Free Republic

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday executed three people including notorious serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls and eating some of their bodies, officials said. Miyazaki, 45, was nicknamed the "killer nerd" for his obsession with sexual cartoons and pornography. But defence lawyers contended he was mentally ill and could not be held fully responsible for his actions. Japan is the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to apply the death penalty and has been stepping up the pace of executions, which enjoy wide public support. "We are carrying out executions...

BEIJING - China executed the former head of its State Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Zheng Xiaoyu was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths and other substandard medicines. This is a breaking news update. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. BEIJING (AP) — China said Tuesday its food and drug safety procedures were not satisfactory and vowed to improve them. China has been under pressure domestically and internationally to improve its quality controls after a series...

ANDAR DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Two Black Hawk helicopters swooped down into the makeshift base in the middle of a Taliban hotbed, and U.S. soldiers snapped salutes to the mission's top general — an Afghan, not an American. Afghan officers, with a big assist from U.S. counterparts, planned and executed their first major operation as part of a monthlong offensive, taking a key step forward in the U.S. effort to build up Afghanistan's army so it can secure the country on its own and let foreign troops leave. Operation Maiwand, which officially ended Tuesday, did not see heavy fighting. But Afghan...

THREE Indonesian Christians who were on death row for inciting violence against Muslims in 2000 were executed by firing squad, their lawyer said. "They have been executed....," lawyer Roy Rening said. Mr Rening said he was informed of the executions by the prosecutors office in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province.... < snip > Mr Rening added that he refused to be present at the deaths to protest a rejection by the state of their last demands, including that their bodies be laid in wake at Palu's main Catholic church. < snip > The trio were initially scheduled to...

AL ASAD, Iraq (Apr. 10, 2006) -- PHOTO ESSAY: In the early hours April 3, Marines and sailors with the Incident Response Platoon prepared for an operation that would take them outside the wire and into the local town of Baghdadi, Iraq. The IRP is attached to Marine Wing Support Squadron 274, Marine Wing Support Group 37 (Reinforced), 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, and is responsible for providing security in support of response and pre-planned missions throughout the Al Anbar Province. Their scheduled task was to escort members of a Civil Affairs Group and Police Transition Team to a housing complex...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq hanged 13 insurgents Thursday, marking the first time militants have been executed in the country since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein nearly three years ago, the government said. The Cabinet announcement listed the name of only one of those hanged, Shukair Farid, a former policeman in the northern city of Mosul, who allegedly confessed that he had worked with Syrian foreign fighters to enlist fellow Iraqis to carry out assassinations against police and civilians. "The competent authorities have today carried out the death sentences of 13 terrorists," the Cabinet said. It said Farid had "confessed...

SAN`A, Yemen - A suspected al-Qaida ally was executed by a Yemeni firing squad Sunday after being convicted of killing a prominent politician and plotting a deadly attack on three American missionaries in 2002. Ali al-Jarallah was blindfolded and shot in the courtyard of the central prison in the capital, San`a, in the presence of judiciary officials, several reporters and the victim's lawyer. Al-Jarallah was convicted in 2003 of helping plot the attack that killed three missionaries in a Yemeni hospital. He also was convicted of murdering Jarallah Omar, the Yemeni Socialist Party's deputy secretary-general, a few days earlier, and...