Foreign nationals eligible to receive the NT$3,600 in government-issued consumer vouchers but whose names do not appear on the official roster must notify the National Immigration Agency (NIA) by today to qualify for the vouchers, the agency said yesterday.
All qualified foreign spouses, including those from China, who have not claimed their vouchers must do so before April 30, the NIA said.
The agency Web site provides a list of post offices authorized to distribute the vouchers.
The vouchers must be used before their expiration date of Sept. 30, the agency said.
The vouchers were issued on Jan. 18 as part of government efforts to boost the economy.
In other developments, a Chinese woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by two men has been permitted to apply for permanent residency.
A local newspaper reported that the woman, surnamed Wen, was conned into marrying a Taiwanese man a few years ago. She did not know that her husband was in the illegal drug business until she arrived in Taiwan, the NIA said.
Wen's husband was thrown into jail on drug charges shortly after she gave birth to their first child, the agency said. To support the family, Wen opened a small noodle shop in an old building, where she was allegedly sexually assaulted twice, it said.
The NIA and the Tainan City police learned of Wen's plight after news of her misfortune came out. Both have pledged to help Wen obtain permanent residency by next month.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
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