when donald trump's eldest son met a russian lawyer during last year's presidential campaign. donald trump, jr attended the meeting in new york injune last year after being promised information about hillary clinton. president emmanuel macron has said france will fight without mercy to protect its values from terrorists. speaking at commemorations to mark the first anniversary of the truck attack in nice, mr macron said france had forgotten the name of the attacker but learned the names of his 86 victims. the turkish authorities have sacked more than 7,000 police officers, state officials and academics for alleged links with last year's attempted coup, the first anniversary of which is being marked on saturday. the purge is the latest in a series that has seen around 200,000 public servants punished. let's see what's been making headlines around the world with a look at the international papers. we start with le figaro, which leads on the crackdown in turkey.

president erdogan has dismissed thousands more police officers, officials and academics one year after the failed coup. the paper also shows some of the bastille day celebrations in paris. president trump was at those events and he appears on the front cover of gulf news. the paper leads on the tensions between qatar and some of its middle eastern neighbours. the paper quotes a minister from the uae — who says the diplomatic fallout is likely to last a long time. the financial times shows presidents macron and trump in paris. the ft reports on concerns coming from wall street. two of america's biggest banks — jp morgan and citigroup — have reported a drop in revenues from their trading business, amidst signs of a possible downturn. here in the uk — the guardian leads on a report by a thinktank which shows a huge financial divide between the top one —— 1% and those under the age of 35.

the paper also shows a photo of beyonce with her new twin babies sircarterand rumi. the picture first appeared on social media and has had more than 8 million likes. now it's time for our world. in the netherlands and across europe, thousands of iranian refugees are turning to christianity. tired of the lack of freedom in the islamic republic, they say conversion offers a new start. and it's a much needed boost to dutch church congregations. every week two traditional churches are closing in this country. but converting to christianity can carry a heavy penalty in iran and some say the refugees are onlyjoining the church so they won't be sent back.

i lied to them. most iranians regard this to be the best way, it's not just me. the difficulty is that we can't look into people's minds and hearts. i've been reporting on refugee stories for many years and now i'm in the netherlands to find out why so many iranians are converting to christianity. are they born again or simply praying for asylum 7 it's a sunday morning near dorne, in the central netherlands and preparations are under way for a special ceremony. 0rif, an iranian student, in his 20s, is getting ready to be baptised. converting to christianity can be punished by death in iran and he's scared to show his face on camera

in case it causes problems for his family back home. 0rif came to the netherlands over a year ago and left islam after meeting christians in europe. translation: the christians i met were really nice and at the beginning i wondered how these people could be so good. i wanted to know more about their opinions and what they actually thought. and when i read about it, i realised that i knew nothing about christianity because where we grew up everything was closed, you couldn't get information. the fact that everything in christian tee is based on compassion and love is extraordinary. this was the first thing i saw in people here. some here have asked us not to show theirfaces. the baptism will be performed by the dutch pastor of this church, vaast.

in baptism that is the moment that someone, he's no longer a secret believer, but now he's coming out and he's professing his faith and that he wants to be a follower ofjesus. applause. 0rif has come here with dutch friends from his church which is a huge part of his life here. although 0rif has found a surrogate family in the church, his own parents, back in iran, have cut him off financially since his conversion. although 0rif has found a surrogate

family in the church, his own parents, back in iran, have cut him off financially since his conversion. translation: i grew up in a religious family, it's really hard for them to accept other beliefs. since i've changed my beliefs, they've become aggressive towards me. all my attempts to make peace with them have been futile. 0rif is just one of three iranians being baptised here today. how often do you baptise people? an average of 25 per year. vaast tells me many of the iranians here come from the local refugee centre just down the road. for iranians wanting to stay here, conversion to christianity can be

the basis of a successful asylum claim. converts argue that their new faith would expose them to persecution if they were sent home. vaast tells me that not everyone who asks for baptism is entirely genuine. if someone is entering here into the church and the same day, first day, he is asking me, "when can i be baptised?" then i know enough. i know he has a case and that he's searching for baptism and then i explain that it will not help him. that the certificate will not help him because our government is not mad. they can easily come to know if you are a real believer or not and i'm also not willing to help you with such a thing because we are a church, we are followers ofjesus christ.

