in the same city but neither have been properly observed. new zealand bar manager and two miramar colleagues pleaded not guilty to charges of insulting religion after publishing a psychedelic image

of buddha wearing headphones to promote a new bar. he told the court he removed the image from the bar's facebook page and posted an apology once he realized that it was being shared widely online provoking outrage. now, sony and playstation and microsoft xbox have been reporting problems connecting to the game's networks. a hackers group claimed responsibility for the problems. sony issued a statement saying it was aware of the issue and was investigating it. so what is going wrong? i've been talking to a writer and broadcaster who specializes in video games and technology. >> people were getting a lot of xboxes and playstation this is time of year for christmas so a lot of kids unwrapping these and they are dependent on online

services so they're not able to download games and not allowed to play the games they have with other people online because this hacker group has brought down those services. it's important to note that it's a different set of circumstances to the sony pictures hack that we heard so much about over the last few weeks. this is what's known as denial service attack which involves a lot of users hitting these services with so many requests that the servers can't cope and they break down so that means that normal players like myself or yourself if you got an xbox can't access the service. with people taking time off this time of year and wanting to play these games, they're not able to do them and not able to play themor download them in the first place and obviously these problems are ongoing today. >> being christmas a lot of people received xbox for christmas. you say it's not the usual hacker groups that we've been hearing about. why have these hackers done

this? >> it's important to know one of the twitter users you pulled up there was saying i got a lot of sensitive data stored which is why you have your credit card details on there and playstation network famously in 2011 was brought down by a month because of a hacker group called unanimous stole personal data. it's a hacker group for whatever malicious reasons they haven't said why but these hacking groups want to try to bring about notoriety for themselves and hacking group, lizard squad, has attacked another big online gaming service. the problem is with so much technology, they are dependent on internet infrastructure behind them. when you logon, you don't have to be online but so much of the service is based on being able to go online and download games.

people got consoles for christmas and have a code for the latest games and they need to access the network to download them so consoles are useless because they can't download them. they want to say we brought down playstation network and inconvenienced these people and be malicious about it. >> are companies doing enough to protect themselves from these kind of hackers? why do we keep hearing about this? >> they're not really. it's obviously a difficult issue. denial of service attacks can happen to any service in any company and we've seen them happen before. the problem is that with the playstation network and xbox live, these are services that people in the u.k. have to pay about 40 pounds for and in the u.s. $60 for per year to access them. as a consumer you have a right to expect that if you want to logon and play around christmastime that they're going to work. >> stay with us on bbc world news. the year before a general election, we speak to a

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this is bbc world news. the latest headlines, memorial services are being held across asia. the victims of the indian ocean tsunami on the tenth anniversary of the tsunami. users of microsoft and sony game consoles report technical problems amid claims hackers have disabled their online services. testimony has been postponed for seven months in the trial in thailand of two workers charged with murdering two british tourists on a holiday island in september. the bodies of the tourists were discovered on a beach. our southeast asia correspondent has the report. >> reporter: the start of this trial on the holiday island follows a confusing, sometimes

chaotic investigation. the police and chief investigators say they have compiled a strong case against the defendants. the bodies were discovered on a beach in september on a nearby island. from the start questions were raised over the professionalism of thai investigators. the crime scene was never isolated. as police officers issued a series of often contradictory statements about who they were looking for. their main focus were on workers on the island. now they charged two men with the murders. they have denied the charge and say they were tortured by the police into making confessions. after they were detained in october, they were made to reenact the crime at the scene. a common practice in thailand. but the police say they will rely on dna evidence taken from

the victims to make their case in court. lawyers for the defense have complained that the case has been rushed and they see no details for evidence against their clients nor had time to prepare their defense. a great deal hangs on the outcome of this trial not just credibility of thai justice and closure for the families but whether the safety of the millions of visitors to thailand's beaches can be assured. security officials in pakistan say american drone strikes have killed seven suspected militants. the first of the strike was on the border with afghanistan. the official said it fired at the compounds of the taliban killing four. latary compound was hit in the same region which killed three people. in the meantime, the pakistani authorities say their own troops have been in action in khyber province. a suspected planner of the school massacre was killed there

