Compact archive September 3, 2007

Audiences throughout three continents will vote for the best film made by new talents in the film industry in the Manhattan Short Film Festival 2007. 12 finalist out of 456 entries are shown in more than 100 cinemas across Europe and America. Prague’s cinema is one of them.

Prague’s audience can participate in the vote which film will win the event on 28th – 30th September 2007. The results from all the cinemas will be sent to the festival’s headquarters in New York City. The winner will be announced on Sunday 30th September 2007 in Union Square Park in NYC.

All screenings start at 21:00, the tickets cost 60 CZK. The opening party takes place in Karavan Seraj in Masarykovo nabrezi 22/239, Saturday’s programme is on the same place, the wrap party is in Skutecnost atelier in Francouzska street 76. For more information click here.

Today started a new school year for all pupils and students of basic and secondary schools. Today means also rather big changes in education system in the Czech Republic.

So far Czech children were mostly taught by sitting and listening to the lecture, curriculums were made centrally by the state. From now on schools can prepare their own individual curriculum for pupils of the first and sixth grade and combine several subjects together. Pupils are also encouraged more to learn from practical examples.

From today children have to get used to the new school regime after two months of holiday. In the morning the police patrolled at many crossroads near schools to make sure that children would get to school safely. The police officers now keep on focusing on pedestrians crossing the streets. They will not only punish bad behaviour but also award good behaviour on the crossroads. This action will be held until 7th September 2007.

According to the chart made by the Belgian Federation for the Technology Industry Agoria, Prague is the seventh most friendly European city (out of 26) for companies dealing with information and communication technologies. The most friendly cities for IT companies are Paris, followed by Paris, London, Madrid, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Brussels.

The Czech Statistical Office informed that the Czech Republic had the most IT experts compared with the total number of employed people from all the new members of the European Union. The highest concentration of IT workers in the Czech Republic is in Prague (about 5%).

According to the director of the Czech branch of Hewlett-Packard Milan Prypon, the Czech labour market still lacks about 20 thousand qualified IT workers.

Two golden and one silver medals are coming to the Czech Republic after the World Championship in Athletics in Japanese city Osaka. Two golden medals were gained by Roman Sebrle (decathlon) and Barbara Spotakova (javelin), silver medal by Katerina Badurova (pole-jump).

Roman Sebrle, the best Czech athlete of the year 2006, finally got the last medal he was missing. As the only Czech athlete he finally won golden medals from the Olympic games, from the European Championship and the World Championship. He is also the world record holder. After the championship he admitted the this was his most difficult victory for him.

Barbara Spotakova showed a great performance by throwing 67.07 meters. In her own words, she was motivated a lot by loud crowds of Czech fans as well as the self confidence of German rivals. Katerina Budurova won her silver medal with the performance of 475 cm.

For the first time in the history of Prague metro (running from 1975) all three lines stopped at one moment and were out of order for 45 minutes. It happened on Saturday between 17:15 and 18:00, luckily off the peak hours.

The probable cause of the collaps was a sudden increase of electric voltage that disabled the central computer controlling the movements of metro trains. The dispatchers let the trains go to the nearest station. All passengers had to get off the metro.

The metro in Prague is built like a harmonica. One section is built uphill, the other one downhill. In case of total lack of electricity, the trains would get to the station by its own gravity.