BBC news with Julie Candler

There has been internatinal concern about the prospect of the snap electing in Greece which is due to take place on the 25th January after parliament fail to choose a new president. The leader of the popular left-wing Syriza party has promised a little austerity will be history if his pary wins. Our economics correspondent Andrew Walker reports.

The bailout of Greece from European IMF came with conditions that the government should reduced borrowing needs by cuting spending and collecting more tax. Syriza are opposed to the austeriy and stands the good chance of winning the elction. The German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble has said if Greece takes another path it will be difficult. It is possible opposition to austerity might be growing in other countries and then worse significant stockmarket frozen in Spain and Italy. But the Eurozone has taken steps since the height of the crisis to reduce the danger that the financial instability might spread.

Passengers rescued from a buring Italian ferry in the midst of the storm in ? sea have been describing their ordeal. Some described their fear as they try to escape the flames and smoke as well as the extreme cold as they waited for rescue. Italian and Greek helicopters have rescued more than 400 people. 10 bodies have been found but it's not clear if others are still missing. Michael Regy has this report.

More than 36 hours after he sent out the first distress signal, the captain handed over control of the stricken ferry to the Italian nvay officers. In high winds and treacherous seas including throughout the night, helicopters winching people to safety. The account of the survivers give a picture of terrify ordeal in trying to escape from the sweltering heat of the ship's floors, choking fumes and biting cold and rain. Italy's prime minister Matteo Renzi said an absolutely tremendous rescue operation had prevented a potential slaughter at sea.

A healthcare worker who returned to Scottland from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola. She was admitted to hospital after feeling unwell and immediately placed in isolation. She flew to Glasgow late on Sunday via Casablanca in Moroco and London. Investigations are underway to trace anyone who came to contact with her. Speeking at a news conference, doctor Alisdair MacConachie said the patient was in a stable condition.

She's been managed in an isolation facility by staff who are comfortable managing patients in such situation. She herself is quite stable, and is not showing any great clinical concern at the moment.

President Obama says internation sanctions against Russia will show that Vladimir Putin made a strategic mistake by annexing Crimea from Ukraine. Mr. Obama told national public radio that a few mongths ago, everyone in Washington thought Mr. Putin was a strategic genius who held out maneuver of the west and expanded Russian power.

World news from the BBC.

The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will hold cabinet meeting next mongth, making use of the presidential authority which is not been exercised in decades. Mr. Erdogan became Turkey's first directly-elected in August after more than a decade as prime minister. He has said he wants to give the president more power.

Iran has held a funeral for a top military commander who was killed in Iraq helping the governmnet fighting with IS group. Brigadier General * ,a veteran of the Iranian revolutionary guard is the highest rank Iranian officer known to have been killed since the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s. IS says it has killed him.

This is the very senior man. Watching some of the Iranian coverage of his funeral, there is a lot of videos and images of him in Iarq, doing what he was sent there to do which is to advise the Iraqi forces and particularly the Shia militias working with them on how to combat IS particularly, coordinating them I think was the key thing. He was a veteran, going way back to Iran-Iraq war, he was clearly someone to be reckoned with.

The US has confiremed that Indonesian has aked for its help in finding a passenger jet which dissapeared over the Java sea on Sunday. Aerial searches were resumed at daybreak on Tueaday, patroling an area beyond the airline is the original fly path. The airbus 8320 dissappeared with 162 people onboard during a flight from Surabaya to Sinapore.

The first insurance bussiness for more than 20 years has opened in the Somali capital Mogadishu. The comapny which says it has ideas to Islamic law will start by offering motor and marine cargo insurance. The director said many people in Mogadishu has no idea what insurance was, as the city has been a virtual war zone since the collapse of the central government in 1991.

BBC news.