A complaint over tax payments by a Glencore subsidiary could prompt the Zambian government to undertake an audit of all mining companies to assess how much tax they owe Mining firm under fire over tax payments in Zambia The contrast between the poverty of most people in Zambia and the natural riches of our country was highlighted this week in an incident that is highly embarrassing for one of the companies profiting from our mineral wealth. The company – Swiss commodities giant Glencore – has just announced its intention to launch itself on to the London Stock Exchange . So it will have been less than happy about the timing of the formal complaint which my organisation, the Centre for Trade Policy and Development, and four others filed on Tuesday with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The complaint is about the behaviour of a mining company , Mopani Copper Mines (MCM), which is largely owned by a Glencore subsidiary and which operates in Zambia’s copperbelt, near our northern border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Put simply, our concern is that Mopani may be selling Zambia’s copper to Glencore at prices which favour Glencore and which reduce the amount of tax the company pays in Zambia – a desperately poor country, where life expectancy is 46. Specifically, our complaint alleges that Mopani is violating the OECD’s guidelines for multinational companies, which require trade between subsidiary and parent companies to follow the “arm’s length” rule. In other words, related firms must buy and sell with each other at open market prices. The basis of our concern is a leaked auditors’ report that highlighted a series of “problems” in Mopani’s figures for costs and revenues, including a failure by the company to show that its copper sales were done on an arm’s length basis. The report was commissioned by the Zambia Revenue Authority. Glencore, for its part, has strongly disputed the auditors’ findings, saying the report contains factual errors and is based on flawed analysis and assumptions. For me, the leaked report lends some support to Zambian civil society organisations’ claims that mining companies are depriving us of social and economic benefits which are rightly ours, through tax evasion and avoidance. I hope that the leaked report – and now our complaint to the OECD – will prompt the Zambian government to do a financial audit of all mining companies, so that the Zambian Revenue Authority can update its assessments of the tax they owe. Donor countries such as the UK – which gave Zambia almost £50m in aid last year – should support our government in such an exercise. I also hope that our complaint to the OECD will draw attention to the existence of a much bigger problem – tax dodging by multinational companies – which stretches far beyond the copperbelt and indeed Zambia itself. According to Christian Aid – one of my organisation’s UK partners – developing countries lose some $160bn a year in tax revenue to the manipulations of multinationals. That is considerably more than they receive in aid each year. A major part of the solution to this global curse is for governments to require companies to reveal more about their finances, with details, such as profits made and taxes paid, published for every country in which they operate. This sort of information would help tax authorities – including Zambia’s – to identify suspicious cases where companies appear to be artificially shifting their profits out of poor countries and into tax havens. It would not transform the balance of power between tax collectors and a company’s army of tax accountants and lawyers, but it would help. The EU is looking into just such a country-by-country reporting standard for all companies listed in member states. If this resulted in the disclosure of payments to governments, it would help civil society to hold governments to account when they are misusing money. But to shine a light on cases where companies are flouting the OECD’s critically important arm’s length rule, we need underlying financial information. If Europe were to require this kinds of disclosure, then here, in Lusaka, we would applaud. • Savior Mwambwa is executive director of the Centre for Trade Policy and Development, Zambia
Continue reading …Bozell, Hannity Tackle How Media Have Been Carrying Water for Obama on Spending, Budget
April 15, 2011 No Comment
Aside from ABC's Jake Tapper, where were the denunciations from the media of President Obama's uncivil, hyper-partisan speech on the budget the other day at George Washington University (GWU)? That's a question that NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell asked on last night's “Media Mash” segment on Fox News Channel's “Hannity.” It was a speech that the president invited Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to sit in on, and “then savaged him.” “The Republicans seriously thought” the April 13 speech was “going to be a serious policy proposal” on the budget, but instead Obama “broadsided everyone with this amazing display of demagoguery,” Bozell noted. “Kudos to Jake Tapper of ABC who pointed out that it was the same Barack Obama who gave a speech before the Republicans last year saying that people better not do this kind of exact language that he used yesterday.” “This was something that the media needed to denounce for what it was, which was dishonest [and uncivil],” the Media Research Center founder added. Bozell and Fox News host Sean Hannity also discussed MSNBC's Chris Matthews hyperbolically saying the Ryan budget plan would “kill half the people that watch [Hardball].” “This is what we're up against,” Bozell observed. “There are no proposals on the Left to do anything about this, it's just that Republicans are now trying to kill people.” Also discussed was how on the April 6 NBC “Today” show host Matt Lauer fed leftist talking points to interview subject liberal Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.): MATT LAUER, from April 6 “Today”: And when you look at some of the things the Tea Party and others on the far right are asking for: no funding for Planned Parenthood, no funding for climate control, public broadcasting, does it seem to you, Senator, that this is less about a fiscal debate or an economic policy debate and they're making an ideological stand here?
