Balal, who killed Iranian youth Abdolah Hosseinzadeh in a street fight with a knife in 2007, is brought to the gallows during his execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014. The mother of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh spared the life of the her son's convicted murderer, with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution prior to removing the noose around his neck. (Photo by Araash Khamooshi/AFP Photo/ISNA)

Women dressed in folk costumes take part in a traditional wedding ceremony in the village of Galicnik, west of Macedonia's capital Skopje, July 12, 2014. The Galicnik Wedding, a three-day traditional Macedonian wedding celebration held each “Petrovden” or St. Peter's Day, involves traditional customs, costumes, and rituals and dances that have been passed down over the centuries. (Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Denis and Nelya, both 30, from Moscow, Russia invited brown bear Stepan along to their very special ceremony. As well as witnessing the couple exchange vows, the bear also played the role of registrar at one point. Denis said: “We both knew Stepan is a very kind bear but still it is a huge, unpredictable animal so we were a bit scared, but still happy to be able to make our dream come true. It was a fantastic experience to have this photoshoot with Stepan”. (Photo by Olga Barantseva/Caters News)

Serge Huguenin of the Blondeau foundry takes the newly melted bell out of the mould in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland January 21, 2016. At this year's Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, no matter how elaborate the opening ceremony or how sophisticated the live broadcasts, the final lap of athletics races will be announced the traditional way by ringing an old-fashioned bell. Omega, the official timekeeper of the event, has ordered 21 bells, forged almost entirely by hand by Blondeau's Bell Foundry in the Jura Mountains in Switzerland. Each last-lap bell is branded with the RIO 2016 logo and circled with the words “2016 GAMES OF THE XXXI OLYMPIAD”. (Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

A Maasai man in ceremonial dress poses for visitors to take photographs of him in front of one of around a dozen pyres of ivory, in Nairobi National Park, Kenya Thursday, April 28, 2016. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has stacked 105 tons of ivory consisting of 16,000 tusks, and 1 ton of rhino horn, from stockpiles around the country, in preparation for it to be torched on Saturday to encourage global efforts to help stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Japanese sumo wrestler Kisenosato (C) holds a red sea bream next to his stablemaster Tagonoura's wife Kotomi as he celebtares after receiving messengers from the Japan Sumo Association bringing official notice of his promotion to Yokozuna, or grand champion, during a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan, January 25, 2017. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Syrian Internal Security Forces dance in celebration during their graduation ceremony, at Ain Issa desert base, in Raqqa province, northeast Syria, Thursday, July 20, 2017. Some 250 residents of Syria's Raqqa province are the latest batch to graduate from a brief U.S-training course that is preparing an internal security force to hold and secure areas as they are captured from Islamic State militants. (Photo by Hussein Malla/AP Photo)