Minister of the Interior Liao Liao-yi (廖了以) has promised to present a draft amendment to the Legislative Yuan in September which, if approved, would grant legal resident status to descendants of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) army troops left in Myanmar and Thailand following the Chinese Civil War.
Liao made the pledge on Thursday after receiving representatives of 380 descendants of the soldiers who are studying in Taiwan. Liao met them after they staged a protest outside the Legislative Yuan and a sit-in at Liberty Square in Taipei earlier in the day to demand that the government recognize their legitimate status.
Saying that the legislature would go into recess on July 18, Liao added that the ministry planned to put forth an amendment to the Immigration Act in September when the next legislative session opens.
The descendants complained that, as they did not hold Taiwanese citizenship and some are staying in Taiwan illegally, they often worried about being arrested by police.
Liao said that the National Immigration Agency would issue temporary registration certificates to them on July 15 and July 16 to ensure their legal stay in Taiwan before the approval of the amendment.
He also promised to order the agency to map out measures to tackle relevant issues involving the descendants.
The protesters’ parents, along with thousands of KMT soldiers, were moved to Myanmar and Thailand after retreating from China following the KMT’s defeat at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
As the Myanmar and Thai governments refused to grant them residency or citizenship, some of the descendants chose to come to Taiwan with forged passports.
Despite having graduated from Taiwanese schools, some of them still have no Thai or Burmese citizenship, while becoming illegal immigrants to Taiwan.
A NT$39 receipt for two bottles of tea at a FamilyMart was among the NT$10 million (US $312,969) special prize winners in the January-February uniform invoice lottery. FamilyMart said that two NT$10 million-winning receipts were issued at its stores, as well as two NT$2 million grand prizes and three NT$200,000 first prizes. The two NT$10 million receipts were issued at stores in Pingtung County and Yilan County’s Dongshan Township (冬山). One winner spent just NT$39 on two bottles of tea, while another spent NT$80 on water, tea and coffee, the company said. Meanwhile, 7-Eleven reported three NT$10 million winners — in New Taipei
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
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