Hamad al-Rubli, a Saudi convicted of murder, was beheaded by the sword in Arar on the border with Iraq, the Saudi interior ministry announced.

Saudi Arabia's cabinet approved the establishment of a governmental human rights commission, the latest move by the oil-rich kingdom to address accusations of rights abuses.

a young Iranian mother was sentenced to execution in the town of Langaroud, northern Iran, the semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported.

a young man was hanged in public in the southern town of Kazeroun, in Fars Province, for a crime he had committed when he was a minor.

Kuwait demanded the death penalty in its indictment against former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against the emirate, Justice Minister Ahmad Baqer said.

the Nigeria Police Forces were indicted as major perpetrators in a rising incidence of unlawful killings in the country, with over 2,980 people killed in 2004, a figure which represented a 400 per cent increase over a corresponding figure of 756 extra-judicial deaths in preceding year, 2003.

Lu Lei, a teacher convicted of raping 32 girls under the age of 14, was executed in southwest China a day before the country marked its annual Teacher's Day.

British Interior Minister Charles Clarke told EU lawmakers that it was necessary to rethink the European Convention of Human Rights on the ban on extraditing people to countries where they risked torture and execution.

the Sudanese government has executed prisoners who were minors at the time of their arrest, Human Rights Watch said.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian vowed to the abolish death penalty so that Taiwan could become a country founded on the basis of human rights.

Mohammad Panj-Bini and Esmail Mohammadi, twoiranian Kurdish activists, were hanged in a prison in the town of Orumieh, northwest Iran, for their opposition to the Iranian regime, opposition websites reported.

a court in Iran sentenced a woman to 100 lashes and 15 years jail time and an Afghan man to execution on charges of murder, Persian-language websites reported.