22/08/2011 BBC News at Ten

Advancing to victory, the Libyan rebels now in charge of much of

Tripoli. They take the fight to the enemy, and they are confident that

Gaddafi's regime is crumbling. plays his last card, you can say,

his last game. Even his Big colonel and his army, they lose control.

travel with the rebels into the city as they come under attack from

But they are already celebrating in other parts of Libya as the

international community urges a peaceful transition. His regime is

falling apart and is in full retreat. Gaddafi must stop fighting

without conditions and clearly shown that he has given up any

claim to control Libya. Tonight, we have special reports on the rebel

advance, we will be inside Tripoli, and we will consider what the

future holds for the Libyan people. Also on the programme: A new dress

in the phone-hacking scandal involving Andy Coulson, former News

of the World editor. Charges of sexual assault are

dropped against the former head of Yes! And England's cricketers

complete a 4-0 victory in the Test series against India.

And I will be here with the sport later in the air on the BBC News

Channel, including the Premier League match at Old Trafford as the

champions, Manchester United, Good evening. The whereabouts of

Colonel Gaddafi are still unknown tonight after a day of intense

fighting on the streets of Tripoli amid clear evidence that the regime

is falling apart. Much of the capital is now in rebel hands, but

some fighters loyal to Gaddafi are holding out in the Battle of

Tripoli. The past 24 hours has seen government forces making rapid

progress from the West and from these. They swept into the main

square overnight and renamed it Martyrs' Square. But there are

reports that Gaddafi's forces are still defending his main compound.

Tonight we will have the latest and the battle, and we will be asking

how Libya might change after Gaddafi. First, Rupert Wingfield-

Hayes reports on the rebels' advance.

This morning, as we have been coming into Tripoli, very quiet, a

few sounds of shooting in the background. Here we go, a group of

young men here. Allahu Akbar! is what we are seeing every time we

go past, groups of young men celebrating. So far, no signs of

any fighting in the city. It looks Allahu Akbar! We are approaching

the centre of Tripoli down ahead of us here, we have come up against a

road block. They say there is still fighting going on at their head, a

few Gaddafi soldiers are ahead. They are bringing up rebel fighters,

he just passed us in a car, going up ahead. Why is Gaddafi? Nobody

here knows, maybe in the air. -- the earth. Although it appears very

quiet and the surface in Tripoli this morning, it is also clearly

extremely tense, and they are still parts of the city that are not

under rebel control, and there is still resistance going on here. A

rebel convoy is heading into the city. Little do the young men know

We decide to tag along as they head along the seafront towards Green

Square. Up ahead, there was still signs of fighting. Then suddenly we

ran straight into a classic ambush. I can see the muzzle flashes as an

anti-aircraft gun opens fire directly into the front of the

We simply do not know how many other young men travelling with us

Tonight, this is the new rebel front line. Here in the west of

Tripoli, they have been forced out of the city centre to the ring road.

After fierce fighting, the rebels claim they control 90% of Tripoli.

It is wildly optimistic. This evening, the situation in Tripoli

remains extremely mixed. You can see local people coming out onto

the streets to celebrate their new freedom, but at the same time as

this is happening, we have been told by units we are travelling

with that they are going to leave the city tonight because it is

still not safe enough for them to Progress has also been made by

anti-government forces on the eastern approaches to Tripoli, but

it has been slow and if anything more difficult than the campaign in

the West. They have been moving in from Zlitan, a town made on Friday,

nearly 100 miles from Tripoli, where another column of fighters

has been making more rapid progress from the south. Our correspondent

Orla Guerin reports now on the rebel advance principally from the

We set out on the road to Tripoli. Many here believe that victory is

fast approaching, there is no headlong rush to the capital. Along

the way, some already celebrating and dreaming of revenge. Gaddafi

out! He is out now, you know, Gaddafi is not going to come to

Libya any more. Now, if he is still the in Libya, he is going to be

dead now, and we are going to kill him, this revolution is going to

end with killing Gaddafi and his son. Allahu Akbar! But to find

Colonel Gaddafi, they have to get to Tripoli, and beyond the town of

Zlitan, the regime troops are still blocking the way. On the eastern

front, the battles are not over. Well, the fighting is continuing

here. Rebel cars are streaming forwards towards the front line.

