VIDEO - Obama in shorts? Xi in his swimmers? Brisbane welcomes G20 to 'paradise'

(CNN) -- The G20 is in town and with it comes sacred flames, security bans, street protests and a bizarre front page depiction of world leaders in various states of undress.

The Australian city of Brisbane arguably hasn't seen this much excitement since World Expo '88 transformed a derelict strip of industrial land into a sprawling souvenir shop and later an inner city beach.

Preparations have been underway for more than two years, since ex-Prime Minister Julia Gillard's former Labor government proposed the city as a venue for the world's largest and most influential economic talks.

Current Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sworn that this G20 "will not be a talkfest." Still, over the next few days, political pundits will be scrutinizing the words, actions and gestures of at least 25 world leaders for hints at future policy.

While they do, here are few lesser-known facts about Brisbane's G20.

G20 ceremonial fire. Don't put it out.

1. There's a sacred ceremonial fire

At least, we hope there is. Last week, firefighters responded to a 000 call -- Australia's version of 911 -- to report an open fire in the city's Musgrave Park near the G20 center.

Officers duly put it out, only to be confronted by angry Aboriginal elders of the Jagera tribe who had lit the sacred ceremonial flame for G20, according to ABC reporter Michael James.

"They accosted the firefighters, yelling at them, a fair bit of swearing, accusing them of deliberately attempting to extinguish the fire as they knew that it was their sacred fire," James told CNN.

The embers used to light the blaze came from the fire burning at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, the headquarters of a long campaign for recognition and compensation for the theft of Aboriginal land.

During a march through the city on Monday, activists stopped in the middle of the street and broke into traditional dance, James said. More protests are planned during G20.

Protesters dance in the street.

2. Banned: Eggs, stones, insects

If you thought about taking your lizard for a walk through inner city Brisbane this week think again. "A reptile, insect, or other animal capable of causing physical harm if released in close proximity to a person" are banned from key areas of the city, according to the government's G20 security law.

You can't carry an egg, stone, metal cans, tins or glass bottles, and especially not ones that contain urine or manure, which are also on the banned list. Of course, crossbows are out and it would be best to leave your whips at home.

3. Step away from the mayonnaise

The threat of terrorism may be on the minds of police chiefs, but the state's top doctor has said she's more worried about egg mayonnaise.

Local caterers are expecting to prepare around 100,000 meals for delegates, media and police over the two-day event, creating a potential Salmonella minefield.

"We've seen quite a few outbreaks in Queensland over the last few years, mainly due to raw eggs," Dr. Jeannette Young told The Australian.

"My personal view is we should all shy away from raw egg mayonnaise at all times," she said.

4. Cheese please

U.S. President Obama is known to love a cheese burger, which is presumably why Brisbane Airport's Windmill & Co. has created the Big Obama Burger. Either that or they fancied some free publicity.

The towering burger includes two Angus beef patties, cheese (of course), onions, onion rings, spinach, tomato, cucumbers and mustard. Fans of local burger delicacies, beetroot and pineapple, will have to look elsewhere.

5. Mind the signs

A row has erupted over signs at Brisbane Airport, which would have been some of the first images delegates saw as they make their way through arrivals.

Guess the odd one out.

The rejected slogans, submitted by Civil Society 20 (C20) and Transparency International included: "If corruption was an industry it would be the world's third largest." And "Women comprise 70% of the world's poor."

Brisbane Airport tweeted: "We don't accept any political ads, whether from parties, cause based organizations or individuals, regardless of issue/message."

C20 spokesman John Lindsay said: "It's a sad day for Australia if talking about inequality, climate change or corruption are deemed too political."

The airport is offering a billboard of world leaders to satisfy demands for selfies.

6. Still at the airport...

Possibly the people most excited about G20 right now are about 120 plane spotters who are at Brisbane Airport eagerly awaiting the arrival of planes never before seen the country.

"The mood is excellent. People are excited about these aircraft visiting and how it puts Brisbane on the map in a global sense," Beau Chenery from PlaneImages.net told CNN.

