On Thursday, 9th of December, we delivered the first European Citizens' Initiative to Commissioner Dalli, calling for a moratorium on GM crops and the creation of an independent, scientific and ethical body to test and regulate GM.

After the Commission broke the twelve year ban on GM crops and put the GM lobby's profits before public concerns, over one million of us signed this initiative. People across Europe want more rigorous testing before crops are approved that could threaten our health and environment.

We now expect the Commission to study our proposals and respond within four months by holding a public hearing with the European Parliament. We will keep the pressure on until we get an adequate response -- keep signing up!

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/eu_gmo/?slideshow

Amnesty International has called on authorities in Egypt to bring to justice those responsible for forced virginity tests on female protesters, slamming it as "nothing less than torture".

The London-based rights group's statement comes after an apparent admission by an army general to CNN that women detained on March 9 in Cairo had been subjected to virginity tests.

But a senior military official told AFP reports that the army had conducted such tests were "baseless".

The general, speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, had defended the practice.

"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," he told the US broadcaster.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said.

"These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)," he said.

Amnesty condemned the admission as "an utterly perverse justification of a degrading form of abuse".

"The women were subjected to nothing less than torture," it said.

"[Authorities] must bring those responsible for ordering or conducting forced 'virginity tests' to justice.

"This general's implication that only virgins can be victims of rape is a long-discredited sexist attitude and legal absurdity. When determining a case of rape, it is irrelevant whether or not the victim is a virgin."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/01/3232223.htm?section=justin

A teenage girl who was dropped from her high school's cheerleading squad after refusing to chant the name of a basketball player who had sexually assaulted her must pay compensation of $45,000 (£27,300) after losing a legal challenge against the decision.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a review of the case brought by the woman, who is known only as HS. Lower courts had ruled that she was speaking for the school, rather than for herself, when serving on a cheerleading squad – meaning that she had no right to stay silent when coaches told her to applaud.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cheerleader-must-compensate-school-that-told-her-to-clap-rapist-2278522.html