The Taipei Customs Office is trying to ascertain whether the 1,865 Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) video game discs it seized last week are pirated copies.
Customs officials said yesterday they had asked the Aviation Police Bureau to intervene in the smuggling case.
The officials said that the confiscated Wii and PS2 discs could sell for as much as NT$2.6 million (US$79,000) on the local market.
Last month the Taipei Customs Office requested the help of a representative from Nintendo, who certified that 400 Wii discs, worth NT$600,000, seized at the nation's ports of entry in May were all pirated copies.
Those involved in smuggling the discs were prosecuted in accordance with the Copyright Law (
The latest Nintendo game console is gaining in popularity, with the number of consoles in Taiwan estimated at 200,000. Yet the product has not yet been officially launched in Taiwan.
The National Communications Commission said that Nintendo had obtained certification to market the Wii console in Taiwan.
Passengers entering Taiwan are allowed to import two Nintendo Wii discs duty-free.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese