Despite Rebel Surge, Gaddafi's Vindictive Resolve Endures (Time.com)

No one thought Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his hard-core supporters would go away easily, and more than 48 hours after rebel forces stormed the capital Tripoli, that determination to dig in is still evident. But if few observers believe Gaddafi's renewed efforts to prove his regime remains a force to reckon with can turn back what appears to be looming victory by rebels, some warn his penchant for creating serious trouble for his foes won't disappear with his defeat. If one thing seems sure about Gaddafi clan members, it's their zeal for dishing out payback, even when that seems all they have left.

That gritty resolve and spitefulness was apparent even amid the rebel surge that has given anti-regime forces control of what some accounts say is 90% of Tripoli. Early Tuesday morning, Gaddafi's son and once-heir apparent to power, Saif al-Islam, turned up in a Tripoli neighborhood still held by regime supporters vowing to defeat its enemies yet. The younger Gaddafi's combative re-emergence came after officials from the rebel leadership National Transitional Council (NTC) had announced his arrest by their forces in Tripoli - as had another Gaddafi son who also resurfaced free after escaping captors. Meanwhile, later in the day rebel forces struggled to cut off troops loyal to Gaddafi advancing on the Colonel's oil-producing home-town Sirte - one of the few Libyan cities the regime still nominally controls, and the site from which at least two Scud missiles have been fired from towards rebel-held towns. That new evidence of the regime's resolve to continue battling against seemingly impossible odds led leaders from around the world to renew calls to Gaddafi to cease fighting, spare the Libyan people further bloodshed, and give himself up for what remains still undefined treatment by a post-war government.

Good luck with that - especially with those appeals being motivated by indication from the hunkered-down Gaddafi and his allies are set on taking as many of their enemies down with them as they can. And that will doubtless remain a goal of Gaddafi's inner-circle in the likelihood its principal members can be rounded up. Because the bottom line, some experts says, is that virtually all nations have dealt with Gaddafi in one way or another since he dismantled his arms program and renounced terrorism in 2003 - meaning officials in virtually all those countries are at risk of having been tainted with the smear that inevitably seemed involved in doing business with the unscrupulous Libyan leader. (See pictures of the lengthy battle for Libya.)

"Given his complete control of Libya, Gaddafi made no distinction between its politics, economy, and society, and tried to impose that unaccountable, monarchic vision in his dealings with the leaders and political parties of foreign nations," comments Karim Emile Bitar, a Middle East specialist for the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris. "Gaddafi made up his laws at home, which meant dealing with him often involved demands, conditions, or favor-trading that wouldn't be considered legitimate - or even legal - in a lot of countries. But it was an imposed aspect of relations with him. Because of that, there are a lot of intelligence services in a lot of countries that will be working to make sure Gaddafi's archives are secured by trustworthy hands once his regime falls, because it's likely a lot of the dirt Gaddafi was responsible for still left a lot of powerful people dirty."

Even gaining control of Gaddafi's secret records might not prevent Gaddafi and his lieutenants from accusing foreign figures of action that, even unsubstantiated, Western publics might find troubling. Some already have. In March, Saif al-Islam claimed his father financed the victorious 2007 campaign of French President Nicolas Sarkozy - doubtless in retaliation for Sarkozy's leading roll in mounting the NATO-led air intervention in the Libyan war. Though there's no evidence to suggest the claim is true, the allegation was given a longer look than it might have in France given Sarkozy's well-known interaction with the iffy Gaddafi, and Gaddafi Jr.'s role in that. (See a brief history of Muammar Gaddafi's 40-year rule.)

Saif al-Islam was central Sarkozy's first big global coup after his election: the July 2007 release of Bulgarian medical workers who'd been sentence to death in Libya on what were widely considered trumped up murder charges. (A death sentence, ironically, that current NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil confirmed and defended as Gaddafi's Justice Minister.) A lot of money was known to have exchanged hands as part of the agreement than secured the medics' release; a flurry of contracts was also signed between Paris and Tripoli in its wake. Sarkozy's reputation then took a serious blow in December of that year when he fulfilled promises made during negotiations to free the Bulgarians to host the Libyan leader to a state visit - a trip that proved a controversial embarrassment in many ways. None of that has been found to have been illegal, though the contacts did provide evidence of just how far Paris was willing to bend to work with Gaddafi's Libya.

