welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is martin stanford. here are the top stories: urgently searching for trapped survivors of the indonesian tsunami, at least 280 people are now known to have died. these cars, i am told, were parked on the other side of the road, and they've been pushed into each other, on top of what was a holiday villa. pushed before he jumped. president trump forces out his defence chief two months ahead of his expected departure. pakistan's former prime minister nawaz sharif learns his fate shortly. an anti—corruption court will release its verdict. a not—so silent night, as one of the best—known christmas carols celebrates its 200th birthday. hello.

indonesia's disaster agency now say at least 281 were killed, with a further 57 missing, following the tsunami that swept through indonesia's sunda strait on saturday. thousands of people who live on the islands of java and sumatra have been forced to evacuate to higher ground as the tsunami hit coastal areas. in the last few hours, there have been further eruptions from the anak krakatau volcano, fuelling fears of further tsunami. our indonesia correspondent rebecca henschke reports. a popular local tourist destination, now a disaster zone. the only road in, cleared to allow aid supplies to get through. people here now trying to piece together their lives. a work party to celebrate

the end of the year. onstage, the stars of the night, a local rock group in full swing. the next second, a wave engulfed the stage. the lead singer confirmed that four bandmembers had died and that his wife is still missing. this coastline where the band were playing is now littered with trouble. rani says she doesn't know how they will rebuild. translation: we were all set up for christmas and new year holiday period. but it's been destroyed by the waves and the rest has been stolen. what am i going to do? families here say they had no warning and there was confusing information coming out

from the government. translation: what was the government doing? at first they said there hadn't been a tsunami last night. they took ages to act. these waves were devastating. it was clearly a tsunami. over here, an image that gives you a sense of the power of the waves. these cars i'm told were parked on the other side of the road, and they've been pushed into each other on top of what was holiday villa, full at this time of year. here at this local clinic, desperate families are looking for their relatives. the injured are still arriving. and the death toll is still rising. translation: the victims were local people who owned shops

and stalls here. but there were many visitors, too. we're trying to open the access road. last night a lot of debris had been dragged in and had clogged the road. officials believe underwater landslides caused by eruptions at the nearby anak krakatau volcano may have triggered the huge waves. it's still active. authorities are warning that there could be another tsunami, and telling people to stay away from the beaches. steve mcandrew is the head of emergency operations for the international federation of the red cross and red crescent societies in sulawesi and lombok. he's been giving me the latest. we are starting to give out

emergency relief supplies. it is a full on emergency response operation. multiple challenges for your teams, multiple locations and some of them i hear are very difficult to get to. yes, there are definitely some problems with access. our teams are doing the best they can. we are lucky that we are pre— positioned volunteers in this area. we have been preparing for this type of event over the last year, exactly this type of event over the last yea r, exactly in this type of event over the last year, exactly in this area. so we are doing the best we can. we seem to have enough volunteers in the different areas. it is nowjust a matter of us making sure we can give them the support they need and just keep up the persistence to address the issues. and you have sufficient

stocks, do you, of basics, like equipment for shelter and water and food? we have sufficient pre- positioned stocks, but our stocks are running out rapidly. and we have also been responding to earthquakes and tsunamis in lombok and central sulawesi for the last five months, so sulawesi for the last five months, so the stocks are definitely depleting. we have enough to last today and tomorrow, but we are requesting assistance to replenish and resupply the stocks because we still don't know what's coming next. here in indonesia, there is always another event we have to respond to and we always need to keep our volu nteers and we always need to keep our volunteers trained up and equipped so volunteers trained up and equipped so they can do the job they need. volunteers trained up and equipped so they can do the job they needlj was so they can do the job they need.” was just so they can do the job they need.” wasjust going to so they can do the job they need.” was just going to say, steve, also, your local teams there are having to do this work in the knowledge that another wave might be on the way. is

