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tv   Our World  BBC News  October 13, 2018 9:30pm-10:00pm BST

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this is bbc world news, the headlines. president trump demands answers from saudi arabia about the fate of the missing journalist jamal khashoggi. he said he would call king salman, and threatened the possibility of severe punishment if the country is repsonsible for mr khashoggi's disappearance and possible death. president trump says no bargain was reached with turkey to secure the release of the american evangelical pastor, andrew brunson, who had been held in detention there for two years. mr brunson prayed with president trump during a meeting in the oval office. tens of thousands of anti—racism demonstrators have been marching in berlin. the organisers say they want it to be a show of solidarity against the politics of xenophobia and exclusion. more than twenty people have been killed by flooding and landslides in indonesia. officials say 2a small villages in the country's north sumatra province have been hit by heavy rain since wednesday. at 10:00pm we'll have a full round up of the day's news.
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first, in our world, india rakusson goes to the american state of montana to find out why so many white, middle aged men are killing themselves. some viewers may find some scenes upsetting. every year, nearly 16,000 people in america die by suicide. that's over double the number of homicides. in the last 20 years, suicide rates in most western countries have fallen. but in the us, they have gone up by nearly one third. and there is one particular group of americans causing the spike in numbers. white, middle—aged men. i was going to kill myself. ijust said, dude, you'rejust a flunky in the machine and it's
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time to get the hell out. the largely white state of montana has the highest suicide rate in america, at double the national average. i want to try and understand just why so many middle—aged white men are taking their own lives, and what the impact of that is here. there was another gun there, and i thought, can i catch up? how fast does a soul travel, can i please catch up and be with him? i have come to flathead lake in western montana, where kids are gathering for a summer camp. but they are not here
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just for a holiday. this is a camp for grieving children. nice to meet you finally! tina barrett is the director of the tamarack grief resource centre which runs the four—day event. kids come to this camp honouring different types of losses. the most common type of loss is suicide at our camps. the most common? yes. what are the numbers? how many people... we have perhaps 50 campers here, and 18 are grieving the death of a family member by suicide. this is the third time thatjenny has brought her daughters abby and lilly to stay here, and there is a reason why. people who lose someone to suicide are three times more likely to attempt it themselves. tell me what is going on here, what are you making? we call them the, i think it's flags of remembrance.
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and whose one is this? lilly's. nice. talk me through it. what have you got here? i've got fishing, this is a fishing boat. and who's rick? ourdad. when i was 11, he committed suicide. ijust, i come here and process everything here. so kind of like a place where you can, sort of, focus? yeah, it's a place where everybody understands what you are going through, you don't have to explain it, theyjust kind of know in their own way. there is a lot of them that say dad. what do you say to the girls when you are saying goodbye? be strong, the way i know that you are, i love you, iam here, connect with everyone, and heal. white middle—aged men have the fastest
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growing suicide rate in the us. i want to get behind the statistics and find out more about one of these men, one of these dads. after rick's death in texas in 2014, jenny came to montana to build a new life. she remarried, and now there is a little baby brother for lilly and abby. it is a beautiful picture, isn't it? they look quite a lot younger! yes, they look different. what was he like when you met him? he was teaching in the same high school that i was teaching, and i was like, ooh, who is that? who's that chap? right, and we started having coffee, and writing letters to one another, so we fell in love with letters. and to me, i think part of the reason i was so attracted to him, because he was this really strong, powerful man — but he was always
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a little emotionally standoffish. before they met, rick had been in the army. he joined straight out of high school and within months was deployed to frontline hospital during the first gulf war. he returned to build a life which looked happy and successful, but under the surface rick was struggling. i came home and i noticed he was off. i reassured him, i held him, and i am so glad i did. the next morning he dropped lilly off at school, and later lilly would tell me that he looked at her with really sad eyes... and then walked away from her. so that's hard. he went back to the house, he called the sheriff, and said, "this is what i'm about to do", and he walked out the door, took the gun with him, and took his own life. he sent me a text, said "i love you so very much," and i know
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by the time of death, he sent me that text as the very last thing he did. so i went to the house and i ran in to the closet, and i saw the safe open, where the guns were, and... i couldn't believe it. i thought — there was another gun there, and i thought, can i catch up? how fast does a soul travel, can i please catch up and be with him? i cannot imagine, like, how that day must have been. i'm so sorry. unfortunately with suicide, everybody goes back to that day, or the few days before, and says, what could i have done? i think, my goodness, if i had any idea what he was going to do, i would not have gone to work. i would have lost myjob, i would have done anything. to keep him from doing that. back at the grief camp,
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the girls are able to relax and have some fun. are you a bit of a braid master? it really depends, not on myself. eww! what does the camp mean to you? it is kind of a place to come, to express yourself, be yourself and accept yourself. part of learning to deal with grief involves the girls thinking about their dad, and how they want to remember him. what was he like as a dad? he was the best dad, to answer your question. he was stern, but he was still fun, and kind, andjust like... like a best friend. to me, at least. when you found out that your dad had taken his life, can you remember... yeah. like... isaid, 0k.
