IRAN STAYS EXECUTION BY STONING

Iranian authorities have halted the planned stoning to death of a man and woman convicted of adultery following international protests. Mokarrameh Ebrahimi and an unnamed man, who have spent 11 years in prison, were due to be killed tomorrow in a cemetery in the town of Takestan in western Iran. Western diplomats in Tehran and organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights' Watch had condemned the executions. The Norwegian foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, told Norwegian news organisations that he had received information that Iranian judicial authorities had stayed the execution. An Iranian justice official denied that any such stoning had been planned.