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Small retailers buck an industry trend that has seen the closure of mainstream chains such as Zavvi and Borders At the Truck record store in Oxford’s student heartland, light streams in through huge, spotless windows, while customers lounge on hessian covered window seats, or listen to new music on a shiny CD player. It is as far from the stereotypical dusty old record shop as it is possible to imagine. “We wanted to create a hub for the local community, and for the local music culture – somewhere bright and welcoming,” said co-owner Robin Bennett. “Oxford has such a strong music scene but people who are into their music have nowhere to go unless shops like ours open.” The travails of the record industry are well known. Zavvi and Borders have disappeared while the last remaining chain, HMV, continues to struggle, issuing profit warnings and recently announcing that it would close 40 stores as music buyers migrate online. But Truck is evidence of what is perhaps a surprising trend: it is one of a dozen new independent record shops that have opened around Britain over the past year. Numbers of independent stores reached a low of 269 in 2009, but last year that had grown to 281, the first increase in a generation, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association. More than two thirds of them have joined forces with independent labels and artists for Record Store Day on Saturday, a 24-hour celebration of the independent music scene. Rare exclusives are on offer, from a Lady Gaga 12″ picture disc to a special 7″ vinyl single of Ozzy Osbourne’s Flying High Again, while stores throughout the UK will be hosting performances from bands such as Wild Beasts, Frightened Rabbit and Chilly Gonzales. Organiser Spencer Hickman described the event as a grassroots celebration of stores that are pulling through a difficult economic environment. “Record Store Day is everywhere now. There are performances in every part of the UK. It’s like an urban Glastonbury.” After years of decline, independent record shops had raised their game and found their niche in the music market, he added. “The fact that we have seen new stores opening this year shows that there are still music lovers who want to buy physical music from people who are just as enthusiastic as they are. There are lots of people who still want music as an art form not just a download.” Sipping a coffee in Truck, Bennett, who founded the local independent Truck festival in 1998 with his brother Joe, said modern stores had to provide something special. “Record shops have realised that you can’t carry on doing the same thing. You have to offer more – hold in-store gigs, offer coffee and stock incredible music,” he said. “You also have to have exceptional staff. We are trying not to be too elitist and just be a place where people feel welcome.” Customer Ally Jones admitted to buying his CDs on Amazon because “it’s just too cheap” but had come into the shop to browse its vinyl and comics. “You know they are going to know more than the lad in HMV, and you can buy something a bit different like an LP with great artwork.” Vinyl has provided an unlikely lifeline in the independent music market. Of the 232 exclusive releases as part of Record Store Day, 220 are on vinyl with just 10 on CD and two on cassette. Pointing out a Pet Sounds reissue he covets, Bennett said that 40% of Truck’s sales come from vinyl. “It’s insane,” said Bennett. “But they are beautiful things. Music fans love the artwork and the solidity of vinyl.” Other factors have given a boost to independent record stores, said Graham Jones, author of Last Shop Standing, a history of the rise and fall of the independent record shop. Record labels are giving independent shops better deals, while the price of CDs in supermarkets has increased, he said. Chancellor George Osborne has also vowed to tackle a loophole that allows Channel Island-based companies to avoid paying VAT on CDs and DVDs when they are ordered from the likes of Play.com and Amazon. “If that happens then record shops will no longer be playing at a 20% disadvantage, and that could make all the difference,” said Jones. Despite falling album sales – which dropped another 8% last year – independent music remains in robust health, with independent artists such as Adele dominating the charts, said Martin Mills, chairman of independent label Beggars Group. Mills, whose group is home to artists such as Thom Yorke and Jarvis Cocker, said it was easier for fans to find new music online. And unlike pop music sales, which are driven by singles, indie music fans were still loyal to the album. “Independent music is flourishing, because it is so much easier to discover new music, and album buying, including in digital form, is the way that those fans connect with the artists,” he said. “Album sales are increasingly skewing towards independent artists.” Independent