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ijust kind of walked out. you walked out? yep. for me, i had a different reaction. to me it kind of felt like i was being stabbed repeatedly in my stomach, in my heart. it is a pain that you really can't describe, that you don't feel twice. i'm still mad at him. my grandma is up there, she will... she will whip his booty. oh my gosh, yeah. wherever they are, he's in for it from my grandma. why are you mad at him? because he left. rick: alright, y'all have a good time... he left with a lot of promises broken... what were those promises? that he'd never leave, that is the biggest one. and just, little things like, threatening my first boyfriend, or walking me down the aisle, or taking me to my first school dance...
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just things that your dad is supposed to do with you, that he is never going to do with me. in the last 20 years, suicide rates for white, middle—aged men have skyrocketed, while those for black and asian americans have not changed much. just south of the camp is the largely white county of missoula, where there has been a 50% increase in suicides in the last five years. i came to missoula's biggest event, the county fair, to try and understand the pressures that men are facing here. the first number is b4, b4... do you think it is getting harder for men? it is getting harder to make the money, to provide
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for yourfamily. what does it mean as a man if you are not able to provide for your family? itjust feels like i failed, i failed my wife, i failed my kids. do guys talk to each other about their problems? no! laughs. in general, no. at least... none of the guys that i know. i met up with mayorjohn engen, who was born and raised in the county. today, missoula, montana is a lot different from it was when i was born in 1964. we manufactured and depended on the timber industry. that industry was largely a man's world. it's truck driving, it's logging, it's equipment operation. if you are a person of my generation, much of your identity is wrapped up in what you do. what's the first thing you ask a stranger in a social situation — what do you do?
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what do you do, yeah. so for a very long time, the answer might have been, i am a logger which meant that you put in a solid day's work for a reasonable wage, and you provided for your family, created a product. when i ask people what they do for work, in missoula, the answers are far more complex than they used to be. "i am betweenjobs, i don't do anything right now. but this is what i was, this is what i was." in a world where you grow up with that label and that label is important, and somebody suddenly tears the tag off, who are you? but this isn'tjust a rustbelt town in decline. missoula's economy is thriving. but the old jobs are disappearing, and many white, working class men are feeling left behind. the folks you see here today, a lot of them are going to be
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from places where what was the traditional western lifestyle is still very much alive to them. that sense of self—sufficiency and you ought not rely on anybody but yourself, and as boys we are taught from a very young age — "man up, toughen up, you don't cry." when problems compile to a point that you can't shake it off, and there is no way in hell that you are going to have a conversation with another adult human being about how miserable you are, your options start to narrow considerably. it's hard not to see a connection between the distress felt by so many of these men and the challenges of adjusting to a changing world. white guys have had it pretty good for a long time. but some of the edges are being nipped at. if i am not the boss, who am i? if my boss is a woman, what does that mean for me?
