international news and comment live from moscow it's just past nine pm here in the russian capital and in tripoli seven pm where the breaking news is that libyan rebels are inside colonel gadhafi tripoli compound following a fierce fight they now claim to control most of the capital three days after entering the city well these are the latest pictures from the compound and rebels are on the square where colonel gadhafi used to make speeches to the nation exactly where he is and no one seems to know at the moment smoke has been rising over the libyan capital throughout tuesday as a result of pockets of fighting between the two sides casualties are said to be mounting. the electricity in tripoli has been restored after hours of a blackout. while for more insight on the developments in libya let's cross live now to lindsey german she's an activist from the stop of the coalition joining us live in london thanks very much

indeed for being with us western leaders have already started planning a post gadhafi libya despite the fact the opposition hasn't won yet but is the rebels potential victory a done deal now do you think i mean justifying the actions of nato. well i think it looks as though. a regime is finished we've been saying this for a couple of days that failing to sidestep now i don't you as a tool justifies the actions of nato nato has been involved in a lengthy campaign which has killed thousands of people now in libya on the grounds that they were protecting civilians actually they were there to achieve regime change they obviously look like they're going to achieve that but we have to remember we've been here before we've been there before with afghanistan we've been there before with iraq and i think the lesson from both of those and that actually the message that is even coming from many of the rebels in tripoli and elsewhere in

libya is that they don't want nato there any more they don't want western troops on the ground and they want to run their own country and i think it would be very foolish for david cameron or anybody else to believe this really vindicates their foreign policy in terms of the war on terror well one of the sons made a surprise appearance despite the rebels claim he was captured for almost two days they were saying they are in control and that also turned out to be untrue does that ring the alarm bells for you concerning the credibility of this anti gadhafi coalition. well i think what it does raise alarm bells with is the why in which these these issues are used very very much politically to justify western intervention we had the international criminal court saying that they knew that could have. saif al islam gadhafi was in custody when clearly they didn't know

conclusively that that was the case and therefore this is being used in a political way. to employ the the regime was done perhaps it was at that particular time that the rebels had made more votes to they perhaps had at that particular time and that is a form of this information which really should be coming for. an international institution and this does. bring to mind some of the worrying ways in which these things have been used i personally think the intervention of the international criminal court. the idea that they can try. and his family is as war criminals is yet another saw in the western hypocrisy when we have to tony blair and various other people responsible for the disastrous episode in iraq in particular who wanted to i think in this one so you think they could definitely when they are captured should face trial in libya and that should be no foreign intervention whatsoever in their fate. i think it is absolutely out to the libyan

people to decide what they do with gadhafi and with anybody else that they if there is evidence to trial they should they should be dealt with in libya and not say in the hague or anywhere else i feel that the whole western intervention around this has been the and. two they were caught taken by surprise by the average brain of what they're trying to do is to reassert western control would you say to live sure sure just when you say i should let the libyan people the son but it's quite clear isn't it that the majority the libyan people decided to gadhafi should go but there was no way that they could carry that out without the help of the likes of nato now i know that you were there in london british intelligence apparently reportedly playing a key role in this now if they're playing a key role in order to fulfill the wishes of the majority of the libyan people what is the problem there. well the problem is that it shouldn't be dependent on a foreign power i think most people in britain including the british government

would have something to save the war foreign intervention here in this country. these things become least major diplomatic incidents i think we have to say that the libyan people might many of them i felt that nato intervening would help them i think it's absolutely true militarily but they have been helped in in getting to aaa by the air rights but this is a fantastic cost because it puts a western intervention in the middle of what started up as an uprising and that cannot be justified in and why and we now have a situation where the whole doctrine of humanitarian intervention which has been so discredited in afghanistan in iraq in the war was places they are now trying to resurrect this doctrine of humanitarian intervention of liberal interventionism which was spelt out in the one nine hundred ninety s. one long office tony blair and if we go down that road if they try to attack syria

or intervene there or anywhere else then this will be a very very serious situation which will lead us closer to war in the middle east and after all we already have a situation where there's great tension between israel and egypt over the sign on the last last few days we know that the saudis intervened to stop the movement in bahrain at the same time as the west intervened in libya and therefore these things were connected the lesson of history in the middle east is that they do not need the british will the french will retaliate it's all the americans or anybody else to intervene in their countries the arab people are quite capable of making their own decisions and whether they win or lose it's much better that they do make their own decisions rob them of the dependent on france or britain as they will pay you as this new government what do you make of the way this is being reported by. the media in fact i'm just learning here on the wires that a journalist has indeed been shot inside the gadhafi compound journalists from the