stores are unlikely to reach levels seen in the 1980s, when there were more than 2,200 in the UK, but some record shop lovers, like Jones, are cautiously optimistic about the future. “When I wrote Last Shop Standing I thought I was writing the obituary for the independent record store,” he said. “It turns out that may have been premature.” Record Store Day Retail industry HMV Zavvi Borders Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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Prosecution would be a ‘significant step’ towards abortion being outlawed, says lawyer for pregnant women’s group A woman accused of murdering her four-day-old baby girl by trying to kill herself with rat poison while pregnant has become a cause célèbre for US women’s groups and civil liberties organisations. Bei Bei Shuai, 34, a restaurant owner who moved to the US from China 10 years ago, was pregnant and planning to marry her boyfriend until she learned late last year that he was already married and he would be abandoning her. A few days later, on 23 December, she went to a hardware store, bought rat poison pellets, went back to her flat in Indianapolis and swallowed some. But she did not die immediately and was persuaded by friends to go to hospital. She was given treatment to counteract the poison and gave birth on New Year’s Eve, but her daughter, Angel, suffered seizures and died after four days. Shuai then had a second breakdown and spent a month in a psychiatric ward, after which she left to stay with friends and began rebuilding her life. But in March she was arrested and charged with murder and attempted foeticide. She now faces life imprisonment. “This case has huge implications for pregnant women, not only in Indiana but across the country,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. “If we allowed the state to put a woman in jail for anything that could pose a risk to her pregnancy, there would be nothing to stop the police putting in jail a woman who has a drink of wine or who smokes. So where do you draw the line?” Kolbi-Molinas said there had been an alarming rise in the number of such cases across the US. Some women’s groups put the rise down to pressure on prosecutors from anti-abortion groups. Shuai has been held in Marion County jail, Indianapolis, where she is segregated from other prisoners. She was last in court for a bail hearing on Wednesday but the judge, Sheila Carlisle, has not yet ruled whether she will be kept in custody. Carlisle is expected to begin hearing a motion for the case’s dismissal next month. Linda Pence, Shuai’s lawyer, described the decision to prosecute her as “horrible” and “outrageous”. She disputes the prosecution’s claim that the baby died from rat poison, saying that Shuai received a host of medicines at the hospital, many of which could have caused the death. The National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) group is helping to mount the defence. Kathrine Jack, a lawyer with the NAPW, who meets Shuai about once a week, said that after the initial suicide attempt, she had regained hope. “She has been on a rollercoaster,” said the lawyer, who argued that women such as Shuai should, rather than being locked up, receive medical and psychiatric help. Jack, who has been involved in dozens of similar cases where women were charged as a result of incidents while pregnant, said: “Prosecutions like this are increasing in the US and are a result of anti-abortion rhetoric and movements that seek to give the foetus rights above and beyond those of women. “If it was allowed to stand, it would not outlaw abortion right away but it would be a significant step along the way.” Dave Rimstidt, part of the prosecution team, said careful consideration had gone into the decision to charge Shuai. “This is a very unique case. Every charging decision is very difficult and goes through a process where we consider all the facts, all the circumstances, and under this situation, we believe we’ve charged the two charges we can prove,” he said. Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and South Carolina are among states to have pressed ahead with cases involving pregnant women and their foetuses, most of which have related to women taking illegal drugs during pregnancy. Abortion Women United States Pregnancy Health Indiana Ewen MacAskill guardian.co.uk
