"What one of the things that we as a global community have been slow to realize is that even in an industrialized economy will still demand very directly on the health of natural systems to provide the water we drink and to keep the climate stable, " Leape said.

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The latest fad: lacing sugar water with vitamins and positioning it as a health drink.

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Visitors, including royalty and members of high society - dubbed "the Quality" by locals - came to the village to drink its water, which was said to have health benefits.

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But pollution from burning the country's highly sulfurous coal, China's leading source of energy, is most damaging the health of Chinese, the quality of the air they breathe and the water they drink.

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An interruption to the electricity and water supplies in Basra, a city of more than 1m people caused, America says, by Iraq has threatened the health of its population, obliging some of them to wash in and drink dirty river water.

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