Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura has expressed his unwillingness to give the go-ahead for executions before he steps down on September 26 with the outgoing Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, according to sources.

over 6,000 people watched the public execution of a convicted murderer in the Somali capital Mogadishu, the first execution since the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seized power from an alliance of warlords on June 5.

the Philippines signed a United Nations protocol banning the re-imposition of the death penalty in the country.

Iraq's northern Kurdistan administration executed 11 people, officially described as terrorists, sentenced to death for taking part in beheadings and bombings.

Pakistani authorities hanged four men from the same family who had been convicted of murdering local rivals over a small chunk of land, jail superintendent Tariq Babur Khan said.

the execution of three Christians in Indonesia brought thousands of protesters to the streets in the hometown of one of the dead, where they freed prisoners and burned an official's house, a witness said.

Clarence Hill, a convicted killer who argued that Florida's use of lethal injection amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, was put to death after the US Supreme Court narrowly denied him another stay. Hill, 48, was executed for the 1982 murder of a Pensacola police officer in a savings and loan robbery. He did not reply when asked if he had a last statement, staring straight at the ceiling.

three Indonesian Catholics imprisoned in Palu, province of central Sulawesi, will not be executed at least until tomorrow. “The execution will take place on Friday in the early hours,” (Palu time), said Fr Jimmy Tumbeleka, the spiritual director of the three condemned men, who has accompanied them throughout their detention.

For Marco Pannella, President of Hands Off Cain, the organisation’s Secretary Sergio D’Elia and Treasurer Elisabetta Zamparutti, the statement, “We are against the death penalty”, contained in Prime Minster Romano Prodi’s speech at the UN General Assembly, is the government’s way of preparing itself to do less than Berlusconi’s government did in 2003.

“Yesterday and today, we brought up the issue of the death penalty with various members of the government of the People's Republic of China, hoping for a commitment in the reduction of crimes for which it is applicable,” stated Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Gianni Vernetti, Senator of the Olive Branch Coalition, visiting Beijing together with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

two Iraqi’s who attempted to bomb the South Korean military facilities in Iraq were sentenced to death.