In case the long, hot summer that awaits New Orleans were not predictable enough, the National Guard and State police have been called early to patrol the city.
"The city needs an overwhelming show of force", said just-reelected mayor Ray Nagin, endorsing Governor Blanco's decision. They ceased upon the murder of five youth in Central City - a killing later described by local police as linked to a drug deal - as illustrating the sudden increase in the crime rate.
As homeless residents, cut off by FEMA, are expected to slowly make their way back to town, with no jobs nor housing awating them, they will find ample police. So will the tourists, that the city officials apparently hope to beckon back to the French Quarter by assuring them it will be secured by State police. What could be more enticing?

New Orleans is still devastated and desolated, reported the panel invited to New York city by the Vision Jazz Festival.
The Big Easy is actually on the brink of violent events, warns Lionel McIntyre, an architect who was briefly advisor to the mayor Ray Nagin, and now teaches urban development at Columbia University.
Katrina precipitated a crisis that Jackie Harris, a prominent music producer, and Jacques Morial, a local activist, felt was imminent before the hurricane. Now, the population is armed, and people cut off by FEMA are coming back to town, doubling up, or tripling up in what is left of social housing, explains Lionel McIntyre. The situation can only worsen, as Jack Morial reminds the audience that the city just announced that 3/4 of that housing is going to be demolished. He adds that the aid package just voted in Congress will not help: it is geared towards the home-owners, not the renters or small landlords. The process of emptying the center of the city of its poor, black residents had begun long before Katrina, but it is now accelerated.
All the panelists did point to their discomfort with the well-meaning efforts to rebuild a "village" for musicians and artists - a "reservation", jokes one. It shows a fundemental lack of understanding of the workings of the city, of culture, and of the necessary interaction between the two. If there is no community left, how is the human exchange that feeds art and creation possible?
Is there hope? In solidarity: the panelists ask once again for the nation's help and support, as they plan to rally and protest. And in the action on the ground of grassroots groups: Acorn, Common Ground, The People's Hurricane Relief Fund. And, finally, in political change.

Freedom sounds beautiful, as it is expressed night after night at the Vision jazz festival. One of the rare art form largely ignored by market forces, insensitive to neither convention nor fashion, this music thrives on human and artistic exchange, opening ears and minds. This is creation is its rawest, yet most subtle, form. And it is fun. (photo: Rivbea Orchestra, with Sam Rivers).

Several European countries have participated in the illegal renditions organized by the CIA. That's the conclusion of two investigations: one by the European parliament; the other, by Amnesty International. They detail the "web" of landing points in Europe, that lead captured suspects in the war on terror to Guantanamo, Bagdad or Kabul. Two spots in Romania and Poland concern particularly the European investigators, who believe that those stops were not part of a vast majority of "logistical" stop-overs, but could raise questions about the proximity of secret detention centers.
One thing is now perfectly clear: some European government actively participated in the renditions operations; other choose to ignore them until it became politically embarrassing. The cases detailed involve Italy, Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Sweden. The investigation is on-going, and a resolution is being drafted at the Council of Europe to protect human rights while combating terrorism.


Will 90% of the European population know about this? That might be an interesting question for the next Pew Research Center poll. Their latest results on the increase of anti-americanism show that 90% of Europeans have heard of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Only 75% of Americans say they have.

But the Americans have warmed up to the French rioters and demonstrators, according to that same poll. In spite of the catastrophic coverage by the US media, the favorable view of France has climbed to 52% - up form 29% in 2003.