which was lost over the english channel 13 days ago carrying premier league footballer emiliano sale and his pilot. his family have been informed. the privately—funded search of the seabed was launched after the official operation was called off. president nicolas maduro has denied that venezuela faces a humanitarian disaster, but blamed the united states for instigating a political crisis. in a television interview, mr maduro didn't rule out the possibility of civil war villagers living downstream from the mining dam which collapsed in brazil last week, have spoken of their anger at never being told about the risks of the site. more than 300 people died orare missing, with the mine‘s owners accused of putting profits before safety. now on bbc news, hardtalk‘s stephen sackur speaks to american writer carl hiaasen.

day—in florida to meet the author, carl hiassen. his writing is fuelled by anger and corrupt politicians, crooked businessmen and environmental vandals. crooked businessmen and environmentalvandals. so, crooked businessmen and environmental vandals. so, is crooked businessmen and environmentalvandals. so, is this the place where the american dream turned sour? carl hiaasen, welcome to hardtalk.

happy to have me on, thank you. here we sit in florida, the state you were born in, raised in, have worked in all your life, and you're still here. what keeps you, in this state that you confess is crazy? um... i think it's where my family is from, i think one of the things about writers as you have to care about what you write about, and as messed up as this state is, as absolutely screwed up and insane, i still care about it. my family is here. either that or i'm just too lazy to leave. i will also say there are weeks when you see the stream of headlines that come out of florida where even a diehard floridian will say, there's got to be some

place better to live, some place less crazy. i have those weeks where ijust go, what am i doing here? take me back to your childhood, because you've portrayed it as a state that was very different. and we are going back to the 1950s and early 1960s, when you are a kid growing up. it seems like you felt about it in a very different way. i did, but when i was a kid, we grew up in western fort lauderdale, and really, the geographic edge of the florida everglades. there were no malls, no interstates. we would get on our bikes after school and we would ride out with our fishing rods. it was like a tom sawyer sort of existence. we collected snakes and wild animals, brought them home, let them loose in the house, terrified my mother. that was the childhood that i had. all of it was spent outdoors, really. was one of the motivations for you to get into journalism, and for a while it was investigative journalism, was it to try to explain to yourself and to fellow floridians what's happening? i think a lot of that was anger, in the sense that every time i went home from school, i went

home to visit my folks, there would be something else that had disappeared. some memory that i had as a child had disappeared. and it was happening in a way that was inevitably corrupt. it couldn't happen in a sane, orderly civilisation. it was just whoever had the money got what they wanted, and could build what they wanted. so i went into journalism first of all because it was a way to carry on a fight for truth. not necessarily taking a position, because you don't.

but when you know people are lying, you know they're taking money, you know that the effect of that impacts the quality of life forfuture generations, it becomes an altruistic thing. because you don't go into the journalism for the money. dear god, even i knew that. you go into it because you believe in that fight. i remember being very young and seeing things happening, seeing places start to disappear, places i would ride my bike to, all of a sudden there were fences and condos going up, and i was kissed. the satire that i wrote later, as a novelist, i think it's one of the great weapons, anger. that is what really intrigues me, because i guess in your late twenties and your thirties you flipped, in a way. you were a guy who was devoted to finding stuff out, fact—finding, and then it seems you decided that actually you could deliver more truth, in a way, by not being restricted by the straightforward facts, and chasing stuff up with fiction. i mean, i had the luxury of being able to live this double life where i still worked for the herald, i had been on the investigative team for years, then i started doing a column, which is somewhat liberating

because you get paid for your opinion, good or bad. but i still had my foot firmly in the newsroom, but at night, i had these novels as psychotherapy, because at night, you know, i would go home at night and work on the novels. what do you mean by psychotherapy? well, because in the context of newspaper work, you can't write your own endings. and i covered too many stories. i'm talking about crime, politics, you know, the homicides, the gun violence. i covered too many stories, where there wasn't a good ending, a happy ending. that's journalism. the axiom is, they don't send you to the airport if the plane lands safely. that is how you get conditioned.

to me, i can go home and work on a novel and i knew at the end of this novel, as bizarre and twisted, you know, warped as it might be, at the end, the good guys would be standing on something, and something horrible and poetic is going to happen to the bad guys. the bad guys get it and the good guys triumph. in the course of that, the journey in your novels, an awful lot of horrible stuff happens. yeah. and the overall view of humanity you present is pretty dark and bleak, and most folks are on the take. they usually lie. they do bad stuff, in all sorts of different arenas, from sexual to business to politics. it is a dystopian view, in a way, of florida. it might be for people who don't live here, but for people who live here, they've always looked at the novels of sort of documentaries. there's hardly anything that's in my novels that either hasn't happened or won't happen eventually. and that is the scary part, that some of the things that people accuse me of are saying, that is the sickest thing i've ever