They say there is a fierce battle going on there. The rebels are

trying to push up this road towards Tripoli, but they are meeting stiff

resistance from Colonel Gaddafi's troops. If they thought those

troops might run, they stayed to fight instead, and the rebels are

moving forward now, back into battle. Allahu Akbar! Some are

still paying the price for freedom. Another fighter died today from

Woman's sustained at the weekend. He always said the time of freedom

will come, he told us, and he wanted to die in his way. Now I

will have the honour of continuing But how long will it take to finish

it? That remains unclear. The fighters here claim, optimistically,

Battles are still raging tonight in several parts of Tripoli as those

loyal to Gaddafi try to stave off the rebel assault. Despite

increasing signs that the regime is collapsing, there have been pockets

of fierce resistance, especially around Colonel Gaddafi's compound.

Matthew Price is in the heart of the Libyan capital in an area still

On the streets of Tripoli, a The rebels sped into the capital

overnight with astonishing speed. Moving into Green Square, when just

days ago Colonel Gaddafi's supporters about the city was safe.

They tore down his posters and flags. Three miles to the south in

a luxury hotel, we watched as Gaddafi's spokesman held what might

turn out to be his last press conference. Tripoli is well

But even as he was speaking, the rebels were celebrating, trampling

the leader they have come to despise. Today, rebel forces

continued to stream into Tripoli, believing they were on the verge of

a significant victory. This is now a city of checkpoints, of men

protecting their neighbourhoods, wary of what Colonel Gaddafi's

In areas, there has been fierce fighting, battles have raged around

Colonel Gaddafi's compound. Heavy gunfire can be heard and loud

explosions. Indeed, the Gaddafi family is under pressure like never

before. Last night came news that another son, is presumed successor,

Saif Al-Islam, had been arrested. He pays his war crimes charges at

the International Criminal Court. - But what of Colonel Gaddafi

himself? He made a short radio address last night, calling on

supporters to rise up. Is he in Tripoli? That's his home town of

Sirte? And what is he planning? This city is not under full

opposition control. Here in the hotel where foreign journalists had

stayed since the conflict began, Gaddafi supporters are in charge

both inside and indeed out on the streets. It is very hard to

determine how much of the city they still hold, but the battle for

Tripoli is not yet over. NATO has continued its air strikes. Without

its air support, whose purpose is to protect civilians, the rebels

would not be in the strong position may find themselves in now. And

Libyan state television, a Gaddafi mouthpiece, has now fallen are fair.

Still, opposition supporters are confident enough to be freely

talking about the new Libya. They believe Colonel Gaddafi is finished.