that a problem for them? it is definitely... it is definitely something that we are concerned about and we are raising awareness with all of our teams. so the government has put out advisories to stay away from coastal areas. there is still a high chance of further tsunamis. so luckily our teams are well equipped and we have awareness training around this, but everyone needs to really stay alert, and we are ready to withdraw as soon as possible, as soon as needed, at short notice in the event of more tsunamis coming. so it is a very, very difficultjob. we have the best volu nteers very difficultjob. we have the best volunteers in the world here in indonesia. we are getting great support from all of our red cross partners, including british red cross, so we are just what we were made to do and what we are doing everyday, in and out, and we are up for thejob here. let's get some of the day's other news.

the us treasury secretary, steven mnuchin, has been in contact with the chief executives of the nation's six largest banks. last week us stocks had one of their worst falls since the financial crisis of 2008. mr mnuchin‘s talks are part of efforts to calm businesses and investors before trading starts again on monday. legislators in cuba have approved a new draft constitution to replace a version dating back to the cold war. the draft will now go to a popular referendum in february next year. the document is yet to be made public, but, according to state—run media, the communist party will remain the country's key form of governance. the international charity, save the children, has warned that migrant youths are facing increasing violence at european borders. the charity's partner organisation in serbia has collected more than 1,000 testimonies of children being forced back across borders this year. some say they were beaten, assaulted with pepper spray, or had their mobile phones or money stolen. an accountability court in islamabad is shortly due to announce a verdict

in two cases against former prime minister nawaz sharif. the accountability court had indicted sharif for holding assets beyond his known sources of income in august 2017. if convicted, nawaz sharif could face up to 14 years in jail. michael kugelman is the deputy director of the asia programme and senior associate for south asia at the wilson center. he joins me from washington. do you think another guilty verdict is the most likely outcome here?” do. i think it is quite likely. i mean, we know that he was convicted ona similar mean, we know that he was convicted on a similar charge and sentenced to several months in prison earlier this year. so i do think it is quite likely that there could be at conviction in this case, though of course i don't like to speculate overly active point. just remind us what he is accused of doing in this

particular instance. well, i mean, in this instance, like some of the previous ones, essentially, you know, it comes down to issues of offshore wealth, offshore assets and how exactly, who owns these establishments and how the money came in and how the resources were managed and if there was anything illegal that was done about that. so it is very similar to what we had with the case that led to him being sentenced to prison back injuly. the punishment 14 years, i think is the tariff, a possible tarafat could be handed down in this case, is that likely to be challenged, do we have appealed process open to mr nawaz sharif? 0h, appealed process open to mr nawaz sharif? oh, yes, absolutely, i mean, anything is possible, though i think that, you know, 14 years in prison would be a pretty stiff sentence and i think that it would be enough to really end his political career as we know it. so i do think that his legal counsel will do everything possible to try to challenge a

verdict or sentence that leads to that reality of verdict or sentence that leads to that reality 01:14 years in prison. pakistani's politics is pretty combustible at the best of times. does a verdict like this for some more petrol on that fire?” does a verdict like this for some more petrol on that fire? i think so. more petrol on that fire? i think so. i mean, ithink that more petrol on that fire? i think so. i mean, i think that the very bitter partisanship in pakistani politics would intensify to a great degree. you know, nawaz sharif and he is plmn party that used to be in control of the government in pakistan have had a long dispute, a lot of arguments, just bad blood between the party and the pti, the ruling party now. and nawaz sharif believes that the pti, the current ruling party, has been working with the army in pakistani to essentially undercut nawaz sharif and his party for several years. and i think that if we do have a conviction now, then plmn members and supporters would essentially make that same argument that this is a political witch—hunt

