■POLITICS
Prosecutors appeal on Lee
Taipei prosecutors yesterday went to the Taiwan High Court to appeal the Taipei District Court ruling against former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安), saying Lee committed forgery in addition to fraud. The district court last month found Lee guilty of fraud for possessing dual citizenship while she was an elected official, sentencing her to two years in prison. Lee was convicted of four counts of fraud in connection with her US citizenship. An original four-year sentence was commuted to two years. But the district court decided Lee had not committed forgery. Prosecutors said Lee only declared her Republic of China (ROC) citizenship on the forms she filled out before becoming a Taipei City councilor in 1994 and during her three terms as a lawmaker starting in 1998. They said she deliberately left blank the field asking whether she held citizenship of any country other than the ROC, which constitutes forgery under the Criminal Code. Public officials are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.
■SOCIETY
Dozens injured at festival
Thirty-three people were injured at the Taiwan Lantern Festival on Sunday night in Chiayi, with seven of them remaining hospitalized yesterday. A six-year-old girl had the worst injury, suffering third-degree burns to her face. The accident took place during the fireworks display when the main lantern was illuminated. Several of the fireworks fell into the crowd, injuring spectators. The contractor in charge of the display said the fireworks may have malfunctioned because of the humidity, which caused them to deviate from their designated paths. Government officials and Chiayi Mayor Huang Ming-hui (黃敏惠) visited the injured in hospital on Sunday night. Huang said the city would take full responsibility for the accident.
■HEALTH
Fungus properties found
A fungus widely used in medicine in Taiwan — Taiwanofungus camphoratus — has been proven to contain an anti-inflammatory compound, a local research team said yesterday. David Wang (王升陽), an associate professor at National Chung Hsing University’s Department of Forestry and the head of the team, unveiled the results of the study at a news conference. The study was also recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Though T. camphoratus contains 100 compounds, the team was able to prove that the fungus, which can only be found in the wild growing on the inner bark of a local camphor tree called Cinnamomum kanehirai, has anti-inflammatory properties through its bioactive compound, antrocamphin A. The study also found that antrocamphin A could be derived from T. camphoratus after being cultivated for nine months, Wang said.
■HEALTH
Morakot money not spent
More than half of the donations collected by the government and private charities to provide relief to Typhoon Morakot victims have yet to be used, the latest government statistics showed. Of the NT$22 billion (US$684 million) collected for victim relief and post-disaster reconstruction, only 49.05 percent has been spent, with NT$11.4 billion still untouched, figures released by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) showed. The donations were collected by 69 fund-raising groups, including the MOI, local governments, the Red Cross Society, social welfare and charity organizations, non-profit foundations and religious groups.
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