five people were sentenced to death and three others were jailed after being convicted of abducting and selling 19 young boys. Li Bifang, Jiang Chengpu, Yuan Guiyuan and Liu Weibing received death sentences for abducting boys aged between two and six by the Kunming Intermediate People's Court. Another gang member was given a two-year suspended death sentence while three others convicted of assisting the abductions were sentenced to eight to 13 years in jail.

two Polish members of the European Parliament who planned to attend a dissident meeting in Cuba were denied entry by the island's Communist authorities and sent back to Europe.

it was reported that the Afghan court responsible for crimes against national and external security sentenced four men to death on charges of involvement in an armed robbery and for the murder of two people in the Dehsabz District of Kabul Province.

an Iraqi court sentenced three rebels to death for rape, kidnapping and murder, the first death sentences passed in connection with the ongoing insurgency.

Rahmatollah Ghanbarzehi Gorgich, an Iranian man convicted of raping a female student, was hanged in public in the southeastern city of Zahedan, in the Sistan-Baluchestan province.

two men accused of murdering a taxi driver were executed by a firing squad on the orders of a tribal council in rural Pakistan, witnesses said, highlighting the rule of deep-rooted tribal customs.

sixty-two prisoners were still under sentence of death although the death penalty was declared invalid in South Africa 10 years ago, the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg heard.

Tahassin Ali Mutar Janabi, an Iraqi army captain who served under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, was sentenced to death.

a young man was hanged in public in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz, accused of armed robbery and disturbing the peace.

sixteen people failed in their appeal against death sentences in Vietnam's biggest drug trafficking case, a court official in Ho Chi Minh City said.

the plight of Majda Mustapha Mahir, a 40-year old Moroccan woman condemned to death in Saudi Arabia for the murder of her husband in 1998, took Hands Off Cain and the Association of Moroccan Women in Italy to the streets of Rome in protest.

China's top prosecution office urged police to stop using illegal methods such as torture to force suspects to confess, after a series of high profile miscarriages of justice.