But France is hardly alone in having engaged in outwardly normal agreements with Libya that may have involved less savory conditions below the surface. The U.S., Germany, and former colonial power Italy have all closed big business deals in Gaddafi-dominated Libya over the past decade in spite of protests his regime remained too toxic to touch. Still, all of those countries are thought to have been outdone in such activity by Britain. In 2009, Scotland's release of convicted Lockerbie bombing operative, Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi not only sparked an international outcry, but also charges the humanitarian grounds for sending the gravely ill prisoner home masked the political and financial interests of signing more energy contracts with Gaddafi's Libya. But if there, too, no evidence has surfaced to prove anything legally objectionable was involved, the general outlook remains that whenever they're troubling smoke surrounding Gaddafi, there's always fire somewhere below the surface. (See Why the Arab Spring's success depends on jobs, not guns.)

"The trap with Gaddafi has always been that if you touch Libya at all, you're almost guaranteed to wind up dirty to some degree or another," says a French security official, who adds he has no direct knowledge into the conditions involved in political or economic agreements concluded between European capitals and Tripoli. "Within that context, it's similar to the dilemma of dealing with lots of Middle Eastern regimes to the extent that accepting conditions that aren't considered ethical at home is part and parcel of doing business in the region. With Gaddafi, that was pushed to the limit."

If so, that would be one reason why nations involved in the NATO-led intervention might want the NTC to assure all confidential material held by the Gaddafi government is located, secured, and even destroyed as part of a rebels taking power. Yet as Bitar points out, even that wouldn't necessarily rob Gaddafi of his vindictive powers. Merely leveling detailed charges against foreign figures would be enough to raise considerable doubts about wrongdoing in Europe and the U.S. - where Gaddafi's reputation as consummately corrupt is well established. And that may factor in to the decision whether to hand Gaddafi and his clique over to the international tribunal seeking to try him for crimes against humanity, or deprive them such a global platform by leaving him in Libya to face justice. (See how NATO helped Libyan rebels.)

"There are a lot of voices - including inside the NTC - that are adamant about trying Gaddafi in Libya for crimes committed in Libya, and given recent Western indecision about Gaddafi's fate once the conflict is over, it may be to everyone's advantage that he be dealt with in Libya," says Bitar. "In addition to limiting his ability to accuse foreign leaders and parties of corruption, he'd also have a harder time making what I'm sure will be the case he and Saif al-Islam will be keen to pursue about the NATO operation having violated international law by surpassing its legal UN mandate. So it may work out best for everyone if Gaddafi faces justice in Libya - though I'm not sure the international court would agree about that. "

See pictures of life in Benghazi during wartime.

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Slow China: Why One Town is Rejecting Life in the Fast Lane (Time.com)

Like many villagers in this remote corner of Jiangsu province on China's eastern seaboard, Rui Hongxing left his wife and young daughter years ago to find construction work in the nearest big city, Nanjing. Even though it's just one and a half hours away by bus, Rui only came home to see his family a few times a year. Then one day, he decided he'd had enough of the city. He packed up and moved back to Yaxi to open a restaurant in the house he grew up in. "I didn't like city life. It was too noisy, the pace was too fast, there was no natural beauty," he said. "I wanted to return to a slower life."

Slowing down is not a sentiment usually voiced in China. For decades, young people have been streaming out of sleepy hamlets like Yaxi to seek their fortunes in China's coastal cities, fearing they'd be left out of the country's economic boom if they stayed behind. But amid growing unease over tainted food, worsening pollution and spiraling costs of living in big cities - not to mention the widespread anger over the recent high-speed train crash near Shanghai that killed 40 people - attitudes are starting to change. Many are now seeing the benefits of slowing down, if only a little. (See 25 authentic Asian experiences.)

Yaxi believes it can be a model for the rest of the country. Late last year, the village of 20,000 was designated China's first "Slow City" by Cittaslow International, an organization that grew out of the Slow Food movement in Italy as a way of promoting sustainable ways of life in cities. To date, there are more than 130 towns in 24 countries that have been certified as slow cities, including nearly 70 in Italy (the picturesque villages of Positano and Amalfi among them) and three in the U.S. (all in wine country north of San Francisco, naturally). Yaxi is not only a pioneer for China, it's also one of the first slow cities in the developing world.

Cittaslow has dozens of criteria it uses to assess a city's application for membership. First, the town must be small - a population of 50,000 or less is used as the benchmark. More importantly, it must be devoted to sustainability and improving residents' quality of life. For example, candidate towns are expected to have measures in place to combat water, air and noise pollution, practice organic farming, promote locally produced crafts and encourage eco-friendly development projects. Yaxi more than met the requirements, Cittaslow director Pier Giorgio Olivetti says. "It's not easy in China - life is too fast in many parts of the country," he said. "But in Yaxi, we found people very committed to respecting nature. I remember the flowers and fruit trees and butterflies - thousands and thousands of butterflies in the fields."

