World Thug Watch

Charles Taylor is currently on trial for war crimes at The Hague. He admits that his thugs hoisted the skulls of rival groups on stakes, but sees nothing wrong with that. He denies his troops disemboweled rival fighters. It's all part of the testimony into his actions during the war in Sierra Leone.

The invasion of Liberia and his ascent to power was a prelude to Taylor's involvement in the brutal 1991-2002 civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, for which he is accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Taylor is not on trial for offenses in Liberia, but his testimony appeared aimed at allegations at the heart of the prosecution case that rebels backed by Taylor in Sierra Leone used terror tactics, including systematic amputations to intimidate the population.

Taylor has dismissed those allegations as lies and rumors.

Elsewhere, Mirhussein Mousavi says that deaths and injuries to protesters against the Ahmadinejad regime will not go in vain.

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed not to let the blood of protesters killed in postelection crackdown go in vain as he met with the family of a young man shot to death during the turmoil, reformist Web site reported Wednesday.

Mousavi, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that he will attend Tehran’s main Friday prayer services this week for the first time, a key symbolic assertion of the opposition’s presence after the crackdown.

The sermon Friday is due to be delivered by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric in Iran’s leadership who has not performed the sermon since the turmoil erupted following the disputed June 12 presidential election. Rafsanjani is a top rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is believed to be a strong behind-the-scenes backer of Mousavi.

"I’ll join you (for prayers) on Friday July 17," Mousavi said, according to his Web site ghalamnews.ir.

The main Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University is a significant political platform that hard-line clerics have used in recent weeks to demand a halt to postelection protests and spread the message that that turmoil was fueled by foreign enemies. Rafsanjani’s sermon could give the first opposition voice in the sermon.

The pro-Mousavi Web site mowjcamp.com said reformist leaders will hold street protests after attending the Friday prayers.

The Ahmadinejad regime isn't backing down and has continued to thwart protesters at every turn and is as bellicose as ever, even as the head of their nuclear program resigned over the regime's actions.

North Korea continues to simmer like ripe kimchi, and the UN has added still more companies and entities to its sanctions blacklist:

[N]ations are now banned from doing business with five firms involved in North Korea's nuclear programme, and five individuals are to have their financial assets frozen and face a travel ban.

They include:

* three North Korean trading corporations - Namchongang, Korea Hykosin and Korea Tangun, as well as North Korea's bureau of atomic energy
* an Iranian-based company, Hong Kong Electronics, is also sanctioned, accused of moving millions of dollars used for North Korea's nuclear programme
* Yun Ho-jin, Ri Je-son, Hwang Sok-hwa, Ri Hong-sop and Han Yu-ro now face sanctions because of their involvement in the development of North Korea's banned activities
* countries cannot sell North Korea certain types of graphite or para-aramid fiber because they could be used to make parts for ballistic missiles