Amnesty International has strongly urged the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza not to carry out several pending "abhorrent" death sentences.

Human rights, religious and anti-death penalty groups are calling on the US state of Texas to stop the execution of a man who may be brain-damaged. Since 1976 the USA has executed 1,188 people. There are 3,300 still on death row.

Relatives of a British man facing execution for drug smuggling in China have arrived in the country to make last-minute appeals to authorities for mercy, with his execution due on 29 December 2009.