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if my boss is a muslim woman, what does that mean for me? "that's not the way i grew up, none of that is the way it was," right? the missoula police are on the frontline of this crisis, and the number of mental health and suicidal callouts has doubled in three years. christian cameron is a patrol officer with the force. within seconds of being in the patrol car, a suicide—related call comes through. i copy, thank you. it draws a lot of our resources. we are responding to this right now, two officers, there could be crimes going on that we are not able to
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respond to because we are handling these types of calls. ok, so we are pulling into the complex now. how's it going, bud? you don't need any assistance or anything from us, no thoughts about harming yourself or anything like that? no. if you need anything from us at any time, call 911, ok? is he ok? he is, we made contact with him. he works a graveyard shift so he was just sleeping. so this is the third suicide related call today for the force? i believe so, yes. one was a person that was... at a residence in their front yard, holding a hand gun to their head. oh my gosh, in their front yeard? oh my gosh, in their front yard? yes. another individual went into one of the local sporting goods stores and was attempting to take a firearm in order to try and harm himself. and that is the thing that gets
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mentioned again and again: guns. they are the most common method of suicide for american men and there are a lot of them in montana. the men here are killing themselves with firearms at a rate far higher than the national average. in missoula, people in suicidal crisis are brought to st patrick's hospital, which is under increasing pressure. hey, it's brooks. brooks bear is a mental health professional here. you're a busy man. that is the way the job goes. it is a lot of chaos. so you work a straight 48—hour shift? yeah, i am covering the emergency department for a 48 hour stretch. how many people would you see in your shift?
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20 is probably average. so if i see 20 people in 48 hours, 12, 13, you know, 14ish will be suicidal. what are you seeing? is it getting worse? i think it is getting much worse. just in the time i have been working in this hospital, i think our numbers are coming up 20% or 30% each year. wow. my gosh. yeah, noticeable. but despite the growing need, this year, montana has seen huge cuts to its mental health budget. i think the mental health cuts are having a pretty big impact. if there were stronger out patient services, about 30% of what i've been seeing lately i would not see. because they have nowhere to turn. this place is going to go wild for hours. i won't be too long. across america, many men turn to substances to cope with their distress. in montana, those who go on to end their life are twice
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as likely as other americans to have alcohol their system. alcohol in their system. a few hours later, i caught up with brooks to talk more about this. we do love alcohol here. you throw alcohol at any suicidal individual and you have exponentially increased the risk. literally loneliness and alcohol. i talk to so many men who just talk about this crushing loneliness. loneliness literally hurts. the brain reads loneliness like physical pain. all they know is to them this pain is unbearable. and along with alcohol and loneliness, there is another factor. montana has the fastest growing income inequality in the country. and it is in the poorest communities that more and more people are taking their lives. the more disparity between the haves and the have—nots, the heigher the suicide rate.
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if you are rubbing shoulders with the wealthy, and you are not wealthy, it makes us white middle—class males feel inadequate. we are a burden on people. we are not producing. it only highlights the more i am a have—not, the more i want to end my life. since arriving in montana, i wanted to talk to one of these white middle—aged men who have tried to take their own lives. but there is a lot of stigma around suicide. and it's hard to get anyone to talk. then right at the end of my visit, i get a call. as soon as i left work, i was going to kill myself. ijust said, "dude, you have nothing to show for all your efforts — you are just a flunky in the machine, and it is time to get the hell out." go.
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russell is 63 and has lived in his family home for the last 40 years. he has suffered with depression for decades. a few years ago, he was determined to take his own life. ijust ran in here and i — i took the shotgun out and then i looked at the dog and said what am i going to do with the dog? and then i started putting another — i started putting another shell in the shotgun. because i thought i would have to shoot her too. and she gave me this look which just said "what's going on?" and ijust said, "i can't do this." "i can't do this." what was going on in your life, russell, that made you feel like you wanted to take your life? i mean, at the time, i was alone.
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alone? yeah, i — it was just me living here. and one dog. and loneliness can be kind of a terrible taskmaster. this can be a terrible country to live in. if you are not a competitive person — and i'm not — it's not easy. americans like a winner. they don't like people who are not winners. all our lives we are given this false notion of american superiority — that we are supposed to be superhuman. i'm superman, clark kent. i will rip off my shirt and i will have a cape with an s plastered on my chest and i will save the free world. and of course we are not going to. most of us are just people like me.
