The following are editorial opinions from newspapers from around the world which may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers.

The Youngstown Vindicator, Ohio,– on Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor

Although the criminal trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on 11 charges of murder, rape, enslavement and conscription of child soldiers began three years ago, it was only recently that people who have little interest in the bloody civil wars in Africa began taking notice.

That's because two of the witnesses called to testify before the international judicial tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, are celebrities known around the world. The first was supermodel Naomi Campbell, who had received a gift of diamonds from Taylor in 1997. The second was Actress Mia Farrow, who testified that Campbell had boasted to her about receiving a huge diamond from Taylor. ...

The former president of Liberia is accused of terrorising the people of neighbouring Sierra Leone by orchestrating atrocities committed by militias. Their brutality and inhumanity were evidenced by the practice of hacking off their victims' limbs. The ten-year civil war ended in 2003, but by then the victim count ran well into the hundreds of thousands.

Why would one West African leader fuel a civil war in another country? Because Taylor wanted to get his hands on diamonds from Sierra Leone. ... This is a case that demands our attention even when there aren't celebrities on the witness stand.

The Chicago Tribune– on former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

Rod Blagojevich behaved the evening of August 17 as if he had won a grand victory: The massed resources of federal investigators and prosecutors couldn't convince all 12 jurors of his guilt on 23 of 24 criminal counts. The defiance that has sustained him in the 20 months since his arrest didn't fail him as he stood before reporters and again proclaimed his innocence.

In truth, Blagojevich is a convicted felon and the US Department of Justice is determined to prove his complicity in many more crimes than the one count that's enough to send him to prison.

No sooner had the first trial of Rod and Rob Blagojevich concluded than the combatants in Judge James Zagel's courtroom were plotting the second. No one walked out of that courtroom with reason to smile. Certainly not the man who walked out a convict.

Others, too, are squirming: The two defendants already have seen one full-throated version of what the feds can throw at them. But long lists of witnesses in this trial, and potential witnesses in the next, don't know what awaits.

Every Illinois and Washington politician or insider who didn't have to testify — and who breathed easy when this case went to the jury — now has to wonder: How will the prosecution and defence refine their approaches? Will I be called this time? Will I have to answer questions about this case — under oath? ...

The sooner all of us know whether Rod Blagojevich's criminal record stops with one federal felony, the sooner all of us can concur that justice has been served.