A Bolivian brewer has come up with an innovative solution for quenching thirst and coping with altitude sickness: coca beer, based on the same leaf used to make cocaine. Coca has only recently acquired its nefarious reputation: for millennia, people living along the Andes mountains have chewed coca leaves. The juice from the leaves has a mild stimulant effect, easing stomach pain and helping people from the lowlands cope with altitude sickness, known locally as soroche.

By Environment Correspondent Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million at a key observing station in Hawaii for the first time since measurement began in 1958, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Friday.

WASHINGTON - The old saying that "what goes up must come down" doesn't apply to carbon dioxide pollution in the air, which just hit an unnerving milestone. The chief greenhouse gas was measured Thursday at 400 parts per million in Hawaii, a monitoring site that sets the world's benchmark. It's a symbolic mark that scientists and environmentalists have been anticipating for years.

GENEVA - A summit on chemicals and hazardous wastes ended Friday with an agreement to globally phase out a widely used flame retardant and to accept stricter requirements for disclosing information about exports of four other chemicals. But participants fell short in their efforts to require more information and consent among nations trading in a construction material, Chrysotile asbestos, and a formulation of the powerful herbicide, Paraquat, despite support from most of the 169 nations represented at the two-week U.N. summit.