■ CRIME
Fake bags prove costly
The Intellectual Property Court ruled that a woman must pay Hermes International SCA NT$256 million (US$7.5 million) for selling four fake Hermes handbags, local media reported yesterday. The amount is the highest compensation sought by the court in a violation of intellectual property rights, reports said. The court made the ruling recently after the Paris-based luxury goods manufacturer sued the woman, surnamed Lee, 41. The sum reflects the maximum fine for violating intellectual property rights — 500 times the value of the goods sold. Lee, a former sales clerk for Hermes Taiwan, bought four fake Hermes’ Birkin handbags and sold them through two second-hand shops in Taiwan, splitting the profits with the shop owners, media reports said.
■ TOURISM
Taichung travel fair opens
The 2009 Taichung International Travel Fair opened at the Taichung World Trade Center yesterday with a wide variety of discount travel packages on offer. This year’s fair is the largest ever, with 300 exhibitors and an additional 50 booths outside. Local and foreign tourism bureaus, airline companies, travel agencies, hotels, holiday resorts, theme parks, cruise liners and city and county governments are all exhibiting. Vistors found plenty of deals to choose from. Among them: a three-day trip to Hong Kong for NT$5,988 and a six-day excursion to Australia’s Gold Coast for NT$19,800. The fair runs through Monday.
■ AGRICULTURE
Orange demand plummets
Farmers in Taitung County are concerned about plummeting demand for their oranges, the local farmers’ association said yesterday. Association officials said orders for tangerines and Valencia oranges have fallen by some 70 percent. Taitung farmers had a bumper crop of Valencia oranges this spring but half the fruit remains unharvested and prices have fallen to NT$100 for 3.5kg, said Donghe farmers’ association officials.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS