. hello. this is bbc news. two bodies recovered from the airasia plane wreckage. the recovery mission is still in early stages. >> we are narrowing the search. they are feeling more comfortable that they are beginning to know where it is. there's no confirmation of them. no sonar, nothing. a ship carrying 700 migrants is docked safely in italy after being rescued by the italian

coast guard. opposition leader navalny and dozens of supporters are arrested following a rally in moscow. those pictures are in auckland. if you're in new zealand or countries already into 2015 happy new year. the first bodies from the airasia plane disaster have been brought back to land. the operation to recover more victims and wreckage is called off for the day. earlier it was hampered by bad weather. the plane took off on sunday 162 were on board. all are feared dead. while the recovery operation is due to resume first light on thursday, it will continue between the island and around 100 kilometers southwest of

indonesia. seven bodies have been retrieve ed from the water. two of those have been flown back to surabaya where the plane took off. officials are trying to identify them. airasia is saying it's clear priority now is to help the victim's relatives. jane can give us more details. >> at surabaya air base the indonesian military respectively bare two coffins of two that died in the disaster. identified only by numbers, the task now is give them names. bodies arey sies are take ton a hospital in the city from where the flight took off. police there are collecting dna samples and photographs of relatives to speed up the identification process. this morning there was a sense of urgency as another body was recovered from the java sea and

brought after shore by helicopter. the head of indonesia search and rescue agency says so far, serve of 172 on board have been recovered. >> translator: the airplane lodge has not been found yet. today so far we have recovered seven bodies which includes four male and three female bodies. >> reporter: the operation is continuing but rough seas and high winds have prevented divers from searching the crash zone. singapore is sending two underwater beacon detectors to find the the plane's black boxes. wreckage from the airasia plane was spotted yesterday. there are reports that one of the bodies found nearby was in a life jacket. one pilot has suggest had the could mean the plane stalled and then came down. the head of the airline wouldn't speculate on the cause. >> they're narrowing the search.

they are feeling more comfortable that they are beginning to know where it is. they have no confirmation no sonar, nothing. no visit identification. >> for the relatives of those on board, the hope of some miracle has now 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. well a little earlier i spoke to jeffrey thomas. jeffrey is editor of airline ratings.com. he's been discussing what the search teams need to find in order to establish what happened to this plane. >> absolutely critical to this are black boxes, dock pit voice recorder digital data recorder. with the cockpit voice recorder we'll get the last two hours of conversation. in other words the entire flight. the digital flight data recorder

records approximately 80 to 90 pa ram ters. that will be the heartbeat of the airplane and tell us every thing we need to know about what happened to this flight. >> what would be assumed when a plane comes down in the sea it breaks up. anything to learn from the state of wreckage? >> possibly yes. if the tail -- when talking about the tail i'm talking vertical stabilizer -- if that is intact with the airline, that tells us the plane basically stayed together all the way. if it is separated, it is not with the main body of the lodge and wings, then that tells us that it may have broken off or r likely 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 -- the pilots had blundered into a severe thunderstorm then it's possible that could tear the tail of that airplane off. it's happened before. that will give us clues, early clues, as to what might have happened. really, it's the black boxes. >> jeffrey, we have heard 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 plausible. unfortunately we are getting a lot of conflicting information. initially today the indonesians said they detected the aircraft by sonar. now later on this afternoon they seem to be pulling back a little from that saying we may have located it. we're also getting reports 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 for the pilots to radio distress call. some of these reports don't seem credible. they're coming from a variety of different sources. we are treating them with a lot of skepticism until we see a something really concrete photograph graphically from the scene. >> thanks jeffrey thomas for that. as i mentioned at the beginning of the program, bad weather was hampering the recovery efforts before they were suspended. could be an issue tomorrow when it resumes. here from bbc weather, thomas how's the weather looking? >> there's not going to be much difference in the next few days. let's look at the area we're talking about, the java sea here. the plane went down somewhere around there. looking at this whole zone of southeast asia tropical asia

you can see there's a lot of cloud cover, poor conditions. it's not one area of storms. we have individual cells we've been talking about. one north of singapore, few towards the south across the java sea itself. between these thunderstorms where the air sinks rather than go up in them we have periods of quieter weather. this computer tells us how many rainfall precipitation is across this portion of the world. winds collide really. what's keeping this area of bad weather across the portion of tropical asia is the tropical storm north here which is traversing in the south china sea. it's shunting air winds from the north and collides with winds from the south. this happens normally any way. we get winds from the north and south colliding. this is an enhanced weather system giving it that extra a push. as a result the air has got to

go somewhere. it's not going into the sea. it goes up and creates storms. this general area of bad weather is going to stay pretty much here for the next few days. by the time we get to weekend, it looks as though something may be quieter across this portion of the globe. >> thomas thank you very much indeed. let's update ourselves on the situation affecting migrants trying to get to europe. the italian red cross says four migrants are found dead or a cargo ship after being abandoned by the crew. the spokesperson for the red cross said the vessel was carrying 900 migrants when spotted drifting near the coast. the italian coast guard took control of the ship on wednesday. it's thought to have started this journey in turkey with syrian and kurdish migrants on board. red cross said one of the

migrants gave birth on board the ship. james reynolds updated me on what's happening to the migrants now. >> reporter: they're in a local school and gymnasium. that's where the police took them when their ship docked in the middle of the night. we understand there was medical help for those on board. we're not entirely sure a what kind of conditions they had been in. clearly they were hidden in the cargo ship. you imagine the conditions would not have been pleasant or comfortable. >> what more do we know other than many are from kurdish or syrian backgrounds? >> very little at the moment. we're still trying to piece this together, the story of how they got on board that boat. the extent to which they were hidden and the relationship if any with the crew. and the question is the whereabouts of the crew. when the coast guard took control of the ship it found

according to the reports that we've got that a the ship was set on auto pilot and there was no sign of a crew. >> you report on migrants trying to reach the island. is the route these 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 that island toward sicily as well. italy has received 150,000 migrants from the middle east and africa this year large increase on previous years. the international organization for migration says more than 3,000 refugees are known to have died trying to make the journey from the middle east to europe

on stable boats. >> james reynolds that was him speaking about 90 minutes ago. he's on route to gallipoli. we're hoping to speak to him in an hour's time on bbc news. let me update on other main stories. medical sources in yemen say 33 people are killed in a suicide attack in ibb. shia muslims were gathering. they are thought to be members of the group leading an uprising in recent months. the king of saudi arabia has been admitted to the hospital for tests. the royal palace gave no further word on his conditions. and the president has been sworn in in tunisia. he's 88. he's the first with a democratic mandate. in the speech he said the country would have no future

without consensus. do stay with me here on bbc world news. in a few minutes time i'll play you a brand new report from malaysia where the worst flooding in 30 years as caused tens of hows of people to flee their homes. now to a shocking story from the u.s. a 2-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his mother inside a wal-mart store in idaho. peter bose can give us more details ♪ ♪ ♪ hershey's spreads. bring the delicious taste of hershey's chocolate to anything - everything. with hershey's spreads,

the possibilities are delicious.

. after apparently being abandoned by the crew in greek waters. shelters are overflowing in malaysia after worst flood in 30 years. tens of thousands are forced to evacuate their homes.

forecasters say unfortunately there's more rain to come. conditions could deteriorate further by the weekend. one of the worst affected areas is in kuala kerai. >> for eight days these streets were cut off from the outside world. this village is built next to a water fall. heavy rain flooded the river. within hours the area was submerged under water. this used to be a muslim prayer laul. the current was so strong it lifted the structure and moved it on top of here what used tock someone else's kitchen. villages are eager to clean up. the stronger men have to scrape thick mud off the floors. 12 people share this two story home, what they can salvage fits into a tiny room. >> translator: it's very sad.

this is the most severe flood i've seen. water came in so fast. we've had floods before but they hardly ever flooded the house. this time my family had to run up to the second floor. it still wasn't safe. the water kept rising. rescue boats had to come and take us to the school for shelter. >> not everyone feels the government acted quickly enough. here the prime minister is assessing the damages at main hospital. earlier he was criticized for golfing with the u.s. president when the town was running low on food supplies. there were reports of desperate people stealing. today water has drained but there's no electricity. officials defended the rescue effort and pledged more money to help victims. government aid is getting out, but this is the first time the village has seen food arrive in more than a week. it is not enough. local officials have to make

smaller portions to stretch the pie. back at the village, rain starts to fall again. residents are told to prepare for more flooding. some feel they've already lost everything. bbc news. we go from malaysia to moscow. more than a dozen antigovernment activists are arrest there had including a member of the russian protest group pussy riot. they were demonstrating against the conviction of leading opposition politician navalny. he maintains innocence for fraud. he was detained when he tried to join the demonstrators in moscow. he's one of putin's leading critics. the president had high popularity in in russia. he has spent 15 years either as president or prime minister. the current economic downturn during the international sanctions and lowering of oil

prices means mr. putin is under the kind of pressure he hasn't seen too many times in 15 years. steve rosenburg has more. >> it was new year's eve, 1999. as russians were preparing for dawn of new millennium here the president was preparing to make a surprise announcement. >> reporter: the man chose to succeed him was his prime minister vladimir putin. he got the presidentialzsidential office and handed the pen and briefcase. 15 years on, president putin is still in charge here. not only that this year forbes magazine named him the most powerful man in the world.

