China, whose judicial system has been under scrutiny after a series of widely publicised wrongful convictions, asked its courts to think twice before handing down the death penalty.

six men were executed in the Chinese capital Beijing for murder and other crimes including robbery and rape, state media reported.

Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, two men convicted for raping a teenage boy were hanged in public in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad

Ali bin Ahmad bin Hashidi Shuhaythi, a Saudi man, was beheaded by the sword in the holy city of Mecca, for strangling to death a teenager, the Saudi interior ministry announced.

Russia should ratify the protocol on the death penalty, Chairman of the Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov said.

Mohammad Zadeh Sawali, a Pakistani national, was beheaded by the sword in the northern Saudi town of Arar after being convicted of killing a compatriot residing in the kingdom, the Saudi interior ministry announced.

Eyvazali Hosseinzadeh, an Iranian man convicted of murder, was hanged in public in northwestern Ardebil province for killing a man in 1999.

two Turkish citizens were executed in Libya, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. ''Selim Aslan and Yunus Ozkan, who were sentenced to death in Libya as they were accused of committing murder in 1995, were executed today. We express condolences to their families,'' the Ministry said in a written statement.

despite calls to countries retaining capital punishment to be transparent about their executions, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's latest report on the use of the death penalty worldwide laments the absence of a full accounting for death sentences and their consequences.

the Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari has approved the first death sentence handed down by a Iraqi tribunal and confirmed by the court of cassation - the country's highest court.

Ali Safarpour, a 20 year old Iranian man convicted of killing police officer Hamid Enshadi, was hanged in public in Poldokhtar in the western province of Lorestan.

two Nigerian men appeared in court charged with committing sodomy and could face being stoned to death after they were caught together in a toilet in the northern Muslim city of Katsina.