U.S. Treasury Secretary arrives

"Some of these aircraft will probably never visit Brisbane again so it really is a one in a lifetime opportunity for aviation photographers."

The most anticipated touchdowns are President Putin's Ilyushin Il-96 and Obama's Air Force One.

"Everyone's hoping for Air Force One but it probably won't happen," plane spotter Daniel Vorbach told the ABC.

"I'd be ecstatic. That would be the pinnacle of everything."

CNN

VIDEO - Can Scandinavia cool the internet's appetite for power?

(CNN) -- The sub-zero climes of northern Sweden are an unlikely outpost for the world's hippest tech firms.

Temperatures have been known to plummet to a bone-chilling minus-40 degrees centigrade in the winter months, while the rural landscape is more commonly associated with the sparkling beauty of the northern lights than the humdrum back office of cloud computing.

But it's here, in the tiny sub-Arctic town of Lulea, that Facebook has operated a 30,000 square meter server farm since 2013 -- its first such facility outside the U.S..

So content with the operation is the social media giant that it announced the creation a second data center in Lulea earlier this year.

According to Malin Frenning regional head of telecoms firm TeliaSonera the region has plenty to offer big international companies despite its distant location.

"There is a lot of (engineering) competence ... and good cooperation with the technical universities," Frenning said. On top of that, good transport links ensure its easily accessible by road and by air while solid infrastructure ensures business stability.

TeliaSonera is currently laying down Skanova Backbone North, a 1,250-kilometer (776-mile) fiber cable that will serve mobile and communications networks as well as provide the digital infrastructure that data centers in northern Sweden require.

"As far as we understand it this is one of the best places to establish data centers," Frenning added.

The town of Lulea, Sweden, in winter (Credit: Andreas Nilsson)

The Facebook move has inevitably attracted the attention of other firms with large data storage needs.

Lulea will soon host another large data facility for UK-based data-storage specialist firm, Hydro66, while the nearby town of Boden welcomed Bitcoin mining group KnCMiner earlier this year.

Across the border in Finland, Google runs a similar operation in the town of Hamina.

And a thousand miles over the Norwegian Sea in Iceland specialist data storage firm Verne Global caters for large firms likes of German car manufacturer BMW.

Read: The big data gold rush of 2014

With so many wealthy companies with increased data related needs, storage clearly has the potential to become a highly lucrative business in this part of the world.

The environmental impact (of data centers in the north of Sweden) is pretty much zero
Anne Graf, the Node Pole

A report from management firm, Boston Consultancy Group estimated that the Facebook's presence in Sweden will be worth upwards of 9 billion Swedish Kroner ($1.2 billion) and 4,500 direct and indirect jobs over a 10-year period.

In September this year, meanwhile, the Financial Times cited a report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which stated that energy efficiency in the $220 billion cloud computing market could become a significant driver of growth.

Arctic appeal

The attraction of the extreme north for many tech companies is both practical and environmental.

Cold temperatures mean the high costs associated with air conditioning units used to keep servers cool can be drastically reduced.

An abundance of renewable energy sources, meanwhile, ensures the large amounts of electricity required to power data centers is clean and environmentally friendly.

Iceland, for example, currently meets 100% of its energy needs through geothermal and hydro-electric sources, according to independent energy sector analysts Askja Energy.

Northern Sweden is also blessed with a plethora of natural resources: Lulea has produced large amounts of hydro-electricity for well over a century.

"The environmental impact (of data centers in the north of Sweden) is pretty much zero," said Anne Graf of the Node Pole, a regional trade body designed to attract investment into Lulea, Boden and nearby town Pitea.

A flag bearing the logo of the Node Pole (Credit: Andreas Nilsson)

"We have about a 50% surplus from the electricity we produce," Graf added.

For high-profile companies like Facebook -- which was once publicly scolded by Greenpeace for obtaining 53% of the electricity it uses from coal sources but has since said it wants to go green -- these are highly attractive qualities.