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In an interview with Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood on Friday's NBC Today, co-host Meredith Vieira exploited recent instances of air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job to bash Republican efforts to curb government spending: “…the House signed a bill – passed a bill, I'm sorry – that would cut $4 billion from your budget. Are you worried about that?” In response Lahood proclaimed: “Of course we're worried about it. And I think these incidents prove up the case that we can't let money stand in the way of safety….Money will never compromise safety. That will always be our priority for the flying public.” Vieira followed up: “But just so I understand, are you saying that that $4 billion cut would negatively impact aviation safety?” What Vieira failed to explain was that the GOP proposal simply brought the FAA budget back to 2008 levels, still providing the government agency with $59.7 billion. Here is a transcript of the April 15 exchange between Vieira and Lahood: 7:09AM ET (…) MEREDITH VIEIRA: You know, Congressman Mica, the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says that it is wrong of the FAA to add air controllers at this time. He argues, 'This increase in staffing, when there is little to no traffic, also misdirects our resources and focus away from congested air traffic control facilities.' What is your response to that? RAY LAHOOD: Look it, we're not going to let money compromise safety. If safety is our number one priority and it takes additional controllers to get to the kind of zero tolerance that we want, that's what we will do. We will always find the money to make sure that safety is the number one priority for the flying public. VIEIRA: And yet the House signed a bill – passed a bill, I'm sorry – that would cut $4 billion from your budget. Are you worried about that? LAHOOD: Of course we're worried about it. And I think these incidents prove up the case that we can't let money stand in the way of safety. And we will work with Congress on making sure we have the resources to have the right number of controllers, well-trained, well-rested, and alert, in these control towers. Money will never compromise safety. That will always be our priority for the flying public. VIEIRA: But just so I understand, are you saying that that $4 billion cut would negatively impact aviation safety? LAHOOD: We're going to work with Congress to make sure we have the right resources to have controllers that are well-trained and alert in these towers. That's our obligation to the flying public for safety. VIEIRA: Alright, Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood, thank you very much. LAHOOD: Thank you, Meredith. — Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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Is it really true that there’s no difference between cheap and expensive wines, or do some people just want to believe it? The “news” yesterday, that people don’t know slosh from sancerre when it comes to judging wine quality created widespread ferment. I contacted Richard Wiseman, the professor at the University of Hertfordshire who made the claims, to discuss them and ask how the tests were conducted. Apparently some 578 lucky visitors to this year’s Edinburgh International Science Festival were given two glasses of wine, told that one of them was cheap and the other expensive, and asked which was which. The findings showed that, with uncanny consistency, around half were right and half wrong for nearly all the wines. Wiseman originally said of these “remarkable” results: “People were unable to tell expensive from inexpensive wines, and so in these times of financial hardship, the message is clear – the inexpensive wines we tested taste the same as their expensive counterparts”. In fact, inasmuch as everybody was choosing between the two wines, precisely nobody was saying they tasted the same, and Wiseman concedes on reflection that that point doesn’t really stand up. One could further argue that what the findings show is that around half the respondents could tell the difference, but Wiseman’s extrapolation is that because 50% is the statistical probability, the same results could have been obtained by tossing a coin. I wondered whether there’s any point in comparing an immature vintage of an expensive claret, as the survey did, with a cheap generic bordeaux. The wine that isn’t ready yet will be rigid with tannin, and tasting hard and raw. Wiseman agreed, but said that most people don’t keep wines to let them mature anyway, which is of course true, but doesn’t in any way license the conclusion that the cheaper wine is the smarter option. It’s only the smarter option if you don’t drink the dearer wine at its best. But these conclusions speak of a more far-reaching cultural proclivity. It is deeply appealing to the British to believe that anything that smells like connoisseurship in matters of food and drink is probably horse poo. And so-called wine experts are the worst offenders of the lot. It can’t be denied that there is still a sediment of rank elitism about the wine business. When single bottles of the wines of Burgundy’s and Bordeaux’s most celebrated estates can sell for more than most people earn in a month, this is not a milieu noted for its inclusiveness. (But then neither is the luxury car market, or designer-label fashion.) A healthy suspicion of pretentiousness is what immunises the British from the