Local officials say they began paying attention to the environment 20 years ago when they kicked out the only polluting industry in town - a chemical factory. Now, sustainability is not just a buzzword, it's become a propaganda priority. Painted in green on the walls in the village are environmental slogans - "Everyone should be devoted to environmental protection, then our life will be better tomorrow" - instead of the usual messages extolling the virtues of infrastructure projects. "In the past, we had nothing to eat so our country paid attention to economic development," says Wang Cuixiang, the local propaganda chief. "But we've learned lessons from other cities - their economies developed but their environments got worse and worse. We cannot follow their way."

Of course, Wang sees other opportunities for making money in Yaxi, namely through tourism. Yaxi's is unquestionably beautiful, like a postcard from China's pre-industrial past. The hillsides are green with bamboo forests, tea plantations and fruit orchards; the only people in sight are farmers with wooden baskets slung over their backs and two-pronged wooden poles to till the earth. Villagers live in tidy, white-washed homes with gray tile roofs and courtyards planted with vegetables and grape vines. Nearly everyone walks or rides a bike. Cars - and their horns - are a rarity. (See pictures of a modern-day Chinese ghost town.)

Even with the media attention that Cittaslow certification brought, tourism has been slow to take off. But that doesn't mean the bullhorn-blaring tour groups won't soon flood into Yaxi, threatening the peaceful nature and sustainable ethos of the village. Yaxi could go the way of the ancient canal towns outside Shanghai, which have become Disneyfied tourist traps overrun with buses on the weekends. Olivetti recognizes the danger in every slow city, stressing the need for an annual limit of tourists. "We prefer small numbers, spread out over all seasons," he says. Slow cities are recertified every three years, he adds, and if a town grows too quickly, it could be taken off the list.

Whether the idea of slowing down actually spreads any to major Chinese cities remains to be seen. There is a fledgling LOHAS (an acronym for lifestyles of health and sustainability) movement growing in popularity among the affluent in China's big cities, but it's still somewhat misunderstood. "It's less about the actual steps I need to take - like recycle, ride a bike - and it's more about a mentality of wanting a stress-free life," says Amena Schlaikjer, the Shanghai manager for the Asia-Pacific LOHAS organization. "It's about realizing, 'I wish there wasn't such a demand to be successful, to own a Hummer and a mansion. Is there another choice?'" She said nearly a fifth of middle-class consumers surveyed by the group in Chinese cities desire a slower lifestyle, but there's a lack of awareness about how to achieve it.

Moving to a place like Yaxi might be a start. Zhuang Qing Quan, a Taiwan-born architect, quit his job in Nanjing five years ago to come to the village and start a pear, watermelon and honeydew farm and build a guesthouse for visitors. "I don't like being around so many people," says Zhuang, looking deeply tanned and well rested. "I feel in harmony with the mountains, water and earth here. It's kind of a magnetic feeling." Plus, he adds, slowing down is better for your health. To prove his point, he stands up, grinning broadly, and bends over to touch his toes. "You just have to adjust your attitude to enjoy it."

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Happy Homecoming: Six Poached Baby Gorillas Rescued, Returned to Congo (Time.com)

Six endangered mountain gorillas were returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after being rescued from poachers who smuggled them into neighboring Rwanda.

The gorillas, who range in age from 5 to 8 years old, were victims of what's become a widespread issue in Africa: animal trafficking. According to Rwandan and Congolese authorities, poachers are thought to have killed the gorillas' parents in order to steal their babies and smuggle them across the border.

Rwandan officials told Reuters that it's likely the poachers were planning to either sell the gorillas on the illegal wildlife market or slaughter them for their bushmeat, which is considered a delicacy in some areas of the continent. But because of a renewed collaboration between the Rwandan and Congolese governments, these gorillas were among the very few poached animals that are lucky enough to be rescued.

(MORE: Are Gorillas Rwanda's Post-Civil War Hope?)

"Because the countries are working together, we managed to reduce that [poaching]," Rica Rugambwa, Rwanda's director general of tourism and parks, told Reuters. "We are able to minimize that but it is still a challenge."

It's estimated that only 680 mountain gorillas live in the forests of Central Africa. The species has been listed as critically endangered, and many are protected within the confines of a Ugandan national park. Others live in the Virunga Volcano Region, which stands on the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo - a dangerous area that has been overcome by civil war in recent years.

The six rescued orphans stayed in Rwanda briefly before being airlifted back to Congo, with help from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the conservation groups that sponsored the trip. The gorillas are now being cared for at a rescue center until they are eventually able to be released into the wild.

