the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague decided to transfer to Croatia the cases of two generals charged with killing Serb civilians in 1993, the first such referral to Croatia by the court.

Frances Newton, a woman convicted of killing her family, became the first black female to be executed in Texas since before the US Civil War after last-minute legal and political pleas to save her failed.

an Indonesian court sentenced a second Islamic militant to death for helping plot and carry out last year's suicide car bomb attack outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

an Indonesian court sentenced to death Rois, also known as Iwan Dharmawan, the main defendant on trial over the 2004 suicide car bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 10 people.

a young woman was waiting execution in Saudi Arabia for killing a man who was trying to rape her, the Saudi newspaper Arab News reported.

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.