Read: The math genius who created a Moneyball for the NBA

Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimate that information and communication technologies are already consuming 10% of the world's produced electricity.

A report from Greenpeace in April this year, meanwhile, found that if the internet was a country, it would rank in the top six energy consuming nations in the world.

Most (businesses) won't go there because they want to build their data centers closer to business hubs and centers
Ian Bitterlin, British Computer Society

On top of this, Greenpeace say demand for electricity that powers internet usage is expected to increase by 60% or more by 2020.

"We don't really think that when we use our iPhone or Blackberry that somewhere there is a computer doing something," Graf said. "When I do a Google search, somewhere there is a computer processing that. And that computer needs electricity. It needs ventilation. It needs someone to look after it."

IT greenwash?

But not everyone is convinced that moving data centers to these icy climates is good for business -- or the environment.

Yevgeniy Sverdlik of specialist IT publication Data Center Knowledge recognizes the potential environmental and cost benefits but highlights numerous circumstances where storing company data far away from headquarters or operations wouldn't be practical or cost effective.

Big financial institutions require servers close to their core operations as they regularly perform trades where prices can change over a fraction of a second, Sverdlik said.

If a signal from a trading desk in London or New York had to travel all the way along a cable to Sweden to confirm a trade, vital milliseconds could be lost.

"For companies like Facebook or even Google that kind of latency difference (the time between a button being pressed and that action occurring) is negligible," Sverdlik said. The data still moves at an extremely rapid pace.

"(But) a financial services company may have a physical location requirement where they want servers to be close to trading engines" because of this.

A data center is constructed in Lulea, Sweden (Credit: Cascade Creative Media)

Then there are things like data protection laws that mean certain types of information like medical records or government data must be stored within particular jurisdictions.

"In the post-Snowden world there is mistrust (from people) in having their data held outside of their country," Sverdlik added.

Read: 10 ways mobile tech will save your life

Professor Ian Bitterlin, chair of the Data Centre Specialist Group at the British Computer Society is even more cautious as to the benefits of storage units in these parts of the world.

He points out that while cooling can be cheap and use less electricity near the Arctic for now, new server technologies are becoming more efficient and less power intensive.

This could eventually mean it becomes equally cost effective to house data centers closer to business hubs and centers.

"They (locations in the likes of Sweden, Finland and Iceland) say they are attractive because they have a lot of spare power that they want to sell.

"They've lost industries like paper and aluminum and have an excess of power (and) data centers appear to be a very high revenue load.

"Some companies are attracted to the corporate social responsibility thing and want to get Greenpeace off their back."

"(But) most clients won't go there because they want to build their data centers where they want their data centers."

CNN

SEAL says he killed Bin Laden; now he fears prosecution for talking about it

Washington (CNN) -- The Navy SEAL who says he shot and killed Osama bin Laden says he is worried the Pentagon might prosecute him for publicly telling his story of the May 2011 raid on the al Qaeda leader's compound in Pakistan.

But Robert O'Neill said the value of sharing the details of the mission for the families of the September 11, 2001, victims and military veterans killed in the ensuing wars makes that risk worthwhile.

"I think I did this in a way that doesn't violate any tactics or any rules," he said in an interview on CNN's "The Lead" with Jake Tapper.

Ex-SEAL: Treated bin Laden 'as a threat'

Ex-SEAL describes killing bin Laden

Ex-SEAL on life after bin Laden raid

Being prosecuted, he said, "does concern me, and if it comes up, I'll address it."

In his most extensive live television interview to date, O'Neill said he realized the power of his story while speaking with a group that included about 20 families of victims of the September 11 attacks. He said it was the first time he'd really spoken about the mission, and that men and women cried and told him "it was closure for them."

At that moment, he said, he realized the importance of sharing what he could -- and that he needed to find a way to do so "with respect for the tactics, for the safety of our troops and for the Department of Defense."

Responding to criticisms from former administration officials and current servicemembers that he shouldn't be talking publicly, O'Neill said, "I think it's important historically for this to get out there."

