the President of Croatia Stjepan Mesic gave his approval to the initiatives presented by Hands Off Cain and the Transnational Radical Party, engaged in bringing about a universal moratorium on executions, and gave his support to efforts for the obtainment of a United Nations backed resolution for the universal abolition of capital punishment.

the Federal High Court of Ethiopia sentenced to death Colonel Tiruneh Habteselassie for genocide committed during the Dergue regime in the former Kembata and Hadiya district. Habteselassie was found guilty on two charges, homicide and extrajudicial imprisonment of people.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union's external relations chief, met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi to press for the release of five nurses from Bulgaria who were facing execution for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with the AIDS virus.

Adrian O. Robinson of Hamilton pleaded guilty in Harris County Superior Court to 19 crimes, avoiding a possible death penalty, with the understanding he will never be released from prison.

two women were meted the death penalty by the Mandaluyong City regional trial court (RTC) for selling ecstasy to agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) three years ago.

there are 2,100 children in jails across the Philippines, 20 of them on death row.

speaking in Helsinki at the conference for Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe, the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini relaunched the idea that EU member states should hold a day of protest against the death penalty each year.

Stephen Mobley, a man who shot a pizza store manager in the back of the head during a 1991 robbery, was executed in Georgia after courts rejected his last-minute appeals.

Japan's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Kazuaki Okazaki, a former officer of the Aum Supreme Truth doomsday cult, giving the green light for the first execution of a member of the sect that attacked the Tokyo subway with nerve gas in 1995.

"We, on Death Row" is the name of Oliviero Toscani's photographic exhibition which opened at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Salonicco.

a court in Calcutta, India, sentenced seven men to death over the killing of five policemen guarding US government offices in the city on January 22, 2002.

the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), a leading Indian civil rights group, said that 1,422 executions were carried out in a single decade (1953-63) across the country.