hello. this is bbc world news. these are our top stories. two bodies from the crashed airasia plane have been returned to shore. the company's ceo says the recovery mission is still in early stages. >> they're narrowing the search and feeling more comfortable they're begin og to know where it is. there's no confirmation no sonar. some visual identification but nothing confirmed. a ship carrying 700 migrants is docked safely after being rescued by the italian coast

guard. dozens of supports arrestedle following a rally in moss cow. new zealand is ringing in the new year. this is the scene live where it's now 2015. the first bodies from the airasia plane disaster have been brought back to land. the operation to recover more victims and wreckage is hampered by bad weather. 162 were on board when it took off on sunday. all are feared dead. the recovery operation is still underway between the island and 100 kilometers southwest in indonesia. seven bodies have been retrieved from the body so far, two have been flown back to surabaya

where the plane took off. as officials try to identify and bury the dead. airasia is saying it's clear priority is help victim's relatives. we can get more from jane. >> at surabaya air base, the military bears two coffins of two that died in the disaster. identified by numbers, the task now is to give them names. bodies are taken to a hospital in the city from which the ill fated flight 8501 took off. police are collecting dna samp ales and photos from relatives to speed up the identification process. this morning there was a sense of you are urgency as another body was recovered from the java sea and brought a shore by helicopter. the head of indonesia search and rescue agency says so far seven

of 162 on board have been recovered. >> the airplane lodge is not found yet. today so far we have found seven bodies four male and three female bodies. >> the operation is continuing. rough seas and high winds prevented divers from searching the zone. two underwater beacons are sent to find the black boxes. wreckage from the airasia plane was spotted yesterday. there are reports one of the bodies found nearby was in a life jacket. one pilot says that could indicate the plane stalled and then came down. the head of the airline wouldn't speculate on the cause. >> this is the airline's worst nightmare after 13 years while flying millions of people. it's the worst feeling.

we stay strong for the families out there to insure we can look after them. >> for the relatives of those on board, the hope of some miracle has gone. their crushing grief is so raw there's little that can be done to comfort them. they must wait for answers to their questions, how and why it happened. bbc news. just in the last few minutes we've learned the search and recovery mission by the indonesians in the java sea has been called off for the night. we understand it will resume in the morning. let's speak with bbc indonesian service journalist live with us here. you've been watching a press conference in the last hour. what have you been told about the rescue operation? >> the head of operation said

seven bodies have been recovered so far, four males and three females. he also said that the two bodies already flown to surabaya for identification. he didn't say anything about nationality of bodies which have been recovered. during a separate interview that we did with the search and rescue operation official he said the poor weather conditions, strong winds and two meter waves hampered the rescue search. the 10 meters is why they'll continue operation tomorrow. >> did they find the plane itself? we heard reports of the shadow

of the outline of the plane in the sea. have they been able to identify the lodge? >> they haven't been able to find that. during the press conference the rescue search operation said that they so far couldn't find the body of the plane. >> we saw a couple of minutes ago people in new zealand celebrating the new year. i'm sure indonesia will not celebrate in the same fashion. is it true the president has gone to social media to talk about this? >> they are six hours from the new year. the president called for indonesians to celebrate the new year modestly. he said in facebook account he also said that he's calling for indonesians to remember the victims of airasia 8501. the newest celebration will be going on in the capital.

it will be proceeded by all faith prayers especially for the victims of airasia. >> in that conference you've been telling us the search and rescue operation is suspended today. it will begin as soon as sun is up tomorrow? >> yes, it will begin as soon as daylight in indonesia. again, there have been hindered by poor weather conditions. strong winds is and high waves, especially poor visibility in which the official is only 10 to 20 meters which is really hampering the search and rescue operations. >> thanks for your time. >> thousand earlier i spoke to editor of airline ratings.com

about what the search needs to find out to work out what happened. >> absolutely critical are the black boxes, cockpit voice recorder digital recorder. we'll get the last two hours of conversation the entire flight. the digital flight data recorder records approximately 80 to 90 parameters. that will be the heartbeat of that airplane. it will tell us every single thing we need to know about what happened to this flight. >> one would assume inevitably when a plane comes down it would break up. is there anything to learn from the state of the wreckage? >> possibly yes. when i'm talking about the tail i talk about the vertical stabilizer. if that is intact with the

