Global warming has taken a serious toll on Taiwan's ecology as the type and amount of algae growing under the sea in waters off southern Taiwan's Kenting National Park and the island's northeastern region have largely perished, an expert warned yesterday.

A five-week Hakka arts festival will open in Liukuei township, Pingtung County, Nov. 21 to showcase traditional and innovative aspects of the ethnic group's culture, the top official in charge of national Hakka affairs announced Tuesday.

The pigs on farms in Kuanshan township, Pingtung County, have been cleared of influenza H1N1, which means they can be sold in wholesale markets, the county's animal health bureau confirmed yesterday.

Christian missionary Matika Leena Marjatta of Finland, who had worked in Pingtung, southern Taiwan for over 40 years, returned to Taiwan recently to visit the hospital where she served as a nurse between 1957-1998.

Police discovered the body of a 31-year-old Pingtung County man Monday who had been reported missing by worried neighbors after he was not seen leaving his home for almost two months, according to news reports.

Nearly 50,000 gray-faced buzzard eagles have passed through southern Taiwan's Kenting National Park this year, the most since their numbers were first recorded 20 years ago, as environmental education and controls on illegal hunting have taken hold.

The tradition of burning Wang Yeh's boat has persisted for 300 years, but the 100,000 people who flocked to the fishing port of Donggang in Pingtung County for this year's eight-day ritual demonstrated that the attachment to the local deity has only grown stronger with time.

A vineyard owner in Pingtung was recently charged with battery and negligence after his runaway horse injured a passing motorcyclist in a road accident, local media reported yesterday.

Pingtung police yesterday arrested a couple and a man suspected for making drugs using cold syrup and capsules.

For many Donggang residents, the 300-year-old Wangyeh festival, held every three years, is an event passed on from one generation to the next, with many of the official positions in the eight-day temple activity passed down from father to son.