"We were the end of a long, long time of grieving," he said. "We were everybody on that mission. You know, we were the Port Authority, the police department, the NYPD, the FDNY, we were the American people, the 9/11 families, and we were able to go there -- and just that I was able to be a part of that is just the greatest honor that's ever been asked of me."

O'Neill described many of the details of the mission -- and his preparation beforehand.

He said he believed there was "about a 90 percent chance that we weren't going to come back." Among the possible threats: Pakistan's military, unaware of the mission, could shoot the two helicopters down. Bin Laden's house could be wired with explosives. Others in the house could be wearing suicide vests.

"The house getting blown up, possibly getting shot down, suicide bombers, and then possibly running out of gas was a concern," he said. "The chances of us not coming back were a lot greater than the chances we were coming back."

He said he called his family members beforehand -- not offering details on what he was doing, but knowing that they'd soon find out no matter how the mission ended. He also wrote letters to his young children, only to be delivered if he didn't survive at a later date when, for instance, he wasn't there for their weddings.

After the mission started, O'Neill described landing outside bin Laden's compound on the second of two helicopters, after the first one had crash-landed. He said he was the eighth SEAL in line as they moved from the compound's first floor to its second.

On that floor, six ahead of him split off to take out bin Laden's son, clear other rooms and identify potential threats. He was now second in line headed to the third floor, where they expected to find bin Laden.

As the group reached the third floor, he said, the SEAL in front of him dove on top of an "unknown" person -- it turned out to be a woman -- to absorb what they feared could be a blast from a suicide vest. He said he thought "let's get this over with" as he entered the room expecting to be blown up by bin Laden.

That's when O'Neill identified the al Qaeda mastermind.

Navy SEAL: I shot, killed Bin Laden

Breaking down the Robert O'Neill interview

Is Bin Laden shooter now a target?

"I shot him twice in the head, he fell on the floor," he said. "I shot him one more time, and I killed him."

The magnitude of what he'd done didn't register immediately. O'Neill first worried about eliminating other potential threats -- moving a woman and child out of the way, and then clearing the room.

"It wasn't until the room was cleared and there were more SEALs in the room that it kind of hit me. I had a moment of pause," he said.

A friend put his hand on O'Neill's shoulder.

"I said, 'Hey, what do we do now?'" O'Neill said. "He said, 'Now we go find the computers.' I said, 'OK, I'm back.'"

The 90-minute flight back to the U.S. air base in Afghanistan was stressful, too, as the SEALs counted down the time until they exited Pakistan's airspace.

Then, they could exhale. One SEAL laid next to bin Laden's body to measure his height -- part of confirming his identity. The group hadn't brought a tape measure.

Later, O'Neill sat feet from bin Laden's body, eating a breakfast sandwich and watching a flat-screen television, while watching President Barack Obama announce to the world that the United States had killed bin Laden.

"I think," he told CNN, "I was part of a team full of heroes."

Eurostar looks to the future with new e320 trains VIDEO

(CNN) -- European airlines beware: Eurostar, the high-speed train company connecting London with Brussels and Paris, has just upped its game.

On Thursday, the company unveiled its new e320 train at London's St. Pancras Station. The new train will go into commercial service at the end of 2015. The e320 is named for its max speed -- 320 kilometers per hour (200 mph).

"Over the last twenty years, we have led the way in cross-Channel high speed rail travel, cementing the link between the UK and mainland Europe," said Nicolas Petrovic, chief executive of Eurostar, in a statement to the press.

While airplane passengers increasingly have to endure shrinking legroom, the new Eurostar trains have been built to be roomy. The ergonomically-designed reclining seats are wider, and each comes with its own USB socket and touch sensitive light controls.

Europe's high speed rail future

Rail rules in Asia

"The combination of bold design, chic interiors and wi-fi connectivity will raise the bar, providing an unprecedented level of style and comfort for our customers," added Petrovic.

