ISLAMABAD, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - When a man called Tariq offered 24-year-old Usman Rana more than 16,000 dollars for one of his kidneys, he thought his fortune was made.

Soon after Rana arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad from his hometown Lahore in February in search of work, police said Tariq 'lured him into selling one of his kidneys for one million rupees (16,666 dollars).'

BEIJING, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - A man in northern China has been sentenced to death for killing a homeless, mentally ill beggar and selling his organs to a group of doctors, state media said Tuesday.

After seeing Internet reports that hospitals had a shortage of organs, Wang Chaoyang abducted the beggar last November in the town of Longzhou in Hebei province, the Beijing Times reported, quoting local police.

Wang then contacted several doctors in the area, promising to sell them fresh organs from 'a prisoner sentenced to death by a local court'.