Compact archive September 4, 2006

The New Government begin their ruling at 2 p.m. today. The president of Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus inaugurated 14 new ministers. Mirek Topolanek, the head of Civic democrats is now Prime minister and his government has all legal power. The old Government has ended.

The government has now exactly one month to gain the Confidence of Chamber of Deputies. If government fails, the president will offer a change to create a new cabinet to another person. The name what is mostly listen is Jiri Paroubek, the chairman of Social Democrats party, who was second in the elections.

The new Government is now in an unpleasant situation. As it was in recent months, the right-wing parties still has only one hundred seats in the Chamber of Deputies out of two hundred. Paroubek says that no one from his party will accept this government, so it looks that Topolanek’s government can now wait for “the execution”. He has thirty days to think about his after-life.

Prague prepared for kids event at last holiday weekend at Letna. it was Kid’s Days With Safety Engineering, who has to goal to introduce equipment of emergency, fire brigade, police or army to kids.

Over forty vehicles could visitors see from present time as well as from history. Firemen presented for example a horse fire-engine, a high-lift platform with an escape sleeve. The emergency show an emergency truck. It has a new name: Golem.

Prague municipal police prepared the children’s traffic playground and kids even gained “children driving licence”. 152th emergency regiment of Czech army presented how they can build tent-town for people who lost their homes.

The event has a great success, almost twenty thousand kids and parents visited it.

Dragon boat European championship were this year in Prague. Visitors could see last weekend in Yellow spa at Vltava river many disciplines of this sport. Czech team was very successful.

Czech team won in 2000 meters track in men as well as women category. Saturday brought narrow victory for Czech team in 200 meters track, that they have won against Russian team by 0,03 seconds.

Czechs have also four bronze medals. The team was supported by fans at shore. Strong parts of Czech team are Vaclav Chalupa or one of best canoeist in the world Martin Doktor.

Trams use obsolete and relatively dangerous stoplights in Prague as well as in another Czech cities. Some Prague cross-roads are dangerous because a tram has almost no time between tram “red light” and green light for cars.

Tram semaphores are different from usual road semaphores. They has T-shape made of four lights. Combination of alighted lights shows which way the tram can ride (left, right, straight) or if has to stop. But this monochromatic semaphore has one problem: A driver of tram can’t be prepared for stop sign, there is no yellow “set!” light.

This mean that driver can reach the cross-road in same time when stop sign appears. It is impossible to stop immediately, because of safety of passengers, so the tram has to continue in ride. But green light for drivers appears in very close time, at some places after three seconds.

That’s why Prague a council-member Mr. Steiner want to discuss with other city halls in Czech Republic and try to change traffic law. This can bring new semaphores, like has Germany or Austria. This would be great help for drivers of trams as well as for car drivers.