Behrouz Mehranpour,
New Jersey lawmakers approved a moratorium on the death penalty, becoming the first US state legislature to block executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the punishment in 1976.
the Chinese Supreme People's Court commuted 11.2 percent of all death sentences submitted to it for review in 2005, state media said.
Libya's Supreme Court scrapped death sentences against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor and ordered a retrial of the cases which have harmed Tripoli's efforts to build ties with the West.
Wen Mengjie, 49, was sentenced to death for accepting bribes and embezzling public funds worth CNY15 million (US$1.85 million), Chinese media said.
the leader of an Afghan gang that kidnapped an Italian aid worker in May, was sentenced to death, along with an accomplice, for the earlier kidnapping and killing of an Afghan businessman.
Iranian authorities publicly hanged three men all in their twenties in the town of Sabzevar, north-east Iran, the state-run Fars news agency reported.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo temporarily stayed the execution of 13 death row inmates including 11 convicted rapists.
the Shariat Appellate Bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court stayed the execution of four convicts who had been sentenced to death for raping a Christian girl, Saima Bibi, in Faisalabad in 1999.
a 21-year old Kuwaiti convicted of the premeditated murder of a compatriot was hanged and his hooded corpse displayed in public.
Angela Johnson was sentenced to death by a federal court after being found guilty of involvement in the murder of five people in the state of Iowa in 1993. She says she is innocent.
three Saudis were beheaded by the sword after being convicted of murder in separate incidents, the interior ministry said.
