the Chamber of Deputies unanimously approved the motion presented by Sergio D’Elia, Secretary of Hands Off Cain and MP for the Rosa nel Pugno party, entrusting the government to present the resolution for a moratorium on capital executions at the next UN General Assembly.

the state's revised plan for conducting lethal injections still falls short of ensuring they are conducted humanely, according to US District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. who halted Missouri's executions.

Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, granted a one-month stay of execution to Mirza Tahir Hussain, a British man who was due to be put to death a week later.

Bahrain's appointed upper chamber approved a tough law to combat terrorism already passed by the elected parliament and that critics say "punishes suspects for their intentions."

the three Islamic militants condemned to death for the Bali bombings in 2002 will be executed on 22 August in Nusakambangan prison in Cilacap, central Java province.

earlier in the month a Canadian human rights organisation revealed the extent of political prisoners being executed in China and then harvested for body parts.

a court in southwestern Iran handed down 10 death sentences over a wave of ethnic unrest in the key oil province of Khuzestan, the state broadcaster's website reported.

“If I had to choose a parameter to show man’s progress towards a more just society, it would have to be that of the death penalty,” stated President of the Senate of the Italian Republic Franco Marini, participating at the presentation of Hands Off Cain’s 2006 Report – The Death Penalty Worldwide.

Hands Off Cain presented the 2006 edition of the annual Hands Off Cain Report: “The Death Penalty Worldwide”. The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2005 and the first half of 2006.

Iranian authorities hanged two young men in public in the western city of Boroujerd.

Two teenagers were hanged in public in the town of Aq Qala, northern Iran, the official news agency reported.

a court in the northern province of Dien Bien handed down death sentences to three people and life imprisonment sentences to five others after they were convicted of cross-border drug trafficking.