read, i can pull out a newspaper clipping and say, really? this is where it came from. you could have been a politician. you are rooted in this floridian culture. you could have run for office, whether it be at state level or something more. but you never did. never did, i would have no chance of winning and no chance of lasting in office because you have to do the dance. you have to compromise, you have to appeal to all factions, you have to be diplomatic, and i'm none of those things. i would never even imagine it because i'm not psychologically suited for politics. you have to know your limitations. let's talk about the one politician today who dominates all talk of politics in the united states, a man who in many ways appears more unbelievable than any fictional

character of a good, but he's very real, and he sits in the white house. donald trump. this is what you wrote of donald trump, or at least it was the headline of a column he wrote about donald trump in march 2015. i'm not going to spare your embarrassment. it began, "there will never be a president trump." absolutely, i love that column. i wasn't alone. i didn't think it was possible. you mentioned satire, i thought this would defy satire, if this guy got got elected. yet he did, so i was dead wrong. i've been wrong a lot. i also didn't think barack 0bama could get elected, because in my lifetime, when i grew up, there were segregated beaches and segregated restrooms. the idea of an african—american in the white house seemed inconceivable to me. so what does it say about a country which can elect barack 0bama and then, in the very next election, come up with donald trump? it's so intriguing. it shows what the capacity for hope is, and it shows what the capacity for utter cynicism is, on both sides. ithink... no, i absolutely didn't think trump could ever become president, and since he has been elected he has been a nightmare for the country but a gift to every comedy writer and newspaper columnist, because...

has he really been a gift? or has he actually, in a funny sort of way, defused the power of satire? because as you just said to me, in a sense, satire has no role to play when donald trump does things which... i think in terms of novels, and creating a sort of tom wolfe landscape, it's more difficult, because of trump. but in terms of newspaper work and newspaper columns, 750 words, i think you can still have plenty of fun. i don't think he has killed satire. because in this country, stephen colbert shows, he's the top—rated late—night talk show, all he does is monologue all trump, all the time, and he's the most popular show in that timeslot in the country. there is a humourous in the uk called john 0'farrell, who's very publicly worried out loud about satire in the age of donald trump, saying, in a way, it's just too easy to subside into laughter and satire and mockery. and in many ways we need to be truly angry. and it goes back to what we were

discussing earlier about the balance within you and around the desire to entertain and find humour. sometimes, is it important to focus on the anger? every funny column i write comes from anger, every single one. every satirical novel comes from an upwelling of anger. defusing it with the laughter, and the smile? yeah, but it's different if people are getting thejoke. you're not defusing it, you're feeding the fire. there is a difference between slapstick and a difference between a satirical line with a fine agenda point. if you get people laughing for the right reasons you get them thinking about the right things.

i've spoken in the recent past to the editors of both the new york times and washington post and they both say that they're fearful of the atmosphere that they see in the art today. they are fearful for the security of their own staff. and they are at the top of the masthead of their newspapers. you, on the other hand, are the name that so many people associate with your newspaper, the miami herald. ijust wonder, in the current climate... that's what's different. with your views, and the power of the opposition that you get from people who think donald trump is doing great things for america, do you ever consider your own safety and security? that's what's different now, than what it was during nixon and newt gingrich. the difference now is the idea of physical threat, the idea of assassination of journalists, which the rest of the world has been dealing with forever, and it's happening even today,

which we've never had in america. we do have it now. and... do you ever think about it? i do sincejune 28 last year, when my brother was killed. i was going to raise that in a moment, but you've brought it up right now. we sit here less than a year after you experienced the most extraordinary tragedy, because your brother, who was six years younger than yourself, he was also a newspaperman, and a columnist on a small paper. the annapolis gazette. but he had worked for the baltimore sun and the washington post. yes. but he had gone out to annapolis, to an editorialjob. yeah. and he was in his office when a guy with a gun walked in, long—term grudge against that newspaper, for reasons which are complicated — and the trial hasn't even started yet, so we have to refer to him as a suspect rather than a convicted criminal. anyway, he opens fire, kills five people. yes. including your brother. who was just there trying to put out a neighbourhood newspaper,

a community newspaper, yeah. at a time when the debate and the anger towards journalists is quite visible at trump rallies, and almost, you know, the threats of violence — and there had been threats against other papers and other journalists. we don't know what motivated this guy. i don't know what's on his computer, the police haven't said, or if he was on these websites. but he had threatened the paper before. you know, the irony was that nobody working in that newsroom had anything to do with this story that he was angry about, that had appeared so many years ago, which was basically a police story where he had pleaded guilty to a crime. and a reporter had done a column about his victim. every word in both those pieces was true, but he held a grudge. he sued for libel, he got

