Capital punishment is punishment by death. Capital punishment is retained in 92 countries and territories, including the 37 states of the USA, China, and Islamic countries. It was abolished in the UK in 1965 for all crimes except treason - in 1998 the death penalty for treason was finally abolished in the United Kingdom. Methods of execution include electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, shooting, lethal injection, garrotting, and decapitation. In Britain, the number of capital offences was reduced from over 200 at the end of the 18th century, until capital punishment was abolished in 1866 for all crimes except murder, treason, piracy, and certain arson attacks. Its use was subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. The punishment was carried out by hanging (in public until 1866).
The improvement in the penal laws of Europe in respect to the reduction of capital punishment may be traced in large part to the publication of Beccaria's treatise on Crimes and Punishments (Dei Delitti e delle Pene) in 1764. At that time in England, as Blackstone a year later pointed out with some amount of feeling, there were 160 capital offences in the statute book. The work of practical reform was initiated in 1770 by Sir William Meredith, who moved for a committee of inquiry into the state of the criminal laws; but the modifications secured by it were few, owing to the opposition of the House of Lords, which continued down to 1832 to oppose systematically all attempts at criminal law reform.
The publication of Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice, in 1784, urging the stricter administration of the law as it then stood, brought out the opposition of Sir Samuel Romilly, who replied to it in 1785, and introduced at short intervals a series of bills for the abolition of the extreme sentence for minor offences. The influence of Paley and LordEllenborough, and the reaction from the revolutionary principles, which prior to the French Revolution had inaugurated great penal changes in France, told strongly against his efforts; and even his Shoplifting Act, to abolish the sentence of death in cases of theft to the value of five shillings, was resolutely rejected, though passed by the Commons in 1810, 1811, 1813, and 1816. Romilly's work was taken up by Sir James Mackintosh in 1820, and under Peel's ministry with greater success. At his death, however, in the year of the passage of the Reform Bill (1832) forty kinds of forgery with many less serious offences were still capital, though from that time the amelioration was rapid. In the five years following the Reform Act, the capital offences were reduced to 37, and subsequent changes left in 1861 only four capital charges - setting fire to H.M. dockyards or arsenals, piracy with violence, treason, and murder. By 1906 only treason and murder were capital offences in England, andScotland also, though robbery, rape, incest, and wilful fire-raising were still capital crimes in Scottish common law.
Prior to 1868 executions were conducted in public in England, but then in 1868 the law changed that all executions were to be conducted in private within the prison walls. Capital punishment for murder was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1965 but still exists for treason, and during the 1980's it was revealed that the police had a shoot-to-kill and summary execution policy for those suspected of being terrorists. In 2005 a 27 year old Brazilian man was executed by being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder after being tackled to the ground by plain clothed police officers who mistakenly believed him to be a suicide bomber.
In 1990, Ireland abolished the death penalty for all offences. In Saudi Arabia execution is by beheading in public. Countries that have abolished the death penalty fall into three categories: those that have abolished it for all crimes (44 countries); those that retain it only for exceptional crimes such as war crimes (17 countries); and those that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes but have not executed anyone since 1980 (25 countries and territories).
The first country in Europe to abolish the death penalty was Romania in 1864, followed by Portugal in 1867, Holland in 1870, and by Switzerland in 1874. In the USA, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972, as a cruel and unusual punishment, but decided in 1976 that this was not so in all circumstances. It was therefore reintroduced in some states. Many countries use capital punishment for crimes other than murder, such as drug offences (in Malaysia and elsewhere). In 1977 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ruled out imposition of the death penalty on those under the age of 18. The covenant was signed by President Carter on behalf of the USA, but in 1989 the US Supreme Court decided that it could be imposed from the age of 16 for murder, and that the mentally retarded could also face the death penalty. Research Capital Punishment
The ISO (International Standards Organisation) assigns a two character code to each country name. These codes are used by Internet 'whois' databases (these two character abbreviations are the whois country codes) and also other applications.
A plateau or tableland generally denotes a large stretch of highland which is practically the same height above sea-level, and which descends on all sides to lower ground. Some plateaux, however, such as those of Tibet and Bolivia, that are fringed by high mountain ranges which tower above the plateau level, are known as intermont plateaux. Sometimes they are so completely enclosed as to have no outlet to the sea.
