Death penalty, also called capital punishment, is when a government or state executes (kills) someone, usually but not always because they have committed a serious crime. A crime that can be punished with the death penalty is called a capital crime or a capital offense.
Executions in most countries have become rarer in recent centuries. The death penalty is a disputed and controversial topic.
About one third of the countries in the world have laws that allow the death penalty. The United States, the People's Republic of China, Japan, Indonesia and Iran are examples of countries that have a death penalty. Canada, Australia, Mexico and all members of Council of Europe are examples of countries that have abolished the death penalty. 109 countries have gotten rid of the capital punishment for all crimes. Another 28 can be considered abolitionist in practice. If they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more.
Most of the countries that have a death penalty use it on murderers, and for other serious crimes such as rape or terrorism. Other countries especially ones with Authoritarian or Totalitarian governments, however, also use it for smaller crimes like theft, drugs, or for saying bad things about the government.
A study by Amnesty International found that the following countries did the most executions in 2012:
Here's the list for 1998:
A total of 557 people were executed in the United States between 1977, when the death penalty was reintroduced after a 10-year break, and 2000. During this period, 20 states did not carry out any executions. Here are the states with the most executions during this time:
<nowiki>*</nowiki>The Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, as part of the Soviet Union, reinstated capital punishment during the time of the Soviet Union.
It is common to have people executed for crimes including murder, manslaughter and attempted murder, but there are also other crimes that carry the death penalty. Some of these are:
During war time, the following crimes are punished by death:
According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that became valid in 1976, people that were not at least eighteen years old at the time they committed the crime may not be executed. According to the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically its 13th amendment (2002), no one must be executed.
There is a lot of different opinions on the topic of capital punishment. As it is an important topic, each country has very strong feelings. Many people say the death penalty is reasonable because it scares people away from doing things that are illegal, however many others say there is a potential of executing an innocent man; one says justice, retribution, and punishment; the other side says that execution is murder. Most people know the threat of crime to their lives, but the question lies in the methods and action that should be used to deal with it.
Throughout human history, governments and rulers have used many death penalty methods to execute people, such as crucifixion, flaying, and hanging. Some methods like crucifixion and flaying are no longer used by governments, because people think that these methods of killing are too cruel. The gas chamber was found unconstitutional in the United States (that is: against the United States constitution not allowing "cruel and unusual punishments") and is no longer used.
The Council of Europe has abolished all death penalty by 13th amendment of the European Convention on Human Rights. Amnesty International oppose all death penalty on ground of the right to life and prohibition of all tortures or any cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment insisted by Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The following forms of execution are in use today:
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat. He served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. He did this from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. They were awarded the prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".
Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana, to an elite family. His parents, Henry Reginald and Madam Rose Eshun are from the two major ethnic groups that make up the Akan – one of the groups of indigenous people of Ghana.
His father was half Asante and half Fante; his mother was Fante. The Asante were gold merchants while the Fante tribe were the middlemen in the gold trade between the Asante and the British.
Annan, whose first name means "born on a Friday", also had a twin sister, who died in 1991 from a still yet unknown disease. In Ghanaian culture, twins are considered special and are adored.
Annan probably got his first lessons in politics and diplomacy early on from his family. Both of Annan's grandfathers and his uncle were tribal chiefs. Upon his retirement, Annan's father, who worked as an export manager for the cocoa exporter Lever Brothers, was elected governor of Ghana's Asante province.
In 1954, Annan attended Mfantsipim School, an Methodist boarding school in central Ghana. The Secretary-General says that the school taught him "that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere".
Annan went to Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduating in 1961. He was a Sloan Fellow at MIT in 1971–72, getting a master's degree in management.
Annan became Secretary-General of the United Nations in January 1997, succeeding Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt. Annan was a U.N. veteran who took his first job with the organization in 1962 and worked his way up through various posts including Deputy Director to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (1980–83) and head of the U.N.'s peacekeeping efforts (1995–96). Annan was the first Secretary-General chosen from the ranks of the U.N.'s staff. He is also the first black man to hold the post and the second African (after Boutros-Ghali). His second term began in 2002 and ran through the end of 2006.
In 2001 he and the United Nations were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".
Annan was married to Nane Annan, a lawyer and artist from Sweden.
Annan died on 18 August 2018 in Bern, Switzerland after a short-illness, aged 80.
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly is made up of all United Nations member states. The Assembly meets once a year, which usually begins on the third Tuesday in September and ends in mid-December. The first meeting was held on 10 January 1946.
Voting in the General Assembly on important questions, for example suggestions on world peace, human rights and security, is by two-thirds of those present and voting. Other questions are decided by popular vote. Each member country has one vote.
At present, the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine are the only two observer states at the United Nations. Switzerland also had that status until it became a member state.
The current President of the United Nations General Assembly is Volkan Bozkır since 15 September 2020.
United nations general assembly observers have the right to speak in the assembly. The observers have no rights to vote in the assembly.
Mining
Mining is the process of digging things out of the ground. Any material that cannot be grown must be mined. Mining things from the ground is called "extraction". Mining can include extraction of metals and minerals, like coal, diamond, gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin and iron. Mining can also include other things like oil and natural gas.