airplane a airplane, that tells us the plane basically stayed together all the way. if if separated and not with the main body of lodge and wings, that tells us it may have broken off in flight which may tell us a little more about the conditions that existed when the plane first got into strife. if the plane had blundered into severe thunderstorm then it's possible that could tear the tail of the airplane off. that's happened before. that would give us early clues as to what might have happened. really it's the black boxes. >> jeffrey, we have reports one of the bodies recovered was wearing a life jacket. that isn't confirmed. does that seem plausible to you? >> it doesn't seem plausibleable. unfortunately we are getting

conflicting information. initially today the indonesians said they had detected the aircraft by sonar. later this afternoon they seem to be pulling back from that saying we may have located it. we're also getting reported as you suggest about a passenger with a life jacket on. i don't believe there was the time to put a life jacket on. if there was time to put the life jacket on, there was also time if for the pilots to radio a distress call. some of these reports don't seem to be credible. they're coming from a variety of different sources. we are treating them with a lot of skepticism until we see something really concrete photographically from the scene. >> bad weather continues to hamper recovery efforts in the java sea.

the search is suspended for the night. it will begin again in the morning. how's the weather looking? >> it hasn't changed much since the plane went down. let's have a look at the satellite picture now around the java sea. this is obviously an area of southeast asia. you can see the thunder storms in the last day or so. what's happening is from day-to-day it changes a little bit. this general envelope, whole patent of the storm pretty much remains the same. that's not going to change quite some time. it depends whether we get a gap in the storms. that gives slightly better conditions for the aircraft that's out there now. this is the forecast the next few days. i want to show you. see winds colliding here that causes storms to brew. another thing that's happening towards the north here that's

the tropical storm. what it's doing is shunting a lot of winds and causing them to collide with winds from the south. this is an area of bad weather that's pretty much going to stay stationary for the next few days. winds aren't desperately strong but within the thunderstorms we get the gusts of wind and reduced visible. there's a chance by the weekend or so the winds ease a little bit and perhaps the storms going to ease somewhat as well. the patent of bad weather remain as the same. on the side, recently we had bad weather in malaysia. that's going to improve a bit. >> thank you very much indeed. now a cargo ship carrying estimated 700 migrants is docked in southern italy. the coast guard brought the ship

to dock early in the morning. host are considered to be british. we spoke about where may grats s migrants are taken to. >> reporter: there was medical help for those on board. we're not sure what conditions they had been in. they were clearly hidden in the cargo ship. you imagine the conditions they put up with were not pleasant or comfortable. >> what more do we know other than many are from kurdish or syrian backgrounds? >> reporter: very little at the moment. we're trying to piece this together, the story of how they got on board that boat the extent to which they were hidden and relationship if any with the crew. one of the puzzling elements of this story is whereabouts of the crew. when the italian coast guard took control of the ship it

found according the reports we've got the ship was on auto pilot and no sign of a crew. >> you report repeatedly on migrants trueing to reach the italian island but is the route these migrants were on one that's often used? >> it's a much less common route. the route that's usually taken from countries like libya and so on is directly north towards the other side of italy towards the island. this route is less common. to put this in context, in 2014 italy received 150 migrants from the middle east and africa. that's a large increase on previous years. the international organization for migration says that more than 3,000 refugees are known to have died trying to make the journey from the middle east on

stable boats. medical sources in yemen say 33 have been killed in a suicide bombing in the southern city. there are reports the blast was at a cultural center where members of the rebel group were gathering for a religious ceremony. they've been extending influence across the country bringing them to conflict with local tribal groups and elements linked to al qaeda based in the south. the king of saudi arabia has been admitted to the hospital for tests. it gave no further details of the 90-year-old who's ruled the oil rich kingdom since 2005. the stock market fell after the news was announced on state television. in a few minutes time we're live to find out about the new

tuni tunisia president being sworn in. until your insurance company jacks up your rates. you freak out. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? hey insurance companies, news flash. nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance.