Erin Skarda is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ErinLeighSkarda. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

VIDEO: How Rwanda Benefits from Endangered Gorillas

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Kandahar Mayor's Killing Another Blow to U.S. Afghanistan Effort (Time.com)

An honest man in a city of thieves, Kandahar mayor Ghulam Haider Hamidi once exemplified hopes that the U.S.-led nation-building effort would leave behind a better Afghanistan. His killing by a suicide bomber on Wednesday, less than two weeks after the slaying of Kandahar's strongman provincial council chairman Ahmed Wali Karzai, underscores the declining prospects of the Western military mission there. His killing by a suicide bomber on Wednesday, less than two weeks after the slaying of Kandahar's strongman governor Mohammed Wali Karzai, underscores the declining prospects of the Western military mission there.

"More than 50 percent of the violence comes from these corrupt people, the ones who sit with you and smile," Hamidi told the Washington Post earlier this year. The former accountant had returned to Kandahar in 2007 after 30 years in the United States. Having been invited to serve as mayor by his childhood friend Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Hamidi said goodbye to the comfort of his northern Virginia home and threw himself into the maelstrom of the southern Afghan city's politics. He initiated a slew of projects - from paving roads, collecting taxes and building schools - intended to revitalize the city, and made a name for himself trying to root out graft and curb the power of local strongmen and warlords on whom he blamed Kandahar's ills. (See photos from the battle in Kandahar.)

Some of the enemies he made in the course of trying to clean up Kandahar appear to have caught up with him Wednesday. Clashes had erupted in the city Tuesday afternoon, with police accused of accidentally shooting three children as bulldozers moved in to demolish houses built illegally on government land. The following morning Hamidi met with elders who had come to protest. He heard their grievances in the corridor outside his office. Shortly before 11 a.m. a man stepped out of the crowd, took Hamidi's hand and detonated explosives hidden in his turban. The blast caught Hamidi square in the face, killing him instantly.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the hit, saying it was to avenge the children killed the previous day. But an official with Afghanistan's secret police offered a more nuanced version of events. "All those illegal houses Hamidi destroyed belonged to powerful [former] jihadi commanders living in the district," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told TIME. Hamidi had been the first person to stand up to these warlords, the official went on, turfing them off land they'd stolen from the government or the poor. "The warlords didn't like Hamidi, so they turned to the Taliban, who killed him." (See how the Taliban are unleashing a spring offensive in Afghanistan.)

It's a cynical reflection of Kandahari politics that Hamidi survived four years of an escalating Taliban insurgency only to die when he angered commanders whose personal financial interests diverged from those of the government. The episode is also a fitting illustration of Kandahar's war economy, where a murky nexus of insurgents, criminals, strongmen and government officials vie for resources, often with overlapping interests and shifting allegiances.

The killing is also the latest blow to Karzai, who has lost a string of key allies in southern Afghanistan just as NATO looks to start sending its troops home. Last week, gunmen killed Jan Mohammad Khan, a confidante and erstwhile mentor of the president, as he sat down for dinner with a parliamentarian at his villa in Kabul. On July 12, a trusted lieutenant killed Ahmed Wali Karzai, de facto ruler of Kandahar. Both of Hamidi's deputies were assassinated last year, and Kandahar's chief of police was killed in April.

Analysts believe the Taliban intent is to mirror the intensity of Nato's own campaign of 'kill/capture' raids against insurgent commanders. "Partially that has an impact in the battlefield, and partly on morale, and part is also to project a certain position of strength," says Martine van Bijlert of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a repected Kabul think-tank. (See TIME's video: "A New Season of Fighting in Afghanistan.")

But Hamidi's death has a significance beyond simply reflecting the violent, murky nature of Kandahari politics, or bolstering the Taliban narrative that no government official, no matter how close to Karzai, is safe. Hamidi had been one of the leading contenders to become Kandahar's next governor, a position that would likely convey considerable power. Close to the Karzais, but without a powerbase of his own, he would have been a conduit President Karzai could have used to project his family influence across southern Afghanistan in the absence of Ahmed Wali. Well-connected Kandaharis saw him as a serious contender for the job. His removal from the scene leaves the way open for Gul Agha Sherzai, a strongman who dispenses patronage like an old-fashioned potentate. A nominal Karzai ally, Sherzai is excepted by many observers to direct lucrative NATO contracts and revenues from all manner of formal and informal economic activity towards his own family if he gets the nod, diminishing Karzai's influence in the south.

Hamidi's death, then, is another blow to Karzai's prospects for holding Kandahar once foreign troops leave the southern crucible. But who benefits from that weakening in the long-term may be a question still in play.

See photos of the coalition raid that ended an attack on a Kabul hotel.

See photos of the fight against the Taliban.

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