So he plays his last card, you can say, his last game. And even his

thick colonel and his army, they lose control, so all the army of

Gaddafi now, they fight without any order, without anything. If he is,

when his supporters lay down their Well, for the latest, we're just

managed to make contact with Matthew Price in the heart of

Tripoli, and he is on the line now. How does it seem tonight? In the

area that I am in, Huw, it is very much quite dead tonight. There has

just been a couple of bursts of gunfire, but nothing more. There is

a power cut across the area as well. That seems to have plunged much of

the city into darkness. There were quite fierce battles during the day,

and that seems to have caused all been the result of a lot of

fighting, obviously, between I am sorry, I think we have lost

the line to Matthew. Very difficult to establish that line. We were

hoping it would last longer, apologies for that. We were talking

earlier about the rebels'' advance from the east, but of course the

town of Misrata is very important on that route, and Orla Guerin his

there for us tonight. How do you see things? Well, I think there are

still critical questions about the rebel advances inside Shipley and

how much they control, but the picture that seems to be emerging

is that they have a large degree of control, possibly over the majority

of district. That is what is emerging at this distance. But they

are still pockets of resistance that are proving to be stubborn,

and we have his say this is something the rebels always

anticipated. -- we have to say. One of the more long-term concerns is

what is going to happen next. If we assume this scenario plays out as

we expect with the removal of Colonel Gaddafi, is the rebel

leadership, the political leadership and Benghazi in position

to step in and take things forward? There have been concerns about that

from the beginning. It is a very disparate group of people who came

together in a moment of chaos, at a time when a united around the idea

of getting rid of the Libyan leader, but the question is what happens

next after they managed to achieve that goal? I think there is some

nervousness, even within the MDC, about that. We had a revealing

statement this afternoon from the chairman in Benghazi, warned that

he would resign if there were acts of revenge by fighters inside

Tripoli. I think the NTC are aware that this is a very precarious

moment politically and militarily. They have to try to exert control,

keep calm in Tripoli. They want to try and avoid the pitfalls of the

transitions that we have seen in places like Iraq, and the West is

watching very carefully to see how As events unfolded on the streets

of Tripoli, the international community urged Colonel Gaddafi to

leave immediately and advised the rebels to handle the transition

with great care. David Cameron declared that the regime was in

full retreat, as he put it and President Obama said Tripoli was

slipping from the grasp of a tyrant. Our diplomatic correspondent

considers the next steps. As rebels swept into Tripoli, they

had much to celebrate. But the past six months, struggling to topple

Gaddafi have cost many lives. It has needed outside help and NATO's

care campaign. The future for Libya remains uncertain, full of risk. So

when David Cameron hailed the achievement, he didn't hide the

future challenges. There will undoubtedly be difficult days ahead.

No transition is ever smooth or easy. But today, the Arab Spring is

a step further away from oppression and dictatorship and a step closer

to freedom and demock race. over four decades the Libyan people

had lived under the rule of a tyrant who denied them their most

basic human rights. Now the celebrations that we've seen in the

streets of Libya shows that the pursuit of human dignity is far

stronger than any dictator. So, can that dream of a better future be

made real? The first days will be crucial. Can rebels be persuaded

not to take revenge on Gaddafi loyalists? I call on all Libyans to

exercise self-restraint, said the head of the rebel Council, Mustafa

Abdul Jalil and to respect the property and lives of others.

It's the memory of Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein which is

the nightmare. Looting, mayhem and a dissent into sectarian bombing

and killing. Now Libya is not Iraq, and the opposition in Libya can

point to cities they already hold, where law and order have not broken

down. But then in Benghazi, rebels failed, last month, to prevent the

murder of General Abdel Fattah Younes amid accusations he was the

victim of a power struggle. Looking further into the future, the number

one priority is transforming dictatorship into democracy. The

rebel opposition has already published its draft of a new

constitution for Libya. It promises a democratic state based on law

rather than tribal or personal loyalty and there are plenty of

guarantees of freedom, including freedom of opinion, freedom of

demonstration and freedom of mass media. For now, these are just

words, of course, but the opposition NTC says it's committed

to deliver. The NTC has it within its power to

show the West, including showing members of ambivalent tribes that

it is genuinely going to rule in line with liberal values. If it

does that early on and persuades people they have excellent chances

of avoiding what occurred in Iraq. So as the opposition celebrate in

their original strong hold of Benghazi, its leadership will now

come under intense scrutiny. Prospects are far better than in

Iraq, after all, the world, including the Arab world, was

largely united against Gaddafi, but still risks remain.

