A certain district of Carinthias capital Klagenfurt suffers from sloppy postmen. Since 6 months the amount of missing or wrong delivered letters and parcels takes on a dramatic scale. Complaints are ignored. Now a signature campaign should improve the situation and remind postmen to fulfil their duty in an appropriate way.

It was a car mechanic who started the signature campaign. He was not able to bear such a disastrous postal delivery anymore. “My patience snapped”, was the explanation about his new field of activity to the medias. He explains: “It’s not possible anymore to talk about a normal post delivery. Either there is no delivery or a wrong delivery.” The postmen don’t want to accept the critics. Following reasons were mentioned as apology: “Sick leaves, new employees without local knowledge, and no or wrong labeled mailboxes of the angry receivers.”

Photographer: Vinicius Tupinamba | Agency: Dreamstime.com

A hungry lorry driver from Slovenia wanted to cook a meal while he was driving on the motorway. When he tried to overtake another lorry and continued cooking his meal, it happend. He crashed and lost his loaded builders’ hut.

The Slovenian had luck. Nobody was injured. The motorway “A9″ in the area of Salzburg had to be closed for one hour.

One of the schoolbus drivers was already seriously injured. Now the rest of the school bus drivers don’t want to go to this certain school anymore. The headmaster of the school is quite surprised about the allegations. He talks about “regrettable individual cases” and confirms that everything is peaceful inside his school. He presumes that the pupils might “switch the button when they leave the school building.”

The résumé of the bus operator is terrifying. One bus driver with eye injury in the hospital, and many of the buses destroyed and out of use. Some of the violent videos already appeard at YouTube. The bus drivers are totally frightened and refuse their service.

Very remarkable also the surname of the head boy, who is strictly against a sweeping judgement. Watschinger translated into English language means something like “man of slaps”. Nomen est omen, already knew the old Romans. Now a video control system should improve the situation and trace the ringleaders of the riots.

- video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k_3-MZOecs&feature=related

“I have hacked the computer of Viennas police”, boasted a 15-year-old teenager to his friends. His friends worried about the security of Vienna and went directly to the police to tell them the news. The policemen themselfes were not able to notice the uninvited intruder in their computer system.

There was a quick reaction after the information was reported. The computer of the 15-year-old boy was confiscated. Now the police wants to know how it was possible to get into Viennas police system. But there are also doubts if the story is true. Yesterday almost all Austrian newspapers reported about it, but the police don’t wanted to confirm the hack. To play if safe, the police changed all their passwords. You never know.

A new study of the ministry of education and cultural affairs revealed the fact that many actors have to live with a monthly salary of 700 Euro. This means they have to live below the poverty line. Many actors also work self-employed and have no access to the unemployment benefit.

“During the practice time it’s not possible to take a side job”, reports an affected actress. “I have to survive with the money I get”, she confirmed. Only 2,4 percent of the actors in Austria are employed. The rest has to work free-lance, shows the study.

The result of the study is a disaster for the manager of a theatre in Salzburg. “For a cultural nation like Austria it’s disastrous”, was his short comment. Many actors even also have no health insurance. Politicans already promised to improve the situation, but most of the actors stay sceptical. “If there will be more money for culture, it will disappear in the administration and the bureaucracy”, was the unanimous opinion from the side of the actors.

Photographer: Vinicius Tupinamba | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Yesterday the airport in Salzburg listed an inrush of Russian tourists. 11.000 holidaymakers from Russia arrived in one day. Mainly young families with many children from the middle class, reported Austrias Broadcasting Corporation “ORF”.

45 aeroplanes from Russian or Ukrainian airports were counted. They landed every fifth minute. This is a huge increase since the past year. Russians want to celebrate their orthodox christmas in Austria, knows a young tour escort. Their favourite destination is the valley in Bad Gastein.

- link: Bad Gastein

Spindelegger also complains about the massive and forceful impact against demonstrators. “I won’t accept that”, he told. The Austrian foreign minister explained that freedom of assembly and freedom of expression are the basic values of an open society. Those terms are very important if Minsk wants better relations with the European Union, he said.

With such a behaviour the government in Minsk made one step away from the European Union, said Spindelegger. Spindelegger now demands freedom for all arrested demonstrators and an investigation about the violence on the streets. The Austrian foreign minister claimed that there is no purpose for an isolation of Belarus, but the execution of our ideas and demands in Belarus would improve our relationship.

Authorities from the city of Salzburg are not happy about professional snow shovellers who act like snow pirates. Now they even threat them with criminal complaints. Reason: those snow shovellers put snow from the pavement and throw it on the road. In Salzburg it’s strictly forbidden to throw snow on roads, knows an expert of the law in Salzburg.

It sounds like a declaration of war. A spokesman of the authorities from the city of Salzburg promised that “snow criminals are going to be chased merciless.” Also the female city council for building affairs from the Peoples party is quite angry. She tells that everybody has to remove the snow infront of his house, but it’s not allowed to throw the removed snow on the road. “That’s not possible and acceptable”, she said.

Experts doubt if it’s possible to catch a lot of “snow pirates” in Salzburg. The logistic effort would be too much for police and security companies. But maybe the authorities from the city of Salzburg are really very serious about their announcements, and soon we can see the first arrested snow pirates on TV.

A reason of the massive drop is the economic crisis, knows the tourism manager of the region Zell am See-Kaprun Renate Ecker. But she is very optimistic that Russians are going to return soon. There was a slight increase last year, she told.

Austria tries everything to get more tourists from Russia. Some Austrian holiday destinations are partner of the big ski hall in Moscow. There are promotions in Russian cities. Russian journalists and tour operators get free winter holidays, and there are also direct cooperations with Russian travel agencies.

Salzburgs tourism metropolis Gastein has no problems with a decreasing tourist occurrence from Russia. They know how to make it right. From 2005 to 2010 they were able to redouble the amount of Russian tourists. In marked contrast to the rest of Austrias holiday destinations. The tourism boss of Gastein explains that he knows how to make the right advertising for his place in Russia.

The opposition is shocked and upset. Austrias Broadcasting Corporation “ORF” reports that such an army would only exist on the paper, and asks if this should be the plan of our minister of defence. Even the pacifist Greens can’t understand such ideas. The green spokesman for security, Peter Pilz, confirms that such an army would be something like a “paper army”.

The Freedom party thinks that Darabos just wants to destroy the Austrian army. The Orange party also known as “BZÖ” talks about a “deaccession of Austrias family silver.”

The security spokesman of the Greens explains that Darabos seems to be a second “Baron Munchhausen”. Darabos replies he just sees the need to save about 30 million Euro in times of the economic crisis. There are also rumours that Darabos wants to close several more barracks. Even the Radetzky Kaserne should be affected. It’s also told that some of the tanks in the Austrian army are that old, they would resolve itself.