■POLITICS
Legislator defends herself
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) urged the party yesterday not to support a proposal by a group of young members to strip her of the post of legislator-at-large. Lo said she had been critical of the KMT government’s policy because she had the party’s and the public’s interests in mind. “Is the KMT going to control [legislators’] freedom of speech?” Lo said. Several KMT youth delegates said last month that they had begun a signature drive to back demands that Lo resign for criticizing the party. Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之), one of the delegates, said that Lo should defend the party’s ideals and policies instead of criticizing it. A proposal to review the suitability of the party’s legislators-at-large was submitted to the KMT’s 18th Central Advisory Council meeting yesterday. The proposal said that “legislators-at-large deemed and confirmed as unsuitable ... should either resign voluntarily or have the party’s Disciplinary Committee decide whether the individual should be suspended or expelled.” The media dubbed the motion the “Lo Shu-lei clause.” It was not discussed at yesterday’s later session.
■SOCIETY
Liu hotter than Ma
Former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) beat President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in a lineup for The Hottest Heads of State released by a Web blog bearing the same title (hottestheadsofstate.wordpress.com) last week. Liu ranked the 129th in the lineup, while Ma was not even on the list of 172 heads of state. Liu topped South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who was ranked 165th, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who placed 172nd. Ukranian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko topped the ranking, followed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. US President Barack Obama placed 15th.
■SOCIETY
Survey rates e-services
Making a hospital appointment and booking a train ride are the two most popular electronic government services, a recent survey by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) found. The survey on e-government services and related issues found that 62 percent of respondents knew how to use a computer and 95 percent of computer users used the Internet. About 80 percent of respondents said they were aware the government offers many different kinds of electronic services, and 67 percent said they were satisfied with the speed at which information on e-government Web sites was updated. The survey also found that 44 percent of respondents browsed for information on the Web sites of government institutions, and that the five most-used e-government services were scheduling hospital appointments (65.8 percent), booking train tickets (57.4 percent), filing taxes (46.3 percent), searching for a job (41.9 percent) and contacting online consulting services (28.9 percent). The survey was conducted on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30, with 1,106 randomly selected adults interviewed by telephone.
■TRANSPORTATION
Bridge work on schedule
Work on 50 bridges listed as requiring repair is being carried out according to schedule and is expected to be completed by next year, while another 52 bridges damaged by Typhoon Morakot will be repaired within two years, an official with the Director-General of Highways said. Five of the 50 bridges listed last year as old and dilapidated have already been fixed, he said, while the two-year window for typhoon damage repairs was feasible.
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