Contestants boycott Miss World

Miss World contestants from Austria, Costa Rica, Denmark and Switzerland are all boycotting the show to protest over Nigeria's threat to stone a woman to death.

This is over the sentence given to single mother Amina Lawal in Nigeria's Katsina state by an Islamic court.

She was sentenced to death under Islamic law in March which has caused an international outcry.

Miss World director Julia Morley insists she has received the personal assurance that the sentence will never be carried out by Nigerian President Obasanjo Olusegun.

Miss Morley said: "If it were true that Amina was going to be stoned to death then I wouldn't be going either. But the fact is, it is utterly untrue. Never in history has a woman been stoned in Nigeria and it is not going to happen."