al-jazeera network now of course in the fog of war there is so much confusion but the way that we've been getting these mixed reports would you blame that on journalism would you blame that on the mixed messages from the rebels how do you perceive the way we're getting information at the moment from this very confused situation in libya. well i think i think part of the problem is a lot of the reporters are in a hotel in tripoli which is. and they're not going outside of the hotel or. radio for this morning we had rather a long report of the journalist was asked what it's like in the hotel which is very interesting but it isn't actually telling us what is going on in the streets of tripoli and that i applaud the very brave journalists who have tried. to get this news out i think there is always great confusion and the clearly are different things happening in different parts of the city and obviously the journalists will reports according to what they're actually saying they can't actually do that do

more than that so i don't blame the journalists themselves i do blame the kind of. cheap boosterism that you get from various. from various politicians problem taters which makes out this is all a fantastically smooth and easy process and we're not at the end of the process of maybe many many more people dying in tripoli before this is resolved we will have to leave it there thanks very much indeed for your thoughts lindsey german from world war coalition joining us live there in london very interesting to hear your thoughts and we're going to stay obviously with the developments in libya at the moment and i can now talk to stephen lemon he's a chicago based radio host and author stephen good to have you live here on r.t. well particularly during these what appear to be crucial moments with what's happening there in tripoli first we heard that the rebels have the advantage then that the gadhafi forces are controlling the city now we're seeing indeed whether

we're to believe these are live pictures of his compound being attacked but we've certainly been bringing life footage of the events there in tripoli what do you make of what's happening at the moment in the libyan capital. is free to be oh you know you can do it when we can talk about something close and. this is. the only savior. written in numerous articles on what's going on in libya i wrote one to raise ago i wrote one yesterday you one today i have a read no one will go out tomorrow i described conditions in tripoli is chaotic fast moving fluid violent and what can be going on in any one moment can suddenly change and it can be vastly different and how leda an afternoon later the next day so we had rebels coming into the city we had gadhafi forces taking over from the rebels supposedly then we have rebel forces

getting the upper hand. bill you could be back on again later this afternoon my time it's around midday to me in chicago or maybe even in my time you could have a completely different story what's going on at the gadhafi compound i honestly don't know where they were it is you can change to rest at least very quickly can i say one more thing was that numerous reports about rebels taking over. that he control cities salita and misrata. over the number of other cities they were all falsified reports the truth was and this was one independent journalists could get out freely and contacts libyan state t.v. was operating people to really have an idea they were getting real reports on what

was going on when nato was blimey. people supporting the city it actually forces supporting the city to lay low when nato was going to be in tripoli pro get out feet force is appropriate off the residents of tripoli who laid low they don't want to be under nato bombs they don't want to be straight by helicopter gunships. they lay low shit weigh the meaning of a straightaway so they come back out again you made a comment would go ask you the majority of tripoli residents of libyans support the rebels below. so all right stephen let me ask you then you talk about nato if nato has what appeared to be instrumental in what could well be the final moments of gadhafi in the collapse of its regime haven't hasn't nato's actions been justified vindicated in that the people's wishes in libya could well be achieved in the next few hours indeed in the next couple days we don't know when but it could well be achieved bill the latest report i saw the latest poll numbers i saw with eighty

five percent. support capacity they may go they were vile the so-called rebels they're not rebels the mercenaries they were recruited these thieves were but it's a mixed group for all kyra just ordinary people most of them imported into the country eight most of them i suspect kids who were never offered as much money if they want to come in and if i had a bad regime nato very little of. the rebels of pain now that being led by the end to see the national transitional council which is being recognized even deeper egypt to many other countries now isn't that an indication that this is the wish of the country in those rebels have been coherent in opposition and indeed could be coherent and united in government. well the council has no legitimacy in the fact

the country countries around thirty countries so far reaching areas the council pill there is no increment to or illegitimacy nato's war is illegal responsibility to protect we hear a lot about there are people to be to really should be above according to international law is to protect people not i'm violently without military action the nato military action is a lawless it is no legitimacy the libyan people did not invite nato into their country ok storm you only wrote against they were just very briefly i've got a lot of time you talk about international law should the fate of gadhafi be left to the libyans or should they turn him over to the international criminal court just finally well the international criminal court is an imperial tool bill it has no legitimacy to try members of another country leaders or anybody else

need a libya the united states no russia china a member of the so-called i.c.c. has no legitimacy to try the libyan leader it's always good to hear your point of view stephen lemon thanks so much for your time joining us live there in chicago thanks thank you bill. well the question of gadhafi whereabouts is yet to be oncet and i spoke to dr gupta monarchy's the director of the german or an institute based in but then he thinks the embattled leader is not likely to run away. the rebels were in a situation to advance more. to the compound in which he might still be i mean he would be there in the bunkers in the underground bunkers and not not on the surface so during the last hours apparently the rebels have advanced somewhat to that part of the city that the southwestern part of tripoli