hello. if you're just joining me on bbc world news, these are our lead stories. bodies brought back to shore as recovery operations are continuing at the airasia crash site. seven bodies have been found so far. a cargo ship carrying 700 migrants boarded by the coast guard tuesday has arrived safely at the port of gallipoli. the authorities say a 2-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his mother inside a wal-mart store. the concealed gun went off when the child reached into the woman's hand bag. this happened in idaho. peter gives us more detail as. >> it was a family shopping trip. veronica with her son and three other children visiting

relatives in a small town in northern idaho, 100 miles from the canadian border. the tragic sequence of events was recorded on the store's security cameras. the 2-year-old boy was sitting in a shopping trolly when he reached into his mother's hand bag, grabbed a small caliber handgun which went offer. the mother died at the scene. her husband was not in the store at the time but arrived soon after. the children were take ton a relative ace relative's house. the victim's father-in-law said she was a beautiful mother. she was 29. she had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. >> here it is around the holidays just after christmas right before the new year. tragic. tragic accident. >> a spokeswoman for wal-mart said the store was cooperating with the local sheriff's department investigation. she added the shooting was a very sad and tragic accident.

bbc news los angeles. more than a dozen antigovernment activists are arrested in moscow including a member of the russian protest group. they've been demonstrating against the conviction of a leading russian opposition politician. he received a suspended three and a half year sentence for fraud he was detained as he tried to join the demonstrations. >> 18 protestors who spent the night on the streets rallying with 2,000 or so came onto the streets tuesday night. this was a freezing night with temperatures around minus 20 degrees. continuing their protest against the conviction of the man for fraud. he is the man who submerged as a popular and charismatic opponent to putin here.

he and supporters believe the case against him was politically motivated. these 18 protestors then joined dozens who were arrested tuesday night for taking apart in this unsanctioned rally. their fate will be decided in coming hours and days. they include one of the members of the group that became notorious a couple of groups ago when the all female punk protest group were sentenced to prison. he is now under house arrest and will remain there while the appeal is considered for fraud. that's a process that could take several months and keep him out of the political game. it appears many here say is what the kremlin wanted. this is a time when putin is extremely popular in russia. it's a time of increasing economic difficulty when protesting is on the rise.

>> thanks to sarah for that. let me quickly show you pictures from bbc newsroom. behind me you see the new president of tunisia. he's got a few hours to wait. if you're watching in new zealand, you're already celebrating because 2015 has arrived. these are pictures we've got. as always reasonably impressive. sidney will follow suit. people are gathering in thousands already in anticipation what is normally a show stopping performance from those that put the fireworks together. if you're watching in new zealand, thank you very much indeed for your company. as promised let's talk about the newly elected president of tunisia. she's sworn in the country's

parliament. he's 88 and will be the first president with a democratic man day. we should remind ourselves how they got to this point. four years after the start to the arab spring. in 2011 a man died after setting himself on fire. mass protest continued over unemployment and political restrictions. in june that year the president ben ali was sentenced to 35 years in prison. he had fled the country months earlier. and the party won elections in october but fell short of parliamentary election. the following year there were more protest over the rights of women in the draft constitution in tunis. july 2013 month ma'am edhamed died.

january 2014 this leads to elections and the winning of presidential runoff this month. all of which brings us to what happened today. let's go live. i was following you on twitter. i know you were there. tell me what you saw. >> yes, it was quite a festive atmosphere. the parliament was packed. the entire business elite were attending. there was a short prayer. he put his hand on the newly adopted constitution. the constitution was adopted this year by this assembly. he became the new president. he then headed to presidential palace where the incumbent president, interim president who ran against him in the election

handed over power. again a historic moment. this is the first time in the country's history the president is not ousted or toppled. >> newly elected leaders always say there's work to do. what's top of his list of priorities? >> he did say top of the list of priorities are young people in this country, people struggling to find jobs. he did say he's going to stick to the rule of law. the rule of law will be instrumental in the next phase of transition. we'll see how ambitious he is about these reforms. i spoke to him in september and he sounded less keen on far reaching reforms that many here think are necessary for this transition to succeed. >> thank you very much indeed for that update. of course what's happening is not just because of significance to tutu -- to tunisians.

get information about the new president and other stories i've been covering on bbc.com/news. see you in half an hour. bye bye. so ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts? that's right. it's just that i'm worried about you know "hidden things..." ok, why's that? no hidden fees from the bank where no branches equals great rates.

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hello. this is bbc world news. these are our top stories. two bodies from the crashed airasia plane have been returned to shore. the company's ceo says the recovery mission is still in early stages. >> they're narrowing the search. they are feeling more comfortable that they are beginning to know where it is. there's no confirmation no sonaring nothing. some visual identification but nothing confirmed. the ship carrying 700 migrants is docked in italy after being rescued by the italian coast guard. navalny and