To discuss more of the reaction to what's going on in Libya, James

Landale is in Downing Street. And Mark Mardell in Washington. What's

the thinking in Downing Street on what's gone on today? David Cameron

has been at pains to be cautious about events in Tripoli, saying

there should be no complacency, it's not over yet, there are

difficult days ahead. Within Government and within there there's

a sense of quiet satisfaction. They remember, the opposition that Mr

Cameron faced when he suggested a UN resolution authorising military

action, many MPs were fearful of a foreign adventure that could cost

British lives and treasure. Downing Street officials say just as people

were wrong to be pessimistic then, they're wrong to be pessimistic now.

They point to the scale of the international community's unity

over this, the post-war planning that's gone into it and the amount

of commitments that the NTC has done to avoid things like reprisals.

They say potentially this could work and if it does, they'll reap

the rewards. Mark, some people accusing the President of a lack of

interest, a lack of engagement in the Libyan problems, some months

ago, has that changed? I think there's, no, I don't think it has.

There's quiet satisfaction in the White House that he's taken the

right approach. He did want to take a backseat. That was quite

deliberate. He wanted Europe to pull its weight and doing its bit

within the NATO alliance. He didn't want to see America and many

Americans would agree with this, embroiled in another war. He didn't

want this revolution stamped "made in America". All that seems to be

happening. The point as well was that Libya wasn't seen as a vital

American interest. I think it is now a vital interest that this

succeeds and doesn't descend into chaos. They're deeply involved in

trying to get that right. Mark thank you. And James, in Downing

Street, thank you. Another little word on Libya, later

in the programme, and a reminder now, that there's much more on the

situation, expert analysis, background, a special life page

online. It's bbc.co.uk/news and the link is clearly there for you.

Let's look at some of the day's other main stories. There are new

developments tonight in the phone hacking scandal at the News Of The

World. Robert Peston has uncovered the story. Here's here. What I've

learned is that when Andy Coulson resigned as editor of News Of The

World, remember he resigned because his royal editor was imprisoned for

phone hacking, he said he didn't know about phone hacking, but he

took responsibility to the embarrassment at the News Of The

World. He was given a severance package described as extremely

generous - two years' money, three years of benefits. He kept the

company car. What I think people will regard as politically

explosive is that he continued to receive hundreds of thousands of

pounds from News International, after he started working for the

Conservative Party as their Director of Communications. In May

he was appointed Director of Communications. He took up the post

in July. He was receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds up until the

end of 2007. Now it seems the way of assessing the significance of

this, just think the fewer orery there would have been if it was

disclosed back then that the chap with the most important media job

within theer to party, very close to David Cameron was still

receiving substantial sums of money from Rupert Murdoch. No-one would

have believed that he was completely arm's length from that

organisation. Now I've spoken to senior Government sources. They

tell me that party managers at the time, didn't know that he was still

receiving this money. Then you have to ask yourself - what did they ask

him about his continued links to Rupert Murdoch, if they weren't

aware. Then there's a very final, important question for News

International, which is this: He resigned in humiliating

circumstances. He denied he knew about phone hacking, though he's

subsequently been arrested in relation to the phone hack ago fair.

The question is - why was News International so generous in the

payment it made? Thank you very much.

Charges of sexual assault levelled at the former head of the

International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, are to be

dropped. Prosecuters in New York held talks this evening with the

hotel maid, who claims that Mr Strauss-Khan tried to rape her. Her

lawyer says she's being denied justice.

She accused one of the world's most powerful men of sexual assault. But

today, the hotel maid was told by prosecuters her case would be

dropped. A lawyer blasted the district attorney. He has not only

turned his back on this innocent victim, but he has also turned his

back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this

case. A short walk away, Dominique Strauss-Khan remained out of sight

at the Manhattan town house where he's been living on bail. In a

statement his lawyers welcomed the prosecuter's decision. With no

other witnesses to the alleged assault, this case has turned on

the credibility of 32-year-old Fafissatou Diallou, an immigrant

from Guinea in west Africa, who last month gave up her right to

anonymity. He come to me and grabbed my breast, no, you don't

have to be sorry. I said stop. I don't want to lose my job. At first

prosecuters called the maid's account compelling. They said

forensic evidence proved there was a sexual encounter. Then Miss

Diallou changed her account of her movements in the hotel. And she

admitted lying on an asylum claim. Lawyers for Strauss-Khan have

indicated that any sexual contact was consentual. They say his

accuser is exploiting the case to make money. Earlier this month she

fired a civil law suit. What all this comes down to is this:

