Issued by Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Information Services
Garden Road, 5th-8th Floors, Murray Building, Hong Kong. Tel: 2842 8777

Friday, January 30, 1998



CONTENTS
========
1. Bus accident regretted
2. Psychological service for traffic accident victims
3. Update on avian flu
4. Government Homepage gaining popularity



1. Bus accident regretted
   **********************

     A spokesman for the Transport Department expressed
deep concern for the victims of this (Friday) morning's
bus accident in Wan Chai and regret about the occurrence
of the accident.

     He said, "Our staff concerned had touched base with
Citybus and the Police immediately after the accident for
further information.  Also, our engineer from the Motor
Vehicle Examination Section will try to obtain more
information from Citybus engineering staff and the Police
to obtain further information on the structure of the bus
involved in the accident and possible factors for the
accident."

End


2. Psychological service for traffic accident victims
   **************************************************

     The Social Welfare Department has set up a hotline
to render psychological service to those who are affected
by the traffic accident in Wan Chai this morning
(Friday).

     Clinical psychologist can be reached on 9038 6541
from 9 am to 9 pm on Saturday (January 31) and Sunday
(February 1).  Follow-up counselling services will be
arranged for those in need.

End


3. Update on avian flu
   *******************

     The Department of Health (DH) announced today
(Friday) that there was no new case of influenza A (H5N1)
today.

     The total number of cases stands at 18 confirmed
cases.

     The conditions of these cases remain the same as of
January 16.

End


4. Government Homepage gaining popularity
   **************************************

     The government Internet home page stepped into the
Year of the Tiger with the fruitful record of a nine-fold
increase in visitor figures in its first two years.

     Monthly visitor traffic to the index page of the
Government Information Centre, the web site of the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region, has surged from
14,082 in December 1995, when it was launched, to 121,872
last month, making a total of 1,499,962 visitors during
the period.  Correspondingly, the average number of
visitors per day has boosted from 521 to 3,931.

     A spokesman for the Information Services Department
said today (Friday) the web site was a single access
point for home pages of all policy bureaux and government
departments.  These pages can be found by clicking the
appropriate government agencies in the pull-down menus on
the index page at http://www.info.gov.hk.

     "By the end of last year, all bureaux and
departments had uploaded their home pages onto the
Internet.  Information about the services, work and
organisation of the government agencies are freely
available at the users' fingertips."

     Information available ranges from policy documents
and consultation papers to current weather and daily
cause lists at local courts.

     The spokesman was fully confident in the potential
of the Internet to be an important communication means
between the government and the public at large.

     "More and more people are aware of the advantage
that the medium has: it can transmit voluminous but
neatly presented information in the shortest possible
time, reaching every corner of the world provided with a
computer."

     "The trend was amplified in the abrupt surge of hit
rate to GIC in response to event like the Policy Speech
when the daily visitor traffic jumped to 8,400."

End

---