Egypt

Attempts by the United States Administration to force Europe to accept GM food and crops received a serious blow after Egypt announced that it would not be part of a WTO challenge to the European Union's de facto moratorium on approving new GM licenses. The Egyptian Government says that it has taken its decision because it recognises " the need to preserve adequate and effective consumer and environmental protection."

To all those working at the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and who are involved in torture or who have ordered it or refrained from stopping it, although they knew it was taking place: The undersigned organisations know how you have spent the last three days torturing our colleagues, antiwar activists and other Egyptian citizens who have walked the same path of the millions of citizens all over the world and have peacefully expressed their protest of the killing going on in Iraq.

Hundreds of antiwar activists and demonstrators have been detained in Cairo and some are being tortured by police, Human Rights Watch charges. Hundreds more have been injured as security forces used water cannons, clubs, dogs, and even stones against demonstrators. Police have arrested leaders of movements protesting the Iraq war and Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories; journalists, professors, and students; and onlookers, as well as children as young as 15 years old.

Hundreds of antiwar activists and demonstrators have been detained in Cairo and some are being tortured by police, Human Rights Watch charges. Hundreds more have been injured as security forces used water cannons, clubs, dogs, and even stones against demonstrators. Police have arrested leaders of movements protesting the Iraq war and Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories; journalists, professors, and students; and onlookers, as well as children as young as 15 years old.

The verdict in the retrial of 50 men, tried for their alleged sexual orientation, is expected on 15 March before a criminal court in the Qasr al-Nil district of Cairo. The trial takes place amid a continued clampdown by the Egyptian authorities on men on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.

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