Friday, 2 September, 2005

Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler

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Tonight's programme is presented by Gavin Esler

New Orleans

It's a day of reckoning for President Bush.

With growing criticism for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he makes his first visit to the disaster zone. Can he convince those stranded in New Orleans and the wider American public that he can bring the chaos under control?

Peter Marshall is in New Orleans with the latest on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the city. People dying in the street. No water, no food, no electricity, no order and little help. He's spent the day in the city.

Paul Mason is in Baton Rouge where he'll be gauging reaction to the Bush visit.

The images of people begging for help from rooftops, armed gangs roaming the streets and the elderly and infirm left to die in the street call to mind a war-stricken developing nation, not the world's richest superpower. The United States has long promoted itself as the land of opportunity but has the hurricane exposed the fragility of the American dream?

Bomber video

Our diplomatic editor Mark Urban examines the significance of the video message left by Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the London bombers, which has been aired on Arabic television. When and where was the tape recorded and what does it tell us about who ordered the attacks?

Rolling Stones

And a Newsnight exclusive - the Rolling Stones give us their first television interview since the release of their first album in eight years.

They talk to Newsnight about politics and their assault on the American right, knighthoods, and whether, after 43 years, they can still stand the sight of each other.

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