a verdict has been postponed until next year in the 12-year genocide trial of Ethiopia's former Marxist ruler.

the Constitutional Council of Kazakhstan proposed to keep the death penalty as a punishment for terrorism.

Pakistan postponed the execution of Briton Mirza Tahir Hussain for a month in order to give his family the chance to reach a settlement with the family of a taxi driver he was convicted of murdering.

China's courts will allow video cameras to record proceedings of appeal hearings involving death sentences, said Chief Justice Xiao Yang.

Hands Off Cain’s leaders, Sergio D’Elia and Elisabetta Zamparutti, expressed their full appreciation for the statement made by newly elected Prime Minister Romano Prodi in favour of a universal moratorium on executions.

an Iranian man convicted of murder was hanged in public in the southern town of Jahrom.

it was reported that an armed narcotics smuggler, Masoud Naroui, was hanged in a prison in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

it was reported that an Iranian woman and a foreign man who were convicted of murder had been hanged in recent days in Iran’s north-eastern province of Khorasan Razavi.

Majid Sogan was hanged in public in the western Iranian city of Khoramabad for stabbing a friend to death two years previously.

an Iranian man convicted of kidnapping and armed robbery was hanged in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

two men were hanged till death in Faisalabad Jail in Pakistan.

Britain asked Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to stop the hanging of Mirza Tahir Hussain, a British man convicted of shooting dead a taxi driver 18 years ago.