China has formally charged Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong, 55, with spying for its rival Taiwan, the state news agency Xinhua has reported. If Mr Ching is convicted, he could face the death penalty.

the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence handed to Mohammed Afzal for involvement in a deadly attack on parliament by Muslim militants four years ago.

the government of Sierra Leone has published on late June proposals for implementing the recommendations of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In one statement that pointedly contradicts the TRC recommendations, the government's 17-page policy document entitled “White Paper on the Truth and Reconciliation Project” rejects the abolition of the death penalty.

Malaysia’s highest court has sentenced a Nigerian mother of five to death after refusing to overturn her drug trafficking conviction, a newspaper reported.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was cleared of treason charges carrying a possible death sentence, which he described as a desperate ploy by the government to sideline its bitterest critic.

President Islam Karimov has signed a decree cancelling the death penalty in Uzbekistan.

eleven persons, including two young women, were sentenced to death for the murder of a business tycoon of old Dhaka city, Mohamed Alam.

the Netherlands has become the second country to halt extraditions of gays to Iran in the wake of reports two gay teens were hanged after being found found "guilty of homosexuality".

it was tears of joy for death row inmate Mothusi Phiri when the Court of Appeal substituted his death sentence with a 20-year jail term and upheld a five-year jail sentence for attempted murder.

David Martinez was executed for the rape and murder of a woman who was attacked on a jogging trail eight years ago.

Hands Off Cain, together with the ‘Adelaide Aglietta’ association presented the 2005 edition of the annual Hands Off Cain Report: “The Death Penalty Worldwide”.

an Iranian man was hanged at dawn in a prison in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the Iranian state-run daily Aftab Yazd said.