rhapsodic flannel with which the French PR industry talks about its own wines. That cynicism, though, on the British side has its fatal weakness, in that it habitually encourages people to settle for mediocrity. There is a kind of dogged joylessness in wanting to believe that anything that claims to be better must be trying to put one over on you. Why pay £10 for a bottle of wine, Wiseman asks, when you won’t enjoy it any more than one that cost half that? Far from being a message of hope, this is a counsel of despair. Its roots reach back to the idol-smashing puritanism of the Cromwellian era, when a righteous hatred of the luxury and entitlement in which the aristocracy lived bred in us a morally tinged distrust of anything seen as a cut above. Class privilege is of course no less grotesque than it was when they lopped off the king’s head, but it has led to a confusion of quality-consciousness with arrogance. It led to the refusal of foreign food as ‘fancy’ in the post-war austerity years, when it was thought that moussaka was just a food snob’s term for shepherd’s pie. And, despite the enormous boom in wine consumption in the past 30 years, it has resulted in a firm belief that people who pay over the odds for a bottle are helpless suckers who can’t see beyond the label. “Alcohol is alcohol,” says one of the commenters on the Guardian’s news story about the Edinburgh survey, the implication being that you may as well settle for any old gut-rot as long as you get the result. There is a heartbreaking defeatism about this that Wiseman’s interpretation of his own findings does nothing to dispel. Wine Food & drink guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Karmic Update: Recall campaign against AZ Senate President Russell Pearce gaining steam
April 15, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media You may remember how Russell Pearce, the Arizona Republican state Senate leader and architect of SB1070, went on Bill O’Reilly’s show a couple of months ago and pushed hard for a recall campaign against Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for daring to opine that extremist right-wing rhetoric played a role in the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. (An effort which, last we checked, was going nowhere fast.) Well, karmic payback can be a rhymes-with-witch : What may seem to some as an uphill battle is becoming close to a reality for a non-partisan political group as they gather signatures to recall Senate President Russell Pearce. “I have no doubt we’ll get enough signatures to force the recall campaign,” said Chad Snow, chairman of Citizens for a Better Arizona. The group has two thirds of the signatures needed to force a recall election on the senator they accuse of having an extreme agenda. Now, there are lots of reasons to recall Russell Pearce along these lines (or better yet, never elect him in the first damned place). There’s the recent spate of Tentherism in which he seemingly urged people to declare themselves sovereign citizens. Or the long-established record of playing footsie with the local neo-Nazis . Or, if you like, he might be recalled for the corruption that’s surfaced in Pearce’s dealings and his intimate involvement in that monumentally embarrassing Fiesta Bowl scandal. No, but what really has people torqued at Pearce is what you might expect from ultimately pragmatic voters: He has fiddled incessantly with his pet immigration fetish while Arizona has burned to a crisp economically. No wonder he’s in trouble. “We feel that Russell Pearce has completely thrown Arizona’s economy under the bus so he could pursue one issue,” said Snow. That issue is immigration. Pearce sponsored the controversial SB1070 and even though the law has gained negative national attention, polls show an overwhelming amount of Arizonans support it. But Snow told us Pearce has neglected what Arizonans really care about. “He’s done nothing for education, jobs or the economy. Instead he focuses on only immigration and gun control.” Then there have been stunts he’s been involved in that have exposed the seamy underbelly of Pearce’s fetish, like the racist letter read on the floor of the Senate (at Pearce’s behest): Citizens for a Better Arizona needs to collect over 7,700 signatures by May 31st to force a recall election, but Snow is confident they will get more, claiming the Senate President’s actions are helping their efforts. “He’s had racist letters read on the Senate floor, he’s been reported to have accepted thousands of dollars of gifts from the Fiesta Bowl that he didn’t report as required by law. He feels he’s above the law and doesn’t represent the best interest of Arizona and he’s unfit for public office,” said Snow. Oh, and let’s not forget the Arizona Senate’s latest achievement: A Birther bill that accepts the features of a presidential candidate’s penis as evidence of his citizenship . The citizens of Mesa must be so proud.