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i think that a lot of people in montana, they reach that same level of panic because they don't make enough money. there's a level of terror among people as they work longer and they fall farther and farther and farther behind. i noticed you have a tattoo on your arm. what is this for? when you end a sentence with a semicolon, you're basically saying, ok, that's not the end of the sentence, there's more to come after that. thank you so much. this is my way of saying there's more to come after this in my life. thank you for sharing it. all right, thank you for giving me the opportunity. i'm not going to give in or give up. i hope. back at the grief camp at flat head lake, things are drawing to a close. there is no single reason for the growing suicide crisis amongst white middle
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aged men in america. but what is clear is that people are not talking enough, and that is one thing this camp is trying to change. it is ok to seek help. it is ok to have tough days. and when we do, it is ok to ask people that we think are hurting. asking about suicide does not cause suicide. camps like this are rare. coming here year after year has been life changing forjenny and her girls. and it has given them hope. the three of us are sitting there with our feet in the water and i looked at my two girls and realised that life is going to be ok. that it could be good again. that we could have moments like this at this incredible lake and we actually can have a lot of fun making a lot
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of new memories together. hello. saturday was quite an exceptional day across the uk. we had the strong winds and heavy rain, of course, across western parts of the uk, where the weather in the last two days has been so troublesome in the wake of storm callum. you can see the storm here, spinning around and moving towards the north. this is the tail end of the storm, the weather front. but also, we had some very warm weather across some eastern parts of the country. temperatures got into the mid—20s and in fact the met office recorded 26.3 in lincolnshire on saturday, and we have never recorded a temperature so high this late in the season.
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pretty extraordinary. now, the weather is going to turn much quieter in the coming days. we are not going to see the contrasts in temperature. that's what helps drive these weather systems, these powerful weather fronts, that bring the strong wind and heavy rain. but before the weather does improve, we will have seen some pretty wet weather overnight from saturday into sunday. pretty soggy weather to start the day across some central and southern areas of the uk. still very mild leftovers of that warm air coming in from the south, 15 or 16 degrees. but sunday isn't going to be called by any means. but sunday isn't going to be cold by any means. we will see cooler air coming in off the atlantic, but still some of that warmth left over and wafting across exactly where that wet weather is moving through. so we will call it warm and wet for a time on saturday across many central and eastern areas. before that rain clears away, by the time we get to the afternoon. and just notice how very different to the weather is in scotland, northern ireland, and many western parts of the uk,
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especially southern wales. some sunshine finally on the way. the start of the working week, monday, high—pressure establishes itself across the uk. only just. there is a weather front close by here affecting south—eastern areas of the country. and actually there is still some relatively mild weather left over across the south too. so it doesn't look like it will cool off completely. yes, the temperatures dropping lower compared to what we have had, but it's still going to be relatively mild for the time of year. so perhaps a little bit of rain for a time on monday in the south—east, but generally speaking, it is a fine day with temperatures around 13 in glasgow and a decent enough 15 degrees for the time of year in london. on tuesday, another weather front approaches. this big low swing is very close to the north—west of the uk. so breezy and gale force winds they're out to the western isles. something we are used to at this time of year. but here's the weather front as it moves through. the good news is the winds will be brisk enough to sweep the weather front through fairly quickly so we are not expecting vast amounts of rainfall, but some rain moving through. if anything, for most of us on tuesday it is a breezy day,
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a fresh day of atlantic winds with sunshine and passing showers. and then wednesday into thursday, we will start to see that weather front moving through quite nicely. and actually on wednesday we have some fairly decent weather across the uk. again, a couple of showers here. the winds are still blowing out in the north—west. relatively cool direction. down to 12 or 13 degrees. 15 in london, but there will be some sunshine around, so it shouldn't feel too bad at all. and given the time of year. it is still october, still a bit of warmth to that sunshine. the end of the week, we will start to see a current of warmer air coming in once again from the southern climes, the azores. this is a ridge of high—pressure. the cooler air is to the north here around the atlantic and that is going to send some weather fronts in the direction of scotland. so the thinking is into next weekend, the further south you are, the drier and warmer the weather is going to be. this is bbc news. the headlines: president trump warns
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saudi arabia that it will face severe punishment if it is found to have murdered the missing journalist, jamal khashoggi. i will also be calling king salman saudi arabia because i think it is appropriate for me to ask what is going on. parts of wales suffers its worst flooding in 30 years. as torrential rain and wind sees the country bear the brunt of storm callum. the chancellor is coming under growing pressure from his own mps to find extra funding for universal credit. and at 10:30 and again at 11:30 we'll be taking an in—depth look at the papers with our reviewers rachel cunliffe from city am and the political strategist jo tanner — stay with us for that.
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