that this is a political witch—hunt thatis that this is a political witch—hunt that is really leading to this type of outcome and it is not actual justice being served, it is simple politics and nothing else. thank you very much indeed. thank you. president trump has promoted the deputy us defence secretary, patrick shanahan, to replace his boss, james mattis, on an acting basis. general mattis announced his resignation last week after the president's decision to withdraw american forces from syria. he had said he would stay in his post until the end of february but mr trump's announced that mr shanahan would take the job from the new year. stay with us on bbc world news. still to come: singing announcing the arrival of christmas at prague's main train station. the world of music has been paying tribute to george michael, who's died from suspected heart

failure at the age of 53. he sold well over 100 million albums over a career spanning over three decades. the united states troops have been trying to overthrow the dictatorship of general manuel noriega. the pentagon said that it's failed in its principle objective to capture noriega and take him to the united states to face drugs charges. the hammer and sickle was hastily taken away. in its place, the russian flag was hoisted over what is now no longer the soviet union, but the commonwealth of independent states. day broke slowly over lockerbie, over the cockpit of pan am's maid of the seas nose down in the soft earth. you could see what happens when a plane eight storeys high, a football pitch wide, falls from 30,000 feet. christmas has returned to albania after a communist ban lasting more than 20 years. thousands went to midnight mass in the town of shkoder where there were anti—communist riots ten days ago. this is bbc world news.

the latest headlines: rescue workers in indonesia are continuing to search for people trapped by a tsunami which is now known to have killed more than 280 people. president trump has announced that his new secretary of defence, patrick sha na han, will take over two months earlier than previously planned. the previous secretary, jim mattis, resigned last week. more on our main story, and the volcano thought to have caused the tsunami has seen increased activity for the last few months, but it is not known as yet exactly how it caused the massive wave. our correspondent richard galpin has been exploring the possibilities. last night, after months of activity, came this particularly large eruption from the volcano known as the ‘child of krakatoa.‘ and, just 20 or 30 minutes later, the tsunami hit nearby coastal areas in the sunda strait.

it is this violent volcanic activity, not an earthquake, according to experts, which is believed to have triggered the deadly tsunami. it is quite rare, but can happen in several ways. either an underwater part of the volcano breaks away, displacing enough water to create a huge wave, or a section of the upper half shears off, plunging into the sea and having the same effect. the seismometers, either locally or round the world, have not recorded a large earthquake associated with this event. and that's why the eruption of the volcano, and perhaps the movement of — the failure of the flanks of the volcano and the movement of material off the flanks of the volcano seems to be the most likely explanation. the fact hundreds were killed and injured may be down to there being no tremors, which would have alerted people to the danger of being close to the shore before

the wave hit them. sitting on the pacific ring of fire, indonesia has a long history of volcanic activity. this volcano emerged less than 100 years ago from what was left of the original krakatoa, which blew itself up in one of the biggest eruptions ever recorded. and now, the child of krakatoa has been showing its potency. there is no sign so far of the eruptions dying down. richard galpin, bbc news. mika mckinnon is a field geophysicist and disaster researcher, and has been explaining more about why the early warning systems weren't triggered. so our existing warning systems are very good for understanding ea rthquake—triggered tsunami. unfortunately, tsunami can be triggered by landslides, by volcanic eruptions, by calving glaciers, even by something

like a meteor impact. and in all of those instances, they don't trigger the warning system in the same way, and it creates a tsunami that is much more difficult to identify, and a lot more difficult for us to send the warnings out. so it's not so much that the warning system failed, it's the warning system isn't designed to deal with this type of tsunami. it deals with about 80% of tsunami, are all earthquake—triggered, but the other 20%, like this volcano—triggered tsunami, fell through the gaps. is there any system that wouldn't allow this kind of warning to fall through the gap, that would accurately record these events? unfortunately, not really. like, if we wanted to spend a lot of money and have a whole bunch of tsunami buoys everywhere, then maybe we could get to enough density that we could do it. but unfortunately, what we do right now is about 80% of tsunamis are generated by earthquakes. so, if a seismometer