thrown out of every court. it was the last thing anybody expected. i don't know what was the trigger, at what point did he feel comfortable doing that, or at least, what pushed him to that point. we may never know. but the fact is he killed five people, shot a couple of others, and my brother was one of those who died, and it was the last thing i would have expected. and so at that point... i'm trying to imagine what it must have been like for you, because you had for a long time written powerful columns about the dysfunctional relationship in the united states between guns and the people. and the nra in particular, yeah. and you had called for meaningful gun control. you had railed against the power of the nra in this country. and then, i guess you never expected it was going to come so close to home. i don't think anyone does. as bad as i thought it was, before this happened, i know now that it's much worse. in relation to the threat to reporters and the media, yeah, i think this is the first time

where that has been out there, where you have people chanting at rallies. the poll numbers, the press has never been at the top of the popularity list. since the beginning of this republic, it has never been a cherished institution, especially in the heat of political years. people will always say they're suspicious, people are always reluctant to believe something they don't want to believe about their candidate. they're always sceptical, cynical, and in some cases theyjust turn a blind eye to corruption. but to have it in the open, where you have people on websites advocating murder ofjournalists, which you do, and which they did before my brother was killed, that's new. it is appalling. when you say it's new, are you in any sense tempted to blame donald trump for the creation of this atmosphere? i think that it hasn't helped, i mean, to have someone who every time there's a negative

article, despite — even in the wall streetjournal, which his friend owns, just call it fake news, because... and there is this line, "the enemies of the people" — the idea thatjournalists can be the enemy. well, that's absurd. and the media, the press, whether it's — whether you get your news online, or you get it from an old—fashioned newspaper on your doorstep, they are going to survive donald trump. they will survive and they will endure past donald trump. but we've seen the big institutions such as you mentioned, the new york times, the washington post, the wall streetjournal, have all become more robust, more popular, being read by more people than have ever read those papers now, partly because of the fuss he's making about it. but on the issue of guns, whether it be the big newspapers, whether it be powerful voices such as your own,

and you wrote a column about this just a few days ago, the fact is that, for all of the mass shootings — and you know, there's no point reading the list. everybody knows that, even here in florida, there have been a host of mass shootings. and yet not one of these incidents, for all of the grief, the prayers that are offered, produces a blind bit of political difference... no. ..on the issue of gun control. we have the former governor actually put — rose up against the nra after the marjory stoneman douglas shooting, and they raised the age limit for purchase, i think, of semiautomatic rifles, and i believe put in — they might have a waiting period. there was a couple of laws passed that the nra had opposed, that it was the first time in many, many years... at the state level. at the state level, yes. but here's how the spirit — my brother and i didn't even talk about this, because we had kids.

and after sandy hook, after all those elementary schoolkids. .. more than 20 children, young children... ..slaughtered, we both had talked and said, if that doesn't do it, if that doesn't bring this country to a new political reality about guns, then nothing's going to do it. and what happened after sandy hook? nothing — nothing substantive. nothing at the federal level of any substance at all. so am i surprised? no. let me ask you about the impact on you and yourjournalism, because it seems to me you have always written from the heart, and we have discussed the level of anger, but you have never made it deeply personal. you don't write much about family, about those dearest and nearest to you. no. and interestingly you said, you know what? rob did — rob was more open, more personal.

yes, he loved that, but i didn't. and yet in a sense, now that this has come home to you, do you feel — i don't know whether a duty, or freedom, to write more personally? you know, because you wrote a column, which i did read, a few weeks after rob was killed about... you said the pain never ebbs, the tears never dry. that was the most personal thing i've ever written. was it? oh, yes — oh, yes. here is one reason i haven't. because, as you said, my background is more as an investigative journalist, and you're trained to keep yourself out of it. and of course, when i started doing the column, they wanted... you know, i've thrown myself into it emotionally, and with my point of view politically, but i don't — you hardly ever mention family. part of it is because i think you should be able to make your case without that emotional tug. but second of all, because the nature of what i had done in the herald, and even who i was writing about — you have to remember what miami in the ‘70s and ‘80s was, and the drug violence.

and i was writing about the cocaine wars, i was writing about individuals involved, and escobar and others, and i was frequently writing about corrupt politicians. i was making enemies. you sure were — dangerous enemies. and when the column started, i made more, because the only way to do it is honestly, and so if somebody got caught doing something, i would write about them. and you know, most of the time, by the time i wrote about them, they had much bigger problems than some newspaper columnist writing about them. they had much bigger legal problems. but at the same time, in the back of your mind, i'm thinking, all it takes is one person who's mad enough. and there's enough guns on the street — even in those days in miami, there were plenty. so i was always cautious that i would be the target, and not giving away where my kids were at school, where my wife worked at the time, any of that. i was very cognisant of that. not about being paranoid, i'm just being careful. has this changed anything, from that point of view?