and i think we said that up to twenty percent of the city were still are still in the hands of the soldiers and militia who are defending a good outfit so are you convinced that gadhafi could well be in a bunker in that compound being stormed at the moment by those rebels if that's the case we could be witnessing the last moments of gadhafi regime. well yes or no gaddafi is very erratic in his behavior in this very difficult to say what will he do i mean his son and the television yesterday said no no by far the still here and we are fighting and he's not the man to run away like the other dictators did but on the other hand side i'm quite sure that he must have an emergency exit from his bunker system and can escape if he still should be there it might also be you know unfortunately as we see the truth is the first victim of any war so nobody knows

what is true in all the different than outs but nevertheless if you did escape from that bunker how long could it be actually on the run bearing in mind you wouldn't be able to take a plane because there's a no fly zone imposed over the country there are his chances of perhaps setting up camp somewhere else. well it's very difficult to know i don't think that will take him to tunisia and definitely not maybe he might go to the south to tunisia or of the other countries bordering and take a plane. from there to zimbabwe or to very few countries north korea where he would be still accepted as a host so it's very difficult to say i did might take some time to discover even if he stays in his own countries if we remember said that hussein how long it took to discover him in iraq. while the whole world guesses where colonel gadhafi might be

hiding world chess federation chief kind of illusion or says he knows he's reportedly spoken by telephone. in this afternoon three hours ago when i was in my . car there for the whole the sun he called me by phone and i was very surprised. yes yes i am and i asked the why because yesterday i saw. him in prison. or k. now i mean in tripoli. we smile father moammar gadhafi and my father wants to say some words to you and after that here in arabic language market the fear. now he's in he's country he doesn't want to leave his home in lent he wants to defend his country and he wants to thank

all people can have all the support he's a small company and small nation fight against countries from me and after that it's in english thank you very much and mohammed translate the these sentences from big into english and out of the he said give some sort of because of security and i will call you later. well the u.k. has reportedly authorized a clandestine operation to aid the assault on tripoli covert intelligence agents were allegedly inserted into libya to coordinate rebels actions during the push and more u.k. military personnel are said to be on standby in the mediterranean artie's i've a bennett's has more on this. it seems the british did have a bigger hand in all of this than it originally let on the press here today reporting that a whole team of intelligence officials have been operating in the country for some

time now. ever since it became clear the rebels would need some help if they really were going to topple gadhafi so people like spies m i six officials former s.a.'s offices to giving military advice and also non-lethal aid now it's important to note here that the u.n. mandate that nato is operating under in the country does not include a provision for ground troops and so the u.k. foreign secretary william hague has been quick to stress that. they've been supplying rebels with has been non-lethal and therefore not in breach of this u.n. resolution however these missions have been very covert clandestine and off the grid so as not to cause any diplomatic issues and also in these reports that. intelligence officials have been planning for some time now this assault on tripoli so as to catch gadhafi on the back they've been smuggling weapons fighters even

fighting and also telecommunications equipment secret weapons around the capital and then on the weekend following the bombing campaign from the air of strategic communications posts they got the go ahead for the final march on tripoli itself so the british government actually knew this was all on the cards for some time now however it did concede that it does already have two hundred troops ready to be deployed from cyprus as peacekeepers should the situation the transition they want to send into an akita they're prepared for that and also six hundred more marines actually also stationed in the mediterranean ready to be deployed in what the government terms as a role of support for the humanitarian cause so clearly downing street at the moment refusing to rule out. the use of what could be almost one thousand ground troops should the situation call for it clearly there is some contradiction there to this idea of handing over control to the libyan people so they're in chicago

their own future and clearly the british and also other european states are not that confident just yet that this transition will be as peaceful as they all want it to be. there and there may still be fighting in tripoli but the new self-proclaimed government is wasting little time in setting up its future cash flow european oil giants given the go ahead by rebel officials have already begun moving in with italian company any which had close ties to gadhafi spearheading the return and there's reports this time its services won't be quite as cheap. delivered as a promise but seen by many as more of a threat david cameron says nato will stay while libya makes the transition to democracy as allied forces lend support to the rebels to take tripoli to stop the war coalition warns libyans not to expect they're getting something for nothing but western powers don't do this without asking for a paper why is it that the head of the is running off to paris to meet with the

french president will of course start is one very very important issue that's why the western powers tony blair and others struck a deal with gadhafi in the first place it will be exactly what they're seeking to continue with with the t.n.c. to further explore those oil riches the british government makes no secret of the fact that it's motives in supporting the rebels aren't entirely altruistic last year alone the u.k. exported to round forty billion dollars of goods and services to north africa and the middle east but it's black gold that's the key libya has the largest oil reserves in africa western powers look at the region they talk about humanitarianism all democracy but they sing about oil great martin it says it's impossible not to draw a comparison with iraq he's written a book about the aftermath of the iraq invasion in which he maintains western powers imposed a democracy which played on sectarian divisions that ensured years of tribal

