a 19-year-old Iranian journalist, Elham Foroutan, risked the death penalty for a satirical article in which she compared the Islamic revolution in Iran to the AIDS virus

a Saudi national was beheaded by the sword after being convicted of murdering a relative, the interior ministry said in a statement.

the United States is taking a new look at the use of lethal injections to execute condemned prisoners after the challenges of three inmates who were barely saved from lethal injection by the Supreme Court.

the Meherpur district court, Bangladesh, sentenced Rustam, Rahman and Enamul to death for the murder of a trader in Ghangni.

three men described as "thugs" who "disrupted public security" were executed in the northeastern Iranian city of Sabzevar, the Khorassan newspaper reported.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that jailed opposition leaders accused of fomenting a coup after disputed elections in 2005 will be tried despite appeals for their release.

Zacarias Moussaoui returns this week to the courtroom where a jury will determine whether he should be executed for his crimes.

Japan's top court confirmed the death penalty for Tsutomu Miyazaki, a man who abducted and murdered four small girls. Miyazaki, 43, had admitted killing the four girls, aged between 4 and 7, in and around Tokyo in the late 1980s.

the US Supreme Court stayed the execution of Michael Taylor, an inmate in the midwestern state of Missouri who has argued that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

the US Supreme Court halted the execution of Arthur Dennis Rutherford

Lin Hau Yang and Edy Tang, on death row in Bangkok, had their death sentences for drug convictions confirmed by the Thai high court, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.

two men have been executed in Iran, one for serial kidnapping and drug dealing and the other for murder.