we try to please him and we are not some group who is helping refugees to get asylum here. 0rif seems to be very genuine, he'd spent about a year preparing to be baptised, but i've heard of many cases of iranian refugees who have been baptised in a very short time after converting. there are no exact numbers for how many iranians have been baptised across europe in recent years. many of them come to christianity through persische, one of the largest persian churches in europe, famous for sharing their activities online. the leader, masood, has baptised

literally thousands of iranian converts from the streets of paris to turkey. he tells me he himself got baptised on his first day in the netherlands, over 17 years ago. soon after converting, masood set up his church here. masood often let's refugees stay

with him while they're waiting to hear about their asylum claims and he introduces me to a man, masood often let's refugees stay with him while they're waiting to hear about their asylum claims and he introduces me to a man, we will call him syed, who admits he only converted as he thought it would help his case. translation: i became a christian to live in the netherlands, it was the best possible option. syed was turned down for asylum and is now trying to appeal.

it's easy to imagine wht immigrants like him would risk lying to the authorities. christianity can be the gateway to a new life in europe. i'm on my way to meet ali, a young iranian living with a dutch family, who met him in church and are now helping him to get settled into dutch society. he has been granted asylum in the netherlands and is living with christians yoka and her husband ronald. we saw on television, i think like everybody did, the big wave of refugees coming in 2015 and then it was at the end of 2015 the start of 2016, that they also contacted us as a church and they said, "we want to know more about christianity. we want to be baptised." they come to us, "can you help me talk to the doctor? can you help me talk to the lawyer?"

we try to help them with their documents and translate for them whatever we can. although ali may be far from home, he gets to enjoy a little iranian companionship in bible studies held at his house each week, where they sing christian hymns infarsi. all these men came to the netherlands as refugees, most of them have been turned down for asylum. we're hiding their identities for their safety in case they are sent back to iran. one of them, sorop, not his real name, explains why he left? translation: the force and the oppression were constant, they torment us for everything.

the way we dressed, our hairstyle or because we ate during ramadan. i've been in the netherlands for 16 months, before that i was in thejungle in calais for almost four months, i wanted to go to england. i arrived here after a dangerous journey. it was by god's grace that i didn't die, for many people did die. i eventually got here, but my case was not accepted. they didn't believe i was a christian. i don't know why. sorop says he converted to christianity years ago in iran, but he's still covering the basics in bible studies. and he didn't seem to know simple facts about jesus' life. we know that in this country

the number of christians is now less than it used to be. in fact, we are a minority now, i believe. now we see that people from other countries are coming and they are new in their new religion and they have a lot of questions. that's also good for the church because now christians that are christians for many years have to think about, what do i believe? why do i believe it? can i explain it to a new believer? so it's also good for them. it's hard to know what to think, but these guys are saying they are really into christianity and they converted into christianity facing so many threats in iran, but they're not able to answer basic questions. in 2015, there were just over 115,000 applications for asylum in the netherlands, just under 2,000 of them were from iranians. i've come to where the dutch

immigration authority, the ind, interview asylum seekers to find out how they work out who are the genuine believers. i think we have interviews with asylum seekers who claim that they've converted to christianity basically every day and i think more than one every day. it started like a couple of years ago, maybe 2010, around that time, it might be the situations in the country of origin, like the places that people come from. it might also be that churches have become more active in evangelising people and it might be that smugglers have been telling them stories about how to get asylum in the netherlands and in europe. isn't it hard for you to say someone is really genuine? the difficulty is that we can't look

into people's minds and hearts. initially, basically, a lot of our questions were focused on practical knowledge, like biblical knowledge. we have shifted now to questions that are focused more on the process that people have gone through and their personal experiences. we don't only look at, for example, certificates of baptism. biblical knowledge can be studied, but when you ask someone in—depth questions about their personal thoughts and feelings and experiences and their motivations, yeah, i think you get a better hunch or a better idea of how genuine the conversion is. the ind do not keep statistics for why people are granted asylum, but of the 1,885 iranians who applied for asylum in 2015,

only 340 cases were granted. i've come to see sorop from the bible study group again, he's staying at a refugee centre while he waits to hear the outcome of his appeal. he shows me his letter of rejection from the ind, which is in dutch. translation: the reasons they rejected my claim. they did not believe me, that's their opinion, but there's no window to a person's heart, so you can open it and see inside. the documents set out in the detail the ways in which the immigration officials found his story to be inconsistent. the immigration service said he also didn't have the depth of knowledge and understanding of christianity that they would expect. translation: i explained to them that i spoke normally,

the way i spoke in my neighbourhood. i'm just a normal guy with a high school diploma, it's their fault that they didn't understand me. when i found out i had been rejected, you may not believe me, but i thanked god because finally i had a decision. if there was freedom in iran and everybody could have their own ideas and follow their own religion, then i would have gone back. my mother is there and she's the most precious thing to me. she has told me to return, but it's just not possible. sorop is still waiting to hear about the outcome of his appeal. conversion doesn'tjust change the lives of iranians, in parts of the netherlands it's also transforming the church itself. i've been invited to vaast‘s church for the sunday service, it's not like anything i've ever seen before. the hymns are sung in farsi

and dutch and all the preaching is translated too. it is more chaotic and you know the dutch churches, if it starts at 10.00am, it starts exactly at 10.00am, maybe one minute late, but not two minutes late it starts, but now this is impossible. some people may think that these changes, they may change the church's character. yes, it is. what do you think about that? yes, it is changing. that was our wish because the church is dying in europe and in the netherlands too. every week two traditional churches are closing in this country. every week, you see.