A plateau might be regarded as an elevated plain, but there is often a great difference between the surface of a plain and that of a plateau. As a plateau is high, rivers are swift and carve deep, narrow valleys instead of the broad, open valleys of the lower rivers of the plains. Such plateau areas as Wales and the Highlands of Scotland, are broken by deep, narrow valleys, and are termed dissected plateaux. On reaching the top of such an area one has a long view of a series of flat-topped mountain ridges. These ridges are all of approximately the same height, and if one imagines the clouds descending until they touched one ridge, then almost every other ridge would be similarly cloud-capped. Other good examples of plateaux are Tibet in Asia, the Ecuador and Bolivian plateaux in South America, and nearly the whole of the continent of Africa.
The Deccan of India is a plateau that has been tilted so that the western edge is much higher than the eastern edge, and all the main rivers drain eastwards. In many instances plateaux are formed by the denudation or wearing down of higher mountainous areas. Ultimately, such areas may become so low that they are nearly plains, i.e. peneplains, such as the land around HudsonBay. Millions of years ago lava was forced up through cracks in the earth's crust, and spread out over the land in great sheets which have since hardened to form plateaux of basalt.
Two well-known examples of such plateaux are in Antrim (Ireland), and on the Deccan of India to the east of Bombay. Many of the most extensive areas of plateaux in the world are composed of very hard old rock. The GuianaHighlands, most of Africa, Arabia, the Deccan of India, and the West Australian plateaux are all composed of rocks of similar age. The ancient plateau lands are principally valuable for their minerals, such as the gold of Western Australia; the iron and manganese of the Brazilian Highlands; the gold, copper, and diamonds of the African plateau; and the gold of the Lena plateau in Siberia. Where plateaux are found in tropical areas they are important because, being cooler than the neighbouring lowlands, they offer greater possibilities for successful European settlement and development. The highlands of Brazil, Kenya, and Tanganyika are illustrations of this. Much of the tropical plateau area is covered by savannah grasslands. Most of these areas are not yet developed, but offer possibilities for the production of a large variety of both animal and vegetable products when communications have been developed and further settlement has taken place. Research Plateau
Acacia is a genus of plants of the family Leguminosae sub-family Mimoseae consisting of trees or shrubs with compoundpinnate leaves. They grow in Africa, Arabia, Australia and the East Indies. The flowers, usually small, are arranged in spikes or globular heads at the axils of the leaves near the extremity of the branches. The corolla is bell or funnel shaped; stamens are numerous; the fruit is a dry unjointed pod. Several of the species yield gum-arabic and other gums; some have astringent barks and pods, used in tanning. Acacia Catechu, an Indian species, yields the valuable astringent called catechu; Acacia dealbata the wattle-tree of Australia, from five to ten metres in height, is the most beautiful and useful of the species found there. Its bark contains a large percentage of tannin, and is hence exported. Some species yield valuable timber; some are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers. Research Acacia
The Arabi is a breed of sheep found in south-western Iran, southern Iraq and north-eastern Arabia, the Arabi is a meat breed of the Near Easter Fat- Tailed type. The wool is of carpet quality. The breed is usually black, pied, or white with a black head. The males are horned and the females are hornless (polled). The Arabi is the foundation breed of the Wooed Persian of South Africa. Research Arabi
The fennec (Fennecus verda) is a small nocturnal desert fox found in north Africa and Arabia. The fennec is whitish or buff-coloured, with a short, black-tipped tail and large ears. It is nocturnal, and lives in burrows, and feeds on jerboas, lizards, small birds and the like. Research Fennec
The gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is the type of a sub-family of antelopes (the Gazellinae), which includes some 23 species of small, mostly desert-living forms. The gazelle is a light fawn colour upon the back, deepening into dark-brown in a wide band which edges the flanks and forms a line of demarcation between the colour of the upper portions of the body and the pure white of the abdomen. The eye of the gazelle is large, soft, and lustrous. Both sexes are provided with horns, round, black, and lyrated, about 33 cm long. The gazelle is found to the north side of the Atlas Mountains, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Arabia, and South Iraq. Research Gazelle
The yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamis platrus) is a venomous marine snake of the family Elapidae found in tropical and sub-tropical warm oceans from eastern Africa, Madagascar, Arabia and India throughout coastal south-eastern Asia, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific islands and the west coast of the USA, making it the most widely distributed sea snake. The yellow-bellied sea snake has a dark back of black, olive, or olive-brown colour and a yellow belly and a unique, oar-like tail which is flattened from side to side and grows to a length of about 115 centimetres. The yellow-bellied sea snake feeds on fish, ambushing them by floating among debris floating on the sea and waiting for fish to come to feed upon the debris. Research Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake
Abbreviations
Research Capital Punishment