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Based in São Paulo, Brazil since May 2010, we see how he documents a boxing academy in the city
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Military guards shoot weapons into air, loot shops and steal cars in Ouagadougou in protest over unpaid allowances Soldiers have shot into the air, stolen cars and looted shops in the western part of Burkina Faso’s capital as protests by military guards against unpaid housing allowances spread, witnesses said. The presidential compound in Ouagadougou was calm on Friday after gunfire erupted there overnight. President Blaise Compaoré was apparently not in the presidential compound at the time, a source there said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. Unrest that started from two presidential guard barracks spread to camp Lamizana in western Ouagadougou. Scattered looting had begun overnight in the capital of one of the world’s poorest countries and soldiers looted and burned the homes of Compaoré aides. A presidential security source, who spoke on condition on anonymity for security reasons, told the Associated Press that the soldiers were expressing their discontent after promises to pay their housing allowances were not kept. Colonel Moussa Cissé, spokesman for the army, said that so far there were no casualties and negotiations were under way with the soldiers. About two hours after the shooting began at 10pm on Thursday, gunfire was heard near the state radio station in Ouagadougou. Employees at the station said no one was hurt but some were hiding in the building. No official statement has been made. Compaoré, who seized power in a bloody coup 23 years ago, was re-elected by a landslide in a November vote rejected by the opposition as being rigged. The former army captain took power in 1987 after the former leader was shot dead in his office. Burkina Faso has been hit by unrest recently. On 8 April people took to the streets of Ouagadougou to protest against the soaring prices of basic foods. In March, students torched government buildings in several cities to protest against a young man’s death in custody. The government said he had meningitis, but accusations of mistreatment have fuelled protests, resulting in the deaths of at least six others. Burkina Faso is near the bottom of the United Nations’ human development index, which measures general wellbeing, ranked 161 out of 169 nations. It has high rates of unemployment and illiteracy, and most people get by on subsistence agriculture. Burkina Faso Protest guardian.co.uk
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Aisha Gaddafi tells a roaring crowd her father will not step down – 25 years after US forces bombed his Tripoli compound They gather nightly, ready to die for the Brother Leader. Wrapped in loyalist green, waving flags, chanting slogans, holding aloft portraits of their “Guide”, singing, dancing and praying, they are Muammar Gaddafi’s human shields against Nato air strikes. In the early hours of Friday morning, exactly 25 years after US forces bombed Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound in central Tripoli, thousands gathered in defiance of the new international coalition against the Libyan regime’s brutal efforts to suppress the uprising from the east. Whipped up by loyalist chants led from loudspeakers and patriotic songs, they were already in a state of fervour when Aisha Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s daughter, appeared high in the skeleton of a bombed-out building. Against a backdrop of the shattered facade and draped in a flowing headscarf of green and gold, Aisha pumped her fists at the crowd as they roared and ululated their approval. Just a few hours earlier, Nato warplanes had flown sorties over Tripoli. Explosions and responding gunfire and anti-aircraft fire echoed around the capital, destroying at least one military site and causing blast damage to a nearby university cafeteria. Aisha’s message was one of uncompromising defiance. Referring to the strike in 1986, she said: “They rained down on us their missiles and bombs, they tried to kill me and they killed dozens of children in Libya. Now a quarter of a century later the same missiles and bombs are raining down on the heads of my and your children.” Below her was a statue of a giant golden fist crushing a western war plane in its grip. The throbbing crowd – mainly men, but including hundreds of women separated to one side – appeared intoxicated on love and loyalty. “Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans,” Aisha told them. “Gaddafi said if the Libyan people don’t want me I don’t deserve to live. The Libyan people responded, ‘He who doesn’t want you does not deserve life’.” Half a dozen of Gaddafi’s fabled female protection guards stood to the side as Aisha spoke, some with their faces covered, amid an atmosphere akin to a hyped-up football crowd crossed with a rock concert. The cult of Gaddafi is evident across the capital. Huge portraits of him – saluting with a stern expression, beaming with his hands clasped, silhouetted against the rays of a rising sun – hang from buildings. Many in the crowd on Friday night wore miniature laminated versions on green ribbons around their necks. “I love him more than my husband,” said Randa Mohamed, 28, her voice hoarse from shouting and chanting. “We will never leave him. I will do anything to protect him.” This overt display of loyalty fractures when rare opportunities for rushed conversations out of earshot of the ubiquitous regime minders and informants arise. “He must go for the sake of Libya,” is a view expressed in whispers. These few glimpses beneath the surface are always accompanied by visible fear at the possibility of being overheard and punished. But in the Bab al-Aziziya compound, there was only one message: devotion to Gaddafi and hatred of Nato and Libya’s rebel opposition. “We will never give up. Victorious or we die,” ran one chant. As the foreign media were escorted from the compound at the end of Aisha’s speech, the “Zenga Zenga” song blared from speakers. The words are taken from a speech by Saif al-Islam, Aisha’s brother and Gaddafi’s son, early in the conflict, in which he pledged to hunt down the rebels. “House to house, room to room, alley to alley, person to person we will disinfect the whole country from filth,” it goes. “Zenga Zenga” – alley to alley – has now become part of loyalist Libya’s lexicon, a chilling term of approval among people in Gaddafi’s grip. Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
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