>> today in russia today and the past several years, one man has been making all decisions calling all shots. if you don't know his name it's vladimir putin. after many years of being ignored and being told okay you lost the cold war, just shut up putin managed to bring russia back one way or the other. he has. you cannot discount russia anymore. that's why i think russians are so proud of him. >> he is popular. the approval rating is 85%. many russians believe he's made their country stronger and more prosperous. that prosperity is under threat now. it was putin's decision to an ex crimea that sparked western

sanctions helping to push russia into problems. >> sooner or later because of economic problems people will start waking up demanding and asking question withes who's responsible for beginning of this? it could happen five months one year or two two mark. >> if there is a real economic catastrophe, it's going to be blamed on him. it's going to be blamed on putin. he will fall from hero to zero. >> if that happens, how will he react? by changing policies and mending ties with the west or by cracking down on social unrest? what he decides, the new year looks critical for putin. bbc news moscow. the school attack left over

140 dead most children when it was attacked by taliban militants. the trauma endured by the children who survived is considerable. there's concerns about how much therapy and counselling will be used to help them when those treatments are shunned in a conservative society. let's speak to our correspondent there. >> he is learning to play with cousins again. the night brings nightmares. he survived the militant attack on his school in peshawar but saw his mother who was a teacher die in it. his father a surgeon was busy saving other injured children's lives when his own son was brought in bringing news his wife was dead. he's still too numb to talk his son through his grief. the boy is too terrified to feel loss. he fears the militants will come

back. >> translator: i'm afraid. i'm even afraid to leave my home because even now people are saying i don't know if it's a rumor or true someone was saying 400 terrorists have come to peshawar. >> the surviving children are treated by doctors, but their wounds are more than just skin deep. exposed to a constant stream of media and visitors the children have not yet come to terms with what happened. experts say the grief counselling sessions are from underresourced hospitals and may not be enough and the consequences are dangerous. >> they will have worse effect on life. it may lead to feeling of aggression and frustration and aggression. it may be directed to violent behavior in one way or another. >> the city has gone on high

security alert. school walls are raised like fortresses. schools remain closed. a teacher who started teaching children at his home so they won't miss lessons. more than lessons, children need counselling. they are now afraid to go to school. >> element of fear is in children and kids. they are feared to go to school. they identify school with a fearful place for example. they are limited even if they go to school. they are not allowed to open -- they cannot even hold the morning assemblies that used to be. >> students were taking their exams here in a school just a few minutes away from the attacked one when they heard the explosions. they were evacuated. they haven't returned. it's not just the bombs and

bullets that define this they're constantly exposed to death and destruction. in the society that does not encourage giving time to fears and feelings just how high the price the country pays may be only clear years from now when a generation of traumatized children become equally traumatized adults. bbc news, peshawar. >> you can get news through bbc.com. for most of us the new year party is still to come. if you're watching in new zealand, it's already 2015. these are pictures we've got from auckland from not so long ago when the new year came in. 2015 has arrived. the next big one to arrive is sydney in 35 minutes time. it normally puts on a fireworks show that gets lots of attention around the word. you'll see that on bbc world news. i'll mention the stories we're

talking about here on bbc television you can follow on our website, bbc.com/news. you'll get in-depth reporting on airasia crash. when pictures of new year's celebrations come in you'll find them there too. i'll speak to you in half an hour. bye bye.

♪ ♪ ♪ break the ice, with breath freshening cooling crystals. ice breakers.

hello. this is bbc world news. these are our top stories. two bodies from the crashed airasia plane have been recovered as the search is called off for the day. the company's ceo says the recovery mission is still in early stages. >> they're narrowing the search. they're they're feeling more comfortable. there's no confirmation. no sonar. some visual identification but nothing confirmed. a ship carried 700 migrants is docked after being safely