no, i still... i still — i don't — no, i can still do myjob without writing about personal things, i think. in this case, rob's death was something extraordinary, and it was on every network, and his face was on every news station, and he wasn't there to, you know, be protected anymore. but there are people in my family that, you know, were scared, are scared, and... for you? i think for all of us. you know, just — it's a tough world, and it's a tough reality to face. i don't think they're that worried about me,

but i've always been... it's not worth it, it's not worth the risk. has any of this made you question whether you want to carry on? good question. i think, in the few weeks after he was killed, i wondered. i wondered, because i saw the pain in my own — everyone else in the family was going through, and i did wonder whether... you know, i had a good, long run. i've been with that newspaper for over a0 years, and i would have — there would be nothing to be ashamed of to walk away and to just go off, you know, live on an island and write my books. there would be nothing to stop me from doing that, and i wouldn't feel ashamed. but i would feel left out, with what is going on in this country now. to have the privilege of having the voice that i have, and the ability of the platform that i have, i should say, to lose that, at a time when this country is in the kind of trouble that it's in, i would feel, like, left out, and like i was cheating.

taking the easy way out. we began by talking about your commitment to this place, and yet, having had the conversation we had, i'm wondering whether you in recent times have seriously thought about getting out of florida? there are days when i — something happens where i think enough is enough, and it's too late to save the place. and the one thing i've compared it to, stephen, if you understand, it's almost like you're sitting with a relative in the hospital, and they're fading away. and do you wait, or do you leave early, do you bug out? and i am not going to bug out. as long as they're fighting, as long as people are fighting, yes, i will stay. my heart isn't anywhere else. and secondly, i have not lived anywhere else that i can write about with authority, or with the kind of affection, and with the sort of bittersweet side as well, the anger as well. i never cared about a place as much as i cared about this, and for the purposes of my crazy novels and for the newspaper work, i think you need that kind of energy, and you need that kind

of emotional investment. so i can't see myself leaving. that is a great place to end. carl hiaasen, thank you very much. thank you, thanks for having me. it was really a pleasure, thanks. hello. after the coldest, snowiest week of the winter so far, there was only a gradual thaw over the weekend, but that is going to pick up pace in the coming days. but this is going to be disappearing away from the higher hills and mountains, as temperatures are heading up across the uk. but monday still starting

on a chilly note across northern scotland, where there's some snow around. several centimetres into the hills here, above 150 metres or so, but a bit to even lower levels than that. it could be icy in places around this area of low pressure, which has also pushed this band of rain east across the uk through the night, though lingering for a time in the morning, particularly, across east anglia and south—east england. so the snowfall in northern scotland could be causing a few problems as the day begins. that's slowly going to fizzle during the day. it's quite windy for a time in scotland, as well. the rain pulls away from the south—east. it's going to drag its heels, certainly, in kent. a lot of cloud behind this weather system, so we're not going to see much in the way of sunshine for east anglia and south—east england. elsewhere, though, some sunny spells, one or two showers around, and already temperatures are going up, and towards parts of wales and south—west england in particular, could be as high as 12 celsius. but, with the wind easing further under clear skies, there's another frost on the way on monday night and into tuesday morning. now, there could well be some fog developing, particularly through parts of southern england, that could be quite

dense as tuesday begins. so here the temperature may not fall too far. but elsewhere, yes, there's that widespread frost, and we haven't had one of those for a while. so a frosty and in places foggy start to tuesday, but some sunshine around, before the next atlantic weather system start to feed in thicker cloud and outbreaks of rain moving north—east during the day, with a freshening south—westerly wind. it will be, the further north—east you are, you'll hold onto the drier, sunny conditions for longest on tuesday. so we will see outbreaks of rain spreading further east on tuesday night, and into wednesday, most of that clears. but this weather front mayjust linger close to parts of east anglia and south—east england. still something to play for in the detail, but if it does, expect further outbreaks of rain. whereas elsewhere, there's a few days to come of sunshine and showers on a brisk breeze, but you'll notice the temperatures. they are at or even above normal for the time of year. and that is the big weather change for this week. it's the feel of the weather. as temperatures recover, it'll be much milder. still unsettled, with low pressure close by, so some rain at times, not all the time. there'll be some sunshine occasionally, too. 0ften windy, but mild south—westerlies. this is the briefing,

i'm sally bundock. our top story: a search team has located the wreckage of the argentine footballer emiliano sala's plane, which crashed into the sea on the way from france to britain. pope francis becomes the first pontiff to set foot on the arabian peninsula, just hours after condemning the war in yemen. it's america's biggest sporting night of the year — the super bowl — as east meets west in the deep south. with inflation running in the millions of percents and a serious political crisis, what are the prospects for venezuela's economy?