records an earthquake, we say, hey, there might be a tsunami, and we send out a precautionary warning to everywhere that's coastal nearby. and then we start looking for that tsunami to actually show up on the deep—sea buoys. but if it's a local tsunami, even if we had an immediate notification that there was a landslide off of krakatoa, into the water, at absolute most, if we had, like, a little drone hovering over the island watching the volcano 2a hours a day, at absolute most we'd have 30 minutes' warning that there was a landslide, during which we'd have to figure out if it triggered a tsunami, and then figure out how big that tsunami was, and then issue a warning, and then people would have to respond to the warning. and that's just too fast. even in the best possible circumstances, you are not going to be able to do anything without warning. if you look around yourself right now, could you get to high ground? could you get 10—30 metres above sea level inside the next ten minutes? and some of your research, i think, has pointed to the fact that even

the warning systems which are in place get vandalised, or don't get maintained properly. why would that be? yeah, so the indian ocean tsunami buoy warning system is fairly new. it's only been installed, really, since the sumatra tsunami in 200a. it's an incomplete system. a lot of those buoys haven't been fully maintained, and the system has not been fully placed. some of the buoys which are close to the shore end up getting vandalised or used by fishermen, who hook on to the buoys when they're working and then end up accidentally damaging them. so it's a very different system than, say, the pacific tsunami warning system. that has a longer heritage, has much more training going with it, so people know what to do with the warnings. this is a newer and younger system. it's better than nothing, but not fully built out yet.

billionaire elon musk‘s spacex company has launched a falcon 9 rocket into orbit. the craft took up a new, ultra—precise navigation satellite for the us airforce, which could eventually improve domestically used gps systems too. the global positioning system iii, nicknamed vespucci, lifted off from cape canaveral in florida. queen elizabeth will urge people to treat each other with respect in her annual christmas message to be broadcast on tuesday. buckingham palace has released some excerpts. the queen talks about the teachings of christ and says: the christmas carol silent night is celebrating its 200th birthday.

the carol was first performed in austria in the village of oberndorf, near salzburg, on christmas eve 1818, after a priest, joseph mohr, asked a school teacher and organist, franz gruber, to set his words to music. bethany bell reports from salzburg. sings silent night in gernan. it is one of the world's favourite christmas carols — silent night, or stille nacht, as it is known in german. oh, i think it's the best christmas song ever. it's familiar. we learned it when we were a child, and everyone sings it. the carol is 200 years old this christmas, and it comes from austria. this is where silent night was first sung, on christmas eve 1818, in the village of

oberndorf near salzburg. the original church doesn't exist anymore. it was badly damaged by floods at the end of the 19th century, and had to be demolished. this little chapel was built in place. a priest called joseph mohr wrote the words. he asked franz xaver gruber, a school teacher and an organist, to compose the melody. according to legend, the church organ had broken down, damaged by mice chewing at the bellows, so they had to sing it with this guitar. but historians believe that the mice and the broken organ are probably just a myth. it was, with the guitar, more people—friendly, and with an instrument which was very common outside, of course, the church. you can take the guitar wherever you go, and therefore also the song itself was known very quick all around the world. silent night quickly

spread across europe and on to the united states. it was sung across the trenches during the first world war. and, for many people, it is simply the carol which means christmas. the countdown to christmas is almost over, and all around the world, people are preparing for the big day. there is sure to be plenty of last—minute shopping. many will be on the move, hoping to spend time with loved ones, and quite a bit of food and drink is likely to be consumed. the bbc‘s tim allman has more. christmas can be celebrated in so many different ways, but this, at first glance, doesn't look particularly festive. in parts of bavaria, they have been doing this for thousands of years. it is called perchten — people dressing up as monsters to try and scare away the winter. these moves could be described