that is because of the identities, it's kind of only old people are sitting there and i have the wish always and that is, we do this, it's intercultural and mixing up the cultures because we do learn a lot of one another. not everyone is happy about the changes happening here, several dutch families have left the congregation. simon used to do the music at the church, but he didn't like what was happening and left a few years ago. we are used to very international communities, society and we loved it. i think it can make our culture, our dutch culture, much richer if you're connected to foreigners. it was very nice to a certain point.

when they started preaching in farsi and using farsi as the tongue, it became very difficult because we couldn't trust the translations. the turning point was that somebody was inter—preaching, a guy from afghanistan, and he changed the message. he changed the message into something that he liked. i think in some ways the church are a little bit naive and they are very, very energetic and eager to help people with the gospel and freedom from islam. the danger is that you are used by people who use their baptism for other purposes. they can use their baptism to get status and then you're in real trouble because then the ones that really are in danger and need to be

helped here are not going to be taken serious any more. it's impossible to tell how many of the new converts i've spoken to are genuine, but it's plain to see they've already brought great change to the churches they attend, and the church has had an equally profound impact on their lives, offering community and support in a new country. but the sheer number of people claiming they have found jesus means the asylum system itself has also changed and it's now harder to convince the authorities that a conversion to christianity is genuine. so for those, like sorop, who have had their i assume claim rejected, all they can do now

is pray for permission to start a new life in the netherlands. hello there. some decent, dry, and also for some, sunny weather around this weekend. but there will be a lot of cloud around at times, threatening some rain, particularly on saturday. and, throughout saturday, the air gets warmer and more muggy. it is because of this warm front pushing its way eastwards, dragging in the air from the mid—atla ntic. but it is those weather fronts which through the night have been producing rain.

and, to start the day, a bit of a damp start in western scotland, northern england, wales, and also parts of the midlands. the first batch is fairly rapidly spreading its way south and eastwards. not much rain at all across some south—eastern areas, but the rain is there for much of the day across western scotland. we could see as much as 20 to a0 millimetres of rain on the hills in the west, so not a great one here. we'll see rain at times in northern ireland, but some rain at times, some dry moments, and something drier every now and then to the east of scotland, so far from a washout. it stays fairly cloudy in northern england, midlands and wales, patchy light rain and drizzle. but across england and wales, i think it is during the morning we are best favoured for some wetter conditions. the rain tends to ease off into the north sea. one or two showers here and there, though, through the afternoon, but temperatures climbing as we go, up to around 22 or 23. it does mean there could be some rain in the middle part of the day at wimbledon. same too on sunday, best

of the sunshine in the morning. to get us through into sunday, the rain will work its way southwards. by the end of the night, probably across parts of northern england and wales, and it offers a bit of a split in conditions into the start of sunday. a fresher start, particularly away from city centres. to the north, a fairly muggy, misty, and for some, damp start across england and wales. this is the weather front, then, which is the dividing line between the muggiest of the air and something a bit fresher. but it does mean scotland, northern ireland, northern england, actually quite a nice sunshine on the way. lots of sunshine elsewhere, brightening up for north wales and the north midlands, staying fairly cloudy across southernmost counties. the best of your sunshine will be in the morning. this weather front producing the odd shower, spot of rain and drizzle. 2a to 26 degrees, potentially, in the south—east corner. the teens in the north, but it will still be quite nice. they may be some patchy rain around in the morning at silverstone, optimistic skies will brighten by the time we get to the second half of the day. but it'll be one close call, we will have to keep on watching things.

but certainly, into the start of next week, that ridge of high pressure building. lots of you will be dry. note the temperatures in the south, holding onto mid—20s, and by wednesday, humid across the board. potentially hitting 30 degrees in the south—east corner, but there is a chance of some nasty storms, too. this is bbc news. i'm duncan golestani. our top stories: a new witness to donald trump junior‘s meeting with a russian lawyer comes forward, a former soviet intelligence officer. as turkey marks the anniversary of last year's attempted coup, the government sacks another 7,000 civil servants. a year after the nice terror attack — france remembers the 86 who were killed. and the families taking part in an international trial to find a way of treating dementia.