Global warming is possibly one of the most serious environmental threats
Published:
8 December 2000 y., Friday
Global warming is possibly one of the most serious environmental
threats to this planet, but while solutions to this problem are discussed
people are freezing to death in Riga.
So far this year eight men and two women have died of exposure. Half of
the deaths were alcohol related.
Research at the State Forensic Medicine Center tells a horrifying story.
Annually, between 160 and 170 people, mostly homeless, freeze to death
in Riga. The record high was in 1994 when 218 people lost their lives to
the cold.
Director of the social assistance department at the Ministry of Welfare,
Sandra Baltina, said Latvian law holds municipalities responsible for
people in need of social assistance, but she is not too impressed with
Riga City Council's work.
"I think Riga City Council needs to think more about homeless people,"
Baltina said. "There are not enough beds for homeless people in the
shelters."
At the moment there are two shelters in Riga. One of them provides 20
beds for women and the other offers 50 beds for men. The City Council is
planning to build a new shelter with 200 beds.
Šaltinis:
baltictimes.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
About 22,000 non-citizens have not yet exchanged their former USSR passports.
more »
A group of Russian and international environmental organizations have sent a letter to the World Bank’s president James Wolfensohn.
more »
Polish Education Minister Miroslaw Handke faces not only a bad grade but losing his job as well as opposition lawmakers push for his ouster over a math’s mistake.
more »
The euthanasia is widely discussed subject in Lithuania as all over the World, but people barely know how it is performed in the country where this kind of practice has been done for more than 25 years: the Netherlands.
more »
U.S. investigators say they have stronger evidence than ever that American soldiers missing in action - including spy pilots shot down during the Cold War - were held in the Soviet ''gulag archipelago'' of prison camps.
more »
More than 30,000 Poles, including President Alexander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, are to travel to Rome from July 6-8.
more »
Terrified villagers barricaded themselves in their homes as 200 Neo-Nazis chanted "Sieg Heil" and "Heil Hitler" at a weekend meeting in northern Poland which police did nothing to stop, a newspaper reported Monday.
more »
Nearly a fifth of Hungarian teenagers have been entrapped by the Internet, the Zeus Consulting and Publishing Company told MTI on Wednesday .
more »
Vilius Kavaliauskas,well-known Lithuanian political scientist, shares his view on interrelation of national minorities in Lithuania.
more »
The anti-Hungarian manifestations in Marosvasarhely (western Romania) after the second round of local elections are far from reflecting a tolerant European mentality.
more »