in a gun battle. those strikes on the afghan border come as the u.s. is preparing to pull the vast majority of its combat troops out of afghanistan by the end of next week. 140,000 troops in 2010, u.s. and nato plan to leave just 13,500 behind for training and support. a speech in hawaii on christmas, president barack obama marked the end of more than a decade of combat in afghanistan by paying tribute to america's military. >> we've been in continuous war now for almost 13 years. over 13 years. and next week we'll be ending our combat mission in afghanistan. obviously -- [ applause ] because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in american armed forces, afghanistan has a chance to

rebuild its own country. we are safer. it's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again and we still have some very difficult missions around the world including in iraq. we still have folks in afghanistan helping afghan security forces. we have people who are helping deal with ebola in west africa. obviously we've got folks stationed all around the world but the world is better. it's safer. it's more peaceful. it's more prosperous. our homeland is protected because of you. >> president barack obama speaking in hawaii. it's now less than a year before miramar votes in a general election. for the first time in 25 years, democracy campaigner, former political prisoner and now politician will take part. our correspondent was given exclusive access to the nobel peace prize winner as she went back home.

>> reporter: your constituency 2 1/2 years you were elected here and sanctions were lifted and the isolation from the rest of the world came to an end. now that reforms seem to have stalled, do you regret that decision to join parliament? >> no. because i didn't join parliament because i expected something from it but i thought it would give us an opportunity to contribute something to it, the development of the country and also of course if you believe in democracy, you have to try. >> reporter: it's been a struggle at times? >> life is a struggle. it's always a struggle. i'm reasonably satisfied with what we managed to achieve in the legislature taking into consideration that only 46 out of 600 and we haven't done too badly. >> reporter: the constitution bans you from becoming president here.

with less than a year to go before the general election, is the dream of becoming president over for you? >> first of all, that's not my dream. my dream is to have the country i would like to see. that's what i dream of. not about sitting in a presidential suite or anything like that. in any case, i always say we should do the best of our ability. it doesn't worry me. i don't like to think of it as a dream. i would like to think the people's right to choose the president they want is what we're working to. it's not about my becoming president or anybody else becoming president but about the people in a position to choose whichever person they might wish to choose. it may be me or somebody else. >> reporter: you talked before about the reform process here being stalled. how do you go about persuading

the army to allow more change to take place. >> it's not just me. i think influence of people is something you cannot ignore. people tend to think that under dictatorship the ordinary public have no power at all, no influence. this is true at a certain level. i think the power of the people is something you can never make away with because they are very much a majority and if you start some kind of reform, however limited, you give the people a chance to air their views and that's great progress. >> reporter: are you still hopeful that talks between senior political leaders here might deliver constitutional change? >> i don't believe in hope. i only believe in work. you try to achieve what you think you should try to achieve

through hard work. but i think i'll have to divide up your question to two parts. you said did i hope? no, i don't hope. i work for it. do i hope that talks between senior leaders would result in some sort of resolution? i do believe that. if we really manage to get to the point of what we need for negotiations i'm sure there would be a lot of progress. i have no doubt about that whatsoever. >> reporter: do you think the president here is sincere about those talks? >> at the moment the president has not shown enthusiasm for the kind of negotiations that we want, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the story. he's not the only one who can decide whether or not we go for negotiations. in the end, it's the people who will decide. >> with the end of the year just days away it's out with the old and in with the new in japan as the nation bids farewell to the

year of the horse and welcomes the sheep. the ceremony has taken place to mark the occasion and they've used a pony to symbolize the year of the horse. you can see there. a sheep for the new year. and one of the organizers even wore a horse head hat which could be considered so last year. stay with us here. you park your car. as you walk away, crunch! a garbage truck backs into it. so,you call your insurance company, looking for a little support.

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our top stories, memorials take place to mark the tenth anniversary of the indian ocean tsunami that killed thousands of people. >> translator: i thought there was nothing left. no one had survived. only me. i walked through the bodies and found my brother. >> these are live pictures from where a memorial service is being held. we'll have the latest from o