Prosecuters do not believe they can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt,

that there was a forced sexual encounter. Tomorrow they'll ask a

judge to dismiss the case. Cricket then and England won the

fourth and final Test against India at the oval to complete a 4-0 sweep

in the series. Despite a brave innings by Sachin Tendulkar,

England stormed to victory by an innings and eight runs, their

sevenths innings triumph in 13 tests.

The final champagne moment of a vintage summer for English cricket

pride, euphoria and yet it could have been India's day to remember.

All summer, Sachin Tendulkar's stood on the brink of a remarkable

achievement his 100th international 100, this looked like the day, as

he and India cruised through the morning and frustrated England's

bowlers. As Tendulkar emerged after lunch,

the crowd sensed history, but instead, they got this: That's

close, a long way down, gone! Tendulkar agonisingly gone for 91.

It was almost too cruel to watch. With their tall isman gone, the

rest soon followed, the sort of collapse which has blighted India's

summer as Graeme Swann's turn turned things round. Six wickets

for him, for England, quite a day. A whitewash against an Indian side

previously the best in the world. For English cricket and its fans,

these are heady times. We felt that we had the ability to

win this final game, but we had to dig deep again. As I said, that's

what I'm most proud about. The guys were prepared to do that, even when

they didn't really have to. I think that bodes well for the future.

a series which promised to be tight, has proved anything but. But

India's frailty shouldn't detract from England's excellence. World

number one and now a clean sweep. Not a bad summer.

More on tonight's main story, the crumbling of the Gaddafi regime in

Libya and the rapid progress of rebel forces into Tripoli. As

fighting continues, there's still no sign of an end to this conflict

or clear evidence that four decades of rule by Gaddafi are formally

over. It's now the end game for the man who spent so many years

inspiring fear at home and funding terrorism abroad.

Is there something in the mind set of dictators that makes them blind

to their own impending down fall? This bizarre moment came only in

February, as rebel forces were seizing half his country. He seemed

to imagine himself invincible. love me, all my people with me.

They love me, all. They will die to protect me, my people. Muammar

Gaddafi seized power in a coup d'etat in 1969, he was 27. Soon he

was backing armed groups around the world. He helped arm the IRA. In

1984, someone opened fire from inside the Libyan embassy in London.

The police woman, Yvonne Fletcher, was killed. When a Berlin nightclub

full of US servicemen was bombed, America blamed Gaddafi and bombed

his compound in Tripoli. He survived, strengthened in his boast

he had defied mighty America. He found a way to strike back. The

way he struck back against Britain was giving Semtex to the IRA, which

was certainly the most damaging thing that he ever did to us.

Britain was involved because all thot raids were carried out by

Americans, they were carried out from air bases in Britain.

270 people died when a Pan-Am jet was bombed in 1988. The

investigation pointed to two Libyan agents. But within a decade, this

mer curial and enduring figure pulled off a remarkable change.

First he surrendered the Lockerbie suspects for trial. Then in 2003,

he announced that he was dismantling his weapons of mass

destruction to become an ally in the War on Terror.

Western leaders embraced him. country is prepared to say, we want

to put the past behind us, we want to give up chemical and nuclear

weapons capable, we want to cease our tie was terrorist groups, then

we should be willing to open up to that.

This required a diplomatic blind eye to his continuing brutality at

home, where he and family were feared and increasingly reviled.

Popular rage has now closed in on him. Throughout he has insisted his

hold on power is impregnable. His personal fate remains undecided,