jeremy corbyn's party took plymouth from the conservatives, but failed to win any of its target councils in london, and lost nuneaton and bedworth. the conservatives celebrated london as the party held onto their flagship boroughs, but lose trafford, their only council in greater manchester. theresa may said overall it was a good night. it's hard to detect trends in local elections, because not all seats are up for grabs, and gains and losses have to be weighed against the last time they were contested, and the state of the parties then. success or failure also relate of course to expectations, but did bbc news raise or at least amplify expectations for the labour party, and then judge their performance a failure for not living up to them? some viewers certainly thought so, with rose doyle writing... the tory party lost positions, despite ukip dramatically falling away, yet the bbc report this as a bad night for labour, and "mixed results. " sarah coates said us this sarcastic

version of bbc news headlines, as they sounded to her. and ben lawrence e—mailed... well, we put those points to bbc news, and they told us... now, president trump's announcement on tuesday that the usa was withdrawing from the nuclear agreement signed by barack obama has pushed iran to the top of the news agenda. wednesday's news at ten examined the impact of that decision, with some specialist input. my colleague, rana rahimpour, of bbc persian is with me here in the studio to tell us more about the reaction in tehran. rana? yes, huw. almost three years ago when the nuclear deal was signed, there were... but rana rahimpourand her

colleagues have a problem. for the past nine years bbc persian staff have faced persecution at the hands of the iranian authorities, and that has recently escalated. in march, the bbc made an unprecedented appeal to the united nations to lobby iran to stop harassing its staff, on world press freedom day. the campaign continued with a demonstration outside broadcasting house in london. well, jamie angus, the director of the bbc‘s world service group, is here to tell us more. can you summarise first what has been happening with bbc persian journalists? well, ourjournalists who broadcast in farsi to iran are all based here in london, and that's primarily because they can't safely return to iran under fear of arrest. that's gone on for many years now, but more worryingly in recent years we've had an escalation of that harassment, which now applies to their wider families back

in iran, and in particular to an entirely vexatious national security case, brought by one of the revolutionary courts in iran, which has seen their families‘ assets, of up to 150 persian service staff, effectively frozen, which has been very, very worrisome for them. what are the bbc doing about the situation? we've been running a series of public campaigns to draw attention to the plight of the persian service staff in this regard, and we've engaged significantly, as you mention, with the united nations, at the un human rights council in geneva, and we'll be continuing that kind of engagement with the un and other bodies during the course of the year. but of course it's important that everyone remembers that these journalists have done nothing wrong, they are engaged under the same editorial terms as all other bbc staff who produce our trusted international news, and the harassment and collective punishment, if you like, of theirfamilies inside iran is a really big and significant and worrying step, and it's one that we are urging publicly the iranian authorities to reverse as soon as possible. now, we are in a situation with rapidly escalating things going on in the middle east over the nuclear deal and with israel. how is the bbc going to be able

to report this all safely? well, of course the persian service, you know, have their own contacts inside iran, and we inform ourselves as to what's happening there, as we've done for a number of years. it is true that some of our english news—gathering colleagues are able to travel to iran on occasion, sometimes in the context of ministerial or other state visits, so lyse doucet and jeremy bowen have travelled to iran in recent years and reported for the english—language output of the bbc. so there has never been a more important time for the kind of understanding of the iranians story, like you just saw in the clip there, that comes from the world service, the funded iranians service, to reach licence fee paying audiences here in the uk, because this is a really crucial time for that story. jamie angus, thank you, and stay with us because we are going to talk about something else now, which is the threat to bbc were journalism where the danger is not so much to individual employees, as to the integrity and reputation of the corporation itself.

and to the democratic process. we have breaking news of a serious incident between russian and nato forces, near the coast of latvia... this is not a bbc news bulletin, despite the authentic looking studio. but it is a video posted on youtube last month, and then circulated, minus the fictional dramatisation warning, on whatsapp. the bbc made it clear it was fake, but not before it had been widely shared. these are truly extraordinary scenes... russian warships firing directly at us and british forces from nato, in what now surely must represent a state of war... and it's not the first time this has happened. lastjuly, a report appeared on social media imitating the bbc‘s focus on africa programme, and featuring a bogus survey, falsely showing president kenyatta to be well ahead in the polls for the forthcoming kenyan election. the programme's editor pointed out the discrepancies. now, at first sight it could pass for a clip from this programme. but if you look very carefully you will notice there is a noticeable difference in the programme's branding, focus on africa. this is what the fake

news strap looks like, and this is what the focus on africa strap actually looks like. and this particular version of fake news is on the increase with another invented survey ahead of a state election in india being shared last week. on monday the bbc tweeted that it did not in fact come from bbc news. jamie angus is still with me. there is all kinds of nonsense, we know, being circulated on the internet. what is it about this material that is so worrying for the bbc? one thing i am particularly concerned about is how material is shared on chat apps, so if a story is published on a regular website like facebook, twitter, it is easily searchable, but chat apps are very difficult to search because they are private and the material almost surfaces once it has already been seen

potentially by hundreds of thousands, millions of people. what you think the motives are of people posting videos like that one we showed? it is very interesting, the fake nato—russia confrontation was a perfectly innocent video, and when it appeared on youtube as part of a corporate training exercise, it was very clearly labelled as fake, it was clear what it was, but once people strip off and circulate it in chat apps all of that context gets lost. the other two examples you quoted, interestingly around elections, something we are noticing more and more, were probably more malicious attempts to influence voting decisions, and something to look out for, with big elections in india and nigeria, both sets of national elections, so something we need to look at in world service, when to call these out and when to just ignore them. the bbc press office does sometimes go public to disassociate itself with some of the hoax stories we have seen, as with the indian one in the past week. why do you notjust ignore it?

