BBC在线收听下载:伊朗全力救助洪水受灾群众

Hello, this is David Austin with the BBC News.

The party of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is formally contesting the results of Sunday's local election in every district of the country's biggest city, Istanbul. It lost control of several key areas in the polls, including the capital Ankara. Our Turkey correspondent Mark Lowen reports. President Erdogan, it seems, isn't quite ready to let go of his own backyard, his AK Party officially contesting results in the city where he was born and was once mayor. The election board said the opposition CHP candidate won Istanbul by around twenty-five thousand votes, but the governing party has complained of irregularities and would challenge them in every district. Victory posters for the government have gone up on billboards in Istanbul, which the opposition says is an attempt to impose its position and steal the result. Losing major cities is a significant blow to the president, breaking his image of invincibility.

The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has said it's becoming likely by the day that Britain will leave the EU without a deal ten days from now. He warned there are only two ways to avoid it. Either the British Parliament backed the withdrawal agreement on the table since November, or the Prime Minister Theresa May ask for a lengthy extension to the withdrawal process.

The Iranian military has been helping people stranded by flooding in a large area in the west to the country. Torrential rains have led to the deaths of at least forty-five people in Iran in the past two weeks. Alan Johnston reports. There's particular concern over the situation in the towns of Pol-e-Dokhtar and Mamulan. They've both been partly submerged and army helicopters have been giving assistance. Some people have been forced to take refuge on their rooftops; others have fled to higher ground. Further south in the province of Khuzestan, the authorities have ordered the evacuation of seventy villages threatened by more flooding.

The smart phone messaging service WhatsApp has set up a hotline for users in India as part of efforts to combat fake news. It allows people to submit messages to a verification center to see whether the content is true, false or misleading. The Facebook-owned business has faced criticism after violence triggered by rumours circulating on the app.

A Roman Catholic diocese in Spain is hosting courses that are like undercover reporter says it designed to cure gay men of homosexuality. Despite laws banning such classes, an untrained counselor told the journalist that she risked going to prison for giving him advice on how to stop being homosexual. The church has denied offering gay cures.

BBC news.