Vice President Vincent Siew lit the main lantern yesterday evening, kicking off the 2010 Taiwan Lantern Festival in southern Taiwan's Chiayi City.

The head of the Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) attended a lighting ceremony Sunday to mark the opening of the 2010 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Chiayi, southern Taiwan.

A political heavyweight convicted of a series of crimes including game fixing, extortion and fraud, was arrested yesterday after spending almost two years in hiding, prosecutors said.

Magistrate Chang Hua-guan of Chiayi County, southern Taiwan, yesterday decided to grant subsidies to farmers to encourage them to grow rice plants, despite a worsening water shortage in southern Taiwan.

A lawmaker yesterday sued a magazine for libel over a report that claimed he had left Taiwan to avoid paying back debts totaling NT$500 million.

Chiayi Police yesterday crossed municipal lines to arrest a man who allegedly ran an underground weapons factory behind the facade of a registered green business in Chiayi County, local media reported.

Tourism Bureau has given Taiwan's biggest tiger lantern in Taiwan this year to Chiayi City, the main organizer of this year's Lantern Festival.

The 2010 Taiwan Lantern Festival (2010台灣燈會) will takes place between Feb. 28 and Mar. 7 in Chiayi Park(嘉義公園) in southern Taiwan's Chiayi City this year.

The national air force base at Chiayi sent helicopters to rescue workers stuck in a Central Weather Bureau station in Yushan yesterday.

Chinese nationals paid more than 600,000 visits to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan last year, a six-fold rise over 2008 when Taiwan opened its doors wider to Chinese tourists in the middle of the year, the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration reported Wednesday.