struggle but also meant the allies retained control of the oil supply while the u.k. government insists lessons have been learned from iraq western or oil firms move into libya even before the fate of tripoli is sealed great oil grab is already beginning b.p. has a contentious oil and gas exploration contract in libya which the u.k. government will be anxious for it to resume italian oil giant aig. and i is the first to send back to libya and it says rose on the knees french towel and. the dead well as investors hoped they'd soon be able to resume production in libya but at what price to the libyan people the great fear is that just as they did in iraq the creation democracy. interests or the west's interests for oil companies interests and does nothing for the people of libya nor. will the scenes of

excitement and jubilant celebrations across libya recalled those in caro's tahrir square in february but the high expectations after the revolution have given way to disillusionment and dismay or he's going to look at how the latest events in libya have parallels in history. the cadet he regime is crumbling. the rebels are cheering. the. same cheers and tears could be seen in egypt in february as the nation ousted their longtime leader hosni mubarak but six months on many egyptians say their hopes have been crushed by reality. you know i love the revolution when it happened i welcomed it that looked at the time like a light at the end of the tunnel we see it's not getting better we have nothing to eat don't tell me about democracy for hungry people it just doesn't matter gyptian

is now are not governed by who they chose as their leaders instead it's their army that's in control the army that has strong ties with the u.s. and he sponsored by washington the military regime the edifice the institutions that were the essence the fundamental essence of the mubarak regime those remain and we can see the thousands of people have been brought to military trial since the end of the popular revolution that ousted mubarak in tripoli the body taking over is the national transitional council also not chosen by the levy in people yet the council is being recognized as the legitimate government of libya by all allies who have been helping oust gadhafi many levy as are outraged by the fact that foreign powers are effectively making vital choices for them there is too much wealth and geopolitical strategic value to libya to only become reformed in democratic rights and universal participation by the citizenry. western powers need

to implement a western economic and military agenda and therefore the people who will eventually command the political situation in libya and the military situation in libya will indeed be supported and buttress by western powers western powers. thrown all their support behind the leader in national transitional council giving them billions of dollars and weapons to gain control but the rebels are far from being the united group what libya is going to face after that is a period of prolonged chaos nobody knows the outcome this is as i said at the beginning this is tribe against tribe this is not democracy against totalitarian revolutions in egypt and libya have developed under different scenarios in egypt it was an on armed uprising of millions in libya it's been an insurgency flooded with weapons by the west and those weapons are still in their arms and they're not going anywhere and many analysts are saying that libyans could find themselves in

a much worse situation than the egyptians because on top of power crisis similar to the one egyptians are having libyans could be facing a fresh break of violence at the hands of the armed mom i'm going to shut down reporting from washington our take. on the news this hour dominique strauss kahn the former head of the i.m.f. has been cleared of criminal sexual assault charges by a new york court correspondent reporting the details. dominic strauss kahn has been cleared of all sexual assault charges that were filed more than two months ago and in a nutshell the prosecutors say that the accuser in this case thirty three year old nafissatou diallo is not a credible witness according to prosecutors they say that the accuser. a cleaning lady at the self a hotel here in new york was untruthful with investigators in virtually every interview prosecutors say she lied in matters great and small and that the problem

in this circumstance is her credibility all these charges against him have been dropped however this order is on hold because the defendant. has appealed for a special special prosecutor in this case now the judge already denied that request for a special special prosecutor but we do have to wait and see what the appeals court says but as we know now the judge has dropped all this case of sexual assaults against dominique strauss kahn the one that has caused a scandal here in the u.s. and around the world the u.s. media jumped on dominique strauss kahn as if public enemy number one had been flying only captured this was through the wringer basically all the headlines of all the major newspapers essentially hide him guilty and mocking him skits were made about him that shows here in the u.s. we did see that in just a matter of a week. on lost his job as head of the he was his reputation

was was completely dissolved. and then you know he was just basically a running joke but at this point we should also mention there is a civil suit that has been filed by ms diallo against dominique strauss kahn and many are imagining he will settle out of court if he wants this problem to just go away and that would require probably a good sum of money but at this point he's been pretty much vindicated on all these sexual assault charges. the russian capital exactly nine thirty in the breaking news from libya hundreds of rebels have reportedly entered the libyan leader's compound and heavy fighting inside continues the opposition claims to be in control of most of the capital over the whereabouts of colonel gadhafi remains unknown nato forces have been backing up rebel forces with bombing raids casualties are said to be mounting often.