11.   The other convicts executed, Zu Wanling and Wu Kailing, were members of a kidnapping ring, Guan said.

12.   In July, three murder convicts were executed at prisons in Tokyo and Fukuoka, the first executions since conservative Prime Minister Hashimoto took office in January.

13.   Caribbean Community governments, under intense pressure from citizens to enforce the death penalty, are finding their attempts to execute convicts frustrated by constitutional challenges.

14.   Congress had earlier shelved plans to execute convicts through the gas chamber after the government said it had no funds for the construction of such a facility.

15.   Earlier, the Senate and House of Representatives approved separate bills allowing the government to use lethal injection to execute condemned convicts.

16.   Twenty-two convicts were executed in the eastern province of Suzhou for crimes including rape, armed robbery and theft, the Xinhua Daily said.

17.   Jordan has executed three convicts so far this year.

18.   No convict has been executed in the two years since the death penalty was reinstated.

19.   The death penalty law, aimed at deterring a rising crime rate, provided that convicts be executed by gas chamber.