The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig Germany, has pulled out of the Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative, a collaborative venture with the Univ of Alberta launched in 2011 with $25 million in provincial funding. The upcoming German election, controversy over Canada's environmental record and its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol led to the decision to declare a moratorium on joint research into improving the upgrading of oilsands bitumen. Three other Helmholtz centres remain engaged in the joint initiative....