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Tuesday, July 24, 2012
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Prosecution looms for cheating homes Homes for the elderly told to use air-conditioning By Natalie Hami
W
ITH temperatures set to head back into the low 40s in the coming days, the welfare department is gearing up to begin prosecuting old people’s homes who have failed to comply with instructions to turn on their air conditioning. As of yesterday one fifth of the 76 care homes inspected by the authorities so far had not put on their air conditioning even though at least two of the 13 people admitted to hospital for heatstroke in the past week were residents in old people’s homes. Many of the homes inspected had admitted to not having turned on the air conditioning last week when temperatures soared to an unbearable 44 degrees on Tuesday. “From the inspections that have taken place up until today (yesterday) out of 76 homes (inspected) we’ve determined that we have 15 cases that didn’t have the air conditioning switched on,” said Irini Papatheodoulou, an official at the welfare services yesterday. Papatheodoulou added that they may be forced to start the ball rolling to
prosecute the offenders. According to the law they can be fined up to €1,281. “We haven’t done so up till now but from the way it looks we will have to proceed because from the moment that homes don’t conform and they continue not to switch on the air conditioning, and old people that live there are not comfortable, then they will force us to proceed,” she said. According to Papatheodoulou, the welfare services have 113 homes registered with them, of which 72 are privately run and 41 are run by non-governmental organisations (NGO). This is aside from the state-run institutions, which number less than 20. Papatheodoulou said that on the plus side eight of the 76 homes inspected, that had not turned on their air conditioning did so after repeat inspections. “The rest continued to ignore our suggestions and in one case it was switched on but only for a bit. A recommendation was made to them to switch it on for longer,” added Papatheodoulou. Thorough inspections began last week after random checks initially found ten homes operating without air conditioning. At the
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Santa Clauses from all over the world take part in the traditional bath at Bellevue Beach, near Copenhagen, Denmark, yesterday. The annual World Santa Claus Congress, which started yesterday, runs until July 26 (EPA)
Humans, not climate, killed off Neanderthals By John von Radowitz OUR ancestors rather than climate change drove Neanderthals to extinction in Europe, new research has shown. Evidence suggests the distant cousins of early modern humans had already started to decline long before a massive volcanic eruption plunged Europe into deep freeze.
The findings, based on a study of volcanic ash layers, indicate that climate was not the major factor in the Neanderthals’ demise. Instead it is more likely they were simply out-performed by early members of our species, Homo sapiens, who had migrated from Africa. Most experts agree that Neanderthals could not compete for natural resources with early modern humans, who had better tools, weapons, and communica-
tion skills. But some believe climate played a major role in their extinction. A catastrophic event around 40,000 years ago, Europe’s biggest ever volcanic eruption, may have sent temperatures plummeting as clouds of ash blocked out the sun. The “volcanic winter” caused by the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption in
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