According to Amnesty International figures, Iran hanged 298 people in 2007, compared to 177 in 2006.

Michael Axworthy, academic, author and former head of the Iran section at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, looks at how the diplomatic turmoil surrounding that country might play out.

"Somewhere in this city," says Sohrab Mohebbi, "there is a grown man, who gets dressed in the morning, kisses his wife goodbye, and goes and sits in an office and gets paid to decide that my band can't play in front of 30 of our friends."

We look at the semiotics of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's man of the people look.