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Copyright Greenpeace/Organic potatoes grown in Kristianstad Sweden

Two Greenpeace activists dumped a basketload of potatoes at the feet of the German Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner, as she was praising German agricultural products. The activists also shouted "Stop the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes!" and unfurled a banner. They were temporarily detained for trespassing and disruption.

Greenpeace opposition is barely mentioned in an opinion piece in The Australian. Instead it states that the reasons for the continuation of whale hunting are tradition, identity and whales still being categorised as fish by the Japanese and the argument that they live a long happy life in the open ocean. It highlights that they see nothing more morally wrong with whaling than with slaughtering pigs and that the conflicts are merely a result of Western political hypocrisy.

The company Offsetters, the "official supplier of carbon offsets to the 2010 Olympic Games", is preparing to open an innovative souvenir kiosk at Vancouver International Airport. Productive. Greenpeace and "some of the other more-irritating environmental groups that seem to make more noise than supply solutions" are being encouraged to take Offsetters's example by The Vancouver Sun.

Greenpeace is mentioned in Swiss media expressing concern over WWF receiving the Public Eye nomination, hoping that the trend will stop soon. WWF has been backing a Coop campaign for responsible soy production on an industrial scale.

Greenpeace has contributed to a report on "the real cost on nitrogen fertilizer" which is causing severe pollution in China, The China Daily reported. There is hope that this report will be used as reference for policy recommendations and planning.

Italians have compiled a list of the most influential environmentalists of 2009, in which Greenpeace Italy's Executive Director Giuseppe Onofriu comes in 5th place.

Mochovce power plant has received its license, and Greenpeace has urged Austria to end its support.

And in non-Greenpeace news:

450 investors controlling $13tn in assets met yesterday in New York with the intentions of gaining a clear sense of direction towards a new clean energy, low carbon economy, even in the absence of a treaty. This will determine whether the Copenhagen Accord becomes a legally binding treaty for cutting greenhouse gases. This was reported by The Chicago Tribune. "We have an accord that's kind of lumbering down the runway, and we need it to get enough speed so it can take off," said Todd Stern, the US Envoy for Climate Change. "The best way to make progress toward a legal agreement is to get the Copenhagen Accord implemented." The U.N. is aiming to turn the Copenhagen Accord into a binding treaty at a climate conference in Mexico City scheduled to be held between Nov. 29 and Dec. 10.

Reuters reports that scientists in New York pushed back the hands on the symbolic Doomsday Clock by one minute, citing the reasons as hopeful developments in nuclear weapons and climate change.

The Independent reports that Gordon Brown is attempting to pass the world's first-ever law to protect government spending on aid to poor countries. The British government will publish a draft International Development Spending Bill to enshrine into law its promise to raise the share of UK national income spent on aid to 0.7 per cent by 2013, the target set by the United Nations.

The global market for carbon offsets from planting trees and preserving forests, worth nearly $150 million to date, could stall without a U.S. climate bill or a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, a report said on Thursday.

The farming sector in Bangladesh is entering an era of biotech, advancing research to develop GM varieties of eggplants and potatoes. “The way it will be modified leaves a toxic effect in brinjal, which aims at protecting crops from pest attacks. When an insect cannot eat crops, how will it be safe for human consumption,” said Farida Akhter of Nayakrishi Andolon, a platform of farmers who practise ecological agriculture. “Above all, farmers will lose their right to preserve seeds,” she said, fearing that GM crops may lead to a mono crop culture by damaging the present multi-crop system.

The Australian government pursuing legal action against Japanese whaling would be like a bitter court divorce and could undermine bilateral free trade talks, a prominent Japanese political and business consultant says. Hilary Clinton was to have met New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully to secure a diplomatic solution to end Japanese whaling in Antarctica, among other matters, but this has now been postponed.