as pretty frightening, as well. we are dancing to ward off the evil winter ghosts, said this monster. now, this is more like it. dozens upon dozens of father christmases. in fact, around 2,000 of them, taking part in a charity raised in moscow. they were raising money from local hospices, and it seems the conditions weren't as difficult as some had feared. translation: awesome, the weather is beautiful. i actually thought it would be much worse. they said the temperature would be minus 30. when you run, you feel hot, and very happy. super! when you think of christmas, you may well think of lights. lots and lots of lights. this park in croatia certainly won't disappoint. there's around 4 million of them. the childhood dream of a local man who grew up in poverty and couldn't afford christmas decorations. well, he has more than

made up for it now. singing. and, if you happen to be waiting for a train at prague's main station, this may have helped wile away the hours. an annual christmas mass that takes place in the main hall each year. the orchestra and choir, amateurs and professionals, celebrating this special time. and not a monster in sight. tim allman, bbc news. and if you are celebrating christmas wherever you are watching the programme, let me wish you a very happy christmas. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @martinstanford. thank you for watching bbc news. good morning.

as we head properly into christmas week, there may be no snow in the christmas week forecast, but at least there's no real severe weather to trouble us. winds will be light, most places will be dry. could be some festive frost by night. but the big worry, i suppose, for those travelling, especially in england and wales later on, could be some lingering dense fog patches. and we will have some fog tonight, under a blossoming area of high pressure, across the uk and into the morning. we do have this weather front towards the south—west continuing to bring outbreaks of rain on christmas eve. notice on our temperature profile the green colours here — a mild start, with temperatures 10—12. further north and east, a chilly one, widespread frost. temperatures lowest in scotland. could be some ice around where the ground is damp from the day. still some fog in the morning, around glasgow, northern ireland, north—west england, north—east wales and the west midlands. that could cause a few travel issues through the morning rush. elsewhere, though, most will have

sunshine to start the day. always a bit more cloud across the south. patchy rain or drizzle becoming lighter towards the far south—west. still mild here but a cooler day for many. a bit of lingering fog into the afternoon, eastern parts of wales and the west midlands. but the best of sunshine the further north you go, even if temperatures are on the struggle. now, into the evening, as soon as the sun sets, eastern england, driving home for christmas maybe? well, here's where we could see dense fog to take us into the latter stage of christmas eve and the start of christmas day. blue colours on our temperature chart show lots of frost for scotland and england, but it does ease away in the west as milder air pushes up from the south throughout. and that could come with a little bit of drizzle across western areas for christmas day. but the christmas day forecast itself is a largely dry one. a bit of frost around in the morning, especially across scotland and eastern england, and there will be some fog patches, central, eastern england. could linger for some all day long. elsewhere, sunshine will break through what cloud we have. in the west, cloud thickest. could produce some drizzle but even the odd bright spell possible here too.

temperatures in the west around christmas day, around 11 or 12. single figures across much of eastern scotland and eastern england in particular. mild air in the west will push eastward as we go into boxing day as a high pressure drifts southwards. notice the weather fronts clipping across the northern half of scotland will produce rain or drizzle for boxing day. the odd heavy burst in the highlands and hebrides. most, though, stay dry. there will be some lingering fog across parts of the midlands and eastern england. clearer skies in towards the south later on, and temperatures for all up a little bit relative to christmas day, and the dry weather continues into thursday. that's how it's looking, see you again soon. this is bbc news. the headlines: people living in the sunda strait region of indonesia have been warned to keep away from beaches amid fears the anak krakatoa volcano could trigger another tsunami. over 280 people are now known to have died after the waves struck late on saturday, and over 1,000 have been injured. president trump has announced that his current secretary of defence, jim mattis,

will leave office two months earlier than originally announced. general mattis resigned last week over mr trump's plans to withdraw us troops from syria. he will be replaced by his deputy patrick sha na han on january the first. and a court in pakistan is to announce verdict in two references against former prime minister nawaz sharif. the court had indicted sharif in the said references for holding assets beyond his known sources of income in august 2017. now it's time to take a look at some of hardtalk‘s stand—out interviews