Other on-board perks include a 20% increase in capacity per train (seven trains will join the fleet next year), free wi-fi, and increased luggage areas. The design comes courtesy of Pininfarina, the Italian design studio that has worked with the likes of Ferrari and Maserati.

The new design was unveiled to coincide with Eurostar's 20-year anniversary. During that time, the company has served over 150 million customers, though Petrovic believes that's just the tip of the iceberg. Next year, Eurostar also plans to expand its network to include direct service to Provence, with stops in Lyon, Avignon and Marseille, followed by the launch of a direct route to Amsterdam in 2016.

CNN

VIDEO - Russia flexes muscles with long-range bomber flights near U.S. shores

(CNN) -- Russia plans to send long-range bombers to the Gulf of Mexico in what appears to be Moscow's latest provocative maneuver in its increasingly frosty relations with the West.

Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Wednesday that "we have to maintain (Russia's) military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico" -- including sending bombers "as part of the drills."

It's an argument U.S. officials don't seem to be buying.

"We do not see the security environment as warranting such provocative and potentially destabilizing activity," a senior Obama administration official said Thursday.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki offered a similar response.

Russia increases air patrols over Atlantic

Photos: U.S. and Russian military aircraft

Russia's $730 billion war machine

Ukrainian battle caught on camera

Russian planes will fly near U.S. shores

Russia plans bomber flights near U.S.

"We don't think there is a current situation in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific or the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico that warrants additional flights in out-of-area territory," she told reporters.

That's not all.

Shoigu said that Russia will also boost its security in Crimea, the region it annexed from Ukraine earlier this year.

"In many respects, this is connected with the situation in Ukraine, with fomentation of anti-Russian moods on the part of NATO and reinforcement of foreign military presence next to our border," he said.

The ceasefire in volatile eastern Ukraine is crumbling, with U.S. and allied officials accusing Moscow of sending fresh troops, tanks and other military equipment across the border in recent days -- something that Russian officials have strongly denied.

But what does that have to do with the Gulf of Mexico, some 6,000 miles away?

The Russians are clearly trying to make a point with their plan to send bombers toward the Gulf of Mexico, said Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The message, he said, is "connected to the tensions over Ukraine that have also affected the broader relationship."

"It's kind of a reciprocity," Mankoff told CNN. "They see us trying to muscle in on what they see as their sphere of influence. (Russia is likely thinking), 'If they can do it to us, we can do it them.'"

Shoigu also said Russia will expand its presence in the Arctic region, which could affect Alaska and northern Canada.

This includes full radar coverage of that region by year's end, leaving Russia ready "to meet unwanted guests" both from the north and east by 2015, Shoigu said, according to a state-run TASS news agency report.

That means Russia's new drills will fly near most of America's coastline, said Barry Pavel, an international security expert at the Washington-based Atlantic Council think tank.

"We're talking about ringing the United States, with the exception of the Canadian border, where the Russian bombers don't need to go," Pavel said.

Russian planes flew near U.S. before

It's not as though the United States doesn't have its own warplanes in places like Japan and Turkey, not to mention NATO air operations assisting Albania, Slovenia and Baltic nations. And Mankoff, who previously served as a U.S. State Department adviser on U.S.-Russia relations, notes that the U.S. military also sometimes flies not far from Russia -- also to send a message, as well as to test things like response times.

"It's not necessarily anything to be overly alarmed about as long as the patrols stay in international airspace," he said.

And, as recently as June, U.S. fighter jets have intercepted Russian long-range bombers off Alaska and California.

Those four Russian planes flew within an area 200 miles from the North American coast. Two peeled off and headed west, while the other two flew south and were intercepted by U.S. F-15s within 50 miles of the California coast.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said at the time that this was the first time U.S. jets intercepted Russian military aircraft off California in about two years. But such incidents generally are not uncommon, with Davis estimating that Russian flights fly into the so-called air defense zone -- the area 200 miles from the U.S. coast but not within the 13.8 miles that international law would define as U.S. territory -- 10 times a year.

