at least 14 convicted drug traffickers were executed in China, two days before the United Nations-sponsored International Anti-Drugs Day, state press reported.

Saudi authorities executed a man for raping a woman at knifepoint in front of her family, the Interior Ministry announced.

Indonesia carried out its first public canings, punishing 15 gamblers in front of a noisy crowd in tsunami-hit Aceh, the only province in the world's most populous Muslim nation to implement Islamic law.

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi expressed “sincere appreciation of Hands Off Cain for its strong commitment to the consolidation in the international order of the modern humanist values founded on the protection of rights and the individual” in a message on occasion of the launch of HOC’s The Death Penalty Worldwide 2005 Report and the presentation of the Abolitionist of the Year Award.

The Death Penalty Worldwide 2005 Report illustrates a continued positive evolution towards abolition globally. HOC’s annual report, edited by Elisabetta Zamparutti, shows 8 countries dropped the death penalty in 2004, bringing up to 138 the total of countries and territories that have abandoned capital punishment in law or in fact.

President Mahmoud Abbas asked his justice minister to annul court verdicts against dozens of Palestinians, including some convicted of collaborating with Israel, an aide said.

“I shall endeavour to be a guide for the future, to create a future for Africa,” President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal said on receiving the Abolitionist of the Year Award. The award was presented to President Wade by the President of the Italian Chamber of Representatives Pier Ferdinando Casini.

Gov. Rick Perry commuted the death sentences of 28 convicted killers. Perry ordered the commutations in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in March that the Constitution forbids executing anyone for a crime committed before the age of 18.

Mexico's House approved a measure striking the death penalty from the constitution and inserting language expressly prohibiting capital punishment.

Vietnam's justice ministry has proposed legislation introducing lethal injections as an alternative method of carrying out death sentences, a ministry official said.

a Philippine court sentenced to death seven suspected members of the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf militant group for the kidnapping and murder of farmers on the southern island of Basilan in 2001.

the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) asked the National Palestinian Authority (Anp) to abolish the death penalty, and condemned the four executions which took place in Gaza on June 12.