and what do do you choose what to ignore? a difficult balance has to be struck because we very much don't want to draw attention to things which are entirely fictitious and fictitious and bogus and malicious and have not acquired a profile. in these three instances the reason we did respond is we knew they had circulated really widely, and as you saw from rachel explaining the focus on africa clip, it is not that easy to tell sometimes. they can be quite professionally faked and done, so we are urging audiences, when you see bbc material that does not link directly to a bbc app or come from another trusted third party adviser, take care before you share, think about the material before you sure, and have the idea it might not always be what it seems. that is telling viewers what they can do. is there anything else the bbc can do to stop this? we can take legal steps to protect our own brands and copyright but i think what you're seeing from these examples, the proliferation

of malicious fake news can take place very quickly and it is often harder for code of slow—moving legal process to catch up with that, so that is why as a news organisation we need to take decisions in real—time on whether to college things when we see them coming up. but with things like the whatsapp showed footage we wonder if there is a connection with trawling which we have seen. are you worried trust in the bbc brand is being eroded with these incidents? no, actually i think the fake news conversation around the world remains people to double down and go back to their most trusted news providers and we know the bbc news brand globally is the most trusted brand, so we are reasonably confident overall that audiences will come back to the brands they trust the most, but what you're seeing is these individual instances where we have to be really careful about protecting our brand and our values and challenging it when they are being misused maliciously. jamie angus, thank you. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your views on current affairs or even appear on the programme, you can call us

on the number on screen or e—mail us at newswatch, you can contact us on twitter and keep an eye on the website. next week we won't be appearing on bbc one saturday breakfast as normal because they will be looking forward to a certain high—profile wedding that way, which you may want to contact us about, but you will be able to watch the programme at 8:45pm on friday evening, an hour later than normal, on the news channel, or catch up with us of course on the iplayer. for now, though, bye—bye. hello once again. after a bright enough start, friday rather disappointingly certainly went downhill across central and eastern parts of the british isles. bright start and then the cloud filled in,

not only across birmingham, the shield was quite extensive. but as things moved from west to east, some in the west popped out in something a bit brighter to finish off the day. you can see it very well on the big picture. this whole raft of cloud gradually crept its way further east, allowing northern ireland, the western fringes of wales, down into the south—west of england to pop out into something a bit brighter. this is how we start saturday. the remnants of that banner of cloud still there to be had across the northern and eastern parts of scotland. should just about be clear of the east coast but that is not the last you'll have seen of it because there could be another little ripple on it, just bringing rain back in to some eastern parts to finish off your afternoon. temperatures nothing to write home about, really. not bad for the time of year. pretty much par for the course. a scattering of showers out towards the west, perhaps, one or two flirting with the channel islands, the isles of scilly, coming up through devon

and cornwall, maybe one or two getting to northern ireland but generally speaking, the western side of the british isles faring nicely indeed. that rain becoming more intense through the early part of the evening onto the wee small hours of sunday as it continues its journey up the eastern side of the british isles. now, just how far west it comes is still open to some debate. underneath the cloud, you will not have the coldest of nights but it could be a cool start to sunday. a bright one for some of you across northern and western parts of the british isles but don't be surprised if, come sunday morning, some of this rain is a good deal further towards the west. if you've got a plan for sunday, you'd better keep up to date with the forecast as it develops. i think generally speaking, that whole plume of cloud and rain moves a bit further north and east, allowing somewhat drier conditions eventually to break out across the south—eastern quarter. but again, sunday, rather like saturday, i think we see the very best of the weather rather out towards the west. come monday, i think you will notice across the south—eastern quarter more generally of the british isles, is that the wind will have picked up.

a big area of low pressure over the near continent keeping it breezy, but you will notice on the bigger scale again quite a lot of dry weather around, quite a bit of sunshine away from this north—western quarter where you will fill in that cloud as the day goes on. trends for the forthcoming week — certainly starting off mainly dry, sunny spells, and the first couple of days could really turn really quite warm. take care. bye— bye. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. our top stories: the us secretary of state suggests that pyongyang could be in for a financial boost — if it gives up nuclear weapons. if kim jong—un chooses the right path, there is a future brimming with prosperity for north korea. and the north korean people. the dispute over america's new sanctions on iran deepens. the british pm joins other european leaders in warning about the effects of the measures.

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