Yet there are signs that Russia has stepped up its military provocations as of late, some of which the European Leadership Network documented earlier this week.

Russian provocations on the rise: Is it a new Cold War?

Last month, the Swedish military searched for a mystery underwater vessel after intercepting an emergency radio call in Russian and getting reports about a foreign vessel being spotted in the waters near Stockholm. Though no vessel was found, it was the largest submarine hunt in Swedish waters since the end of the Cold War.

In September, the United States intercepted six Russian planes, including fighter jets and tankers, in airspace near Alaska, officials said.

The same month, an Estonian official was abducted from a border post, taken to Moscow and accused of espionage, sparking dueling claims between the two nations.

The uptick in incidents have raised concerns about safety -- and about military and geopolitical issues, Pavel said.

"Russia (is) flexing its military muscle, identifying the United States and NATO as the enemy. That feeling is not reciprocated, but we have a Russia that is starting to throw its military weight around, and in some ways, looking for provocations," he said. "I think this could be very dangerous, and create a crisis, where one didn't need to exist."

Does Putin want war in Ukraine?

Putin's fighters, missiles, warships

Russian jet dangerously buzzes US jet

Russian fighter jet provokes U.S. ship

U.S. spy plane evades Russian jet

Analyst: 'Real danger' is accident, overreaction

And not only have the encounters escalated, so have the risks.

In March, a covert Russian military plane nearly collided with a Swedish passenger aircraft carrying 132 people.

The "real danger" of new Russian flights near the American coast is that an accident actually happens or things "get a little bit out of hand."

"If there's a collision or if somebody overreacted," Mankoff said, that could inflame U.S.-Russia tensions even further.

He recalled a 2001 incident, in which a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet before making an emergency landing inside China. That episode shook up relations between Beijing and Washington.

During the Cold War, Soviet warplanes were more frequent in areas around the United States. But Mankoff noted that changed with the fall of the Soviet Union, in part because of cost.

Things slowly changed as Russia took shape, long before Ukraine became an issue. And there's also interest in Moscow in having close ties with its allies in the Americas, such as Venezuela.

"When I was in government four or five years ago, when there was definitely concern that this was becoming more frequent even then," Mankoff said of about Russian military provocations. "This isn't happening out of the blue."

Russia again denies it has troops in Ukraine

Still, there's no doubt that the Ukraine crisis is the driving wedge in U.S.-Russia relations at this point.

A ceasefire deal reached in September has seemingly crumbled, with intensified fighting of late between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels.

Those rebels have been joined by Russian troops, tanks, artillery and air defense systems that have recently crossed the border, according to U.S. Gen. Phillip Breedlove, NATO's commander for Europe.

On Thursday, Ukrainian defense spokesman Andriy Lysenko said there's been "constant movement of Russian military equipment with (separatist) marks to the dividing line."

Yet Russia, as it's done time and again, is knocking down any claims that it has troops inside Ukrainian territory.

"I am telling you very frankly and officially as well: There are no military forces or any military movement across the border, and moreover there is no presence of our troops in the territory of (southeast) Ukraine," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukhashevich said.

CNN

 

VIDEO - Why Did China Just Ban McDonald’s New Genetically Modified Super Potato But The US Did Not?

Simplot, an agribusiness which supplies McDonald’s with over 3 billion pounds of potatoes annually, has just announced its latest genetic experiment with a potato appropriately titled ‘Innate.’

According to RT, the genetically modified (GM) potato has been engineered to bruise less easily as well as to not turn brown for hours after it’s been cut. Simplot has assured the public that Innate is coming to the market after almost “a decade of scientific development, safety assessments and extensive field tests,” which have taken place in Florida, Indiana, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin -between 2009 and 2011.

But the biggest bonus Innate has to offer is its impressively lessened levels of acrylamide, a well known carcinogen which is substantiated under high heat by deep-frying foods. The potato would produce 75% less acrylamide than their current french fry buy silencing certain genes and enzyme production.

Should We Be Concerned About The New GM Potato?

The USDA boasts there have been no observed dangers to other crops in the vicinity of the Innate crop, and it is rumored that the FDA will approve the potato within the month. However, the medical implications of the alterations have not been tested, according to RT.

McDonald’s China has denied that it has imported or used genetically engineered potatoes after the US Department of Agriculture approved the Innate potato, “McDonald’s China does not use genetically modified potatoes. The potatoes that McDonald’s China uses are in line with the national laws and regulations,” the public relations department of McDonald’s China told the Global Times Monday.

Simplot has come forward to address concerns raised about the GM product, stating that Innate is only manipulating genes from the potato crop itself rather than taking genes from bacteria and other organisms.

The GM potato being produced by Simplot is stated as being more resistant to bruising as well as browning after its been cut.

The company plans to use the potato’s main benefits for a two-pronged assault on the market. The spuds will be sold as a healthier alternative, and will also be supplied pre-cut to supermarkets and restaurants, due to the fact that they remain pristine-looking for longer. In fact, while the purported cancer effect will grab the headlines and curry public opinion, it is the longevity that really gives Innate its market advantage. 

Nevertheless, the announcement has garnered concern from anti-GMO activists who believe that RNA interference is not yet fully understood.

“We think this is a really premature approval of a technology that is not being adequately regulated,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a plant pathologist and senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety, told the New York Times.

Anti-GMO Activism Has Worked In The Past

Activism can truly have an impact, as we’ve seen with the fallout of Monsanto’s GM NewLeaf potato over a decade ago.

The power of activists should not be underestimated, as we’ve already witnessed how activist concerns can influence mega companies such as Monsanto. Between the years of 1996-2001 Monsanto’s GM NewLeaf potato gained popularity for its ability to resist the Colorado beetle and the PVY virus.

However as activists continued to rally against the use of GM foods, McDonald’s and other fast food chains turned their backs on the NewLeaf potato. Simplot also stopped using the crop, and Monsanto then moved their efforts towards more successful products, such as corn and soy.

The Food and Water Watch group has hoped to repeat the trick, already sending a petition signed by over 100,000 people, asking McDonald’s to ban all Innate potatoes. Simplot refuses to back down, however, and is already talking about future plans for the Innate potato which will have a resistance to late blight, the cause of the infamous Irish Potato Famine.

This is truly a situation of which is the lesser of the two evils, as neither genetically modified potatoes nor acrylamide ridden potatoes sound desirable to the health-concerned population. Regardless of whether the Innate potato is using genes from other potatoes, the implications of the gene alteration haven’t been properly tested for human safety.

What are your thoughts on McDonald’s new Innate potato? Should the potato be put through more testing to ensure its safety? Share with us below!

VIDEO - Tradition trumps modernity for Thailand's Lisu tribe

Editor's note: CNN's On the Road series brings you a greater insight into the customs and culture of countries across the world. During November, CNN International explores the places, people and passions unique to Thailand. Read CNN's special reports policy.

(CNN) -- With their distinctive, colorful headwear, Lisu women stand out from the lush green fields of northern Thailand.

Where once opium was grown, cash crops like rice and corn are now harvested, providing a simple way of life for members of one of Thailand's most remote tribal groups.

Around 50,000 members of the Lisu tribe live in Thailand, many in isolated village communities near the border with Laos and Myanmar.

Descendants of semi-nomadic, ethnic Tibetan tribes, their traditions, culture and animistic beliefs remain a strong part of their lives.

Elephants provide therapy for autistic

Lanterns 'soar to the heavens'

"We have a simple happy life," explains the youthful-looking head of the village of Ban Man Pa.

During torrential rain it's easy to imagine how hard life can be for villagers as dirt roads become muddy streams and people shelter in simple wooden buildings.

Yet most seem content, even if they could do with electricity.

But they don't live completely without the conveniences of modern life, says the village head. Once his family used to own Thai horses, but now they have Japanese ones he jokes. "They're called Toyota."

CNN