From Wiiplus.net

Those of you who are importers should be happy to know that first-party games for Wii will be region-free. Perrin Kaplan, vice-presdent of marketing and coporate affairs at Nintendo, made the announcement today, through an interview with Wired News. Although all first-party games are region-free, region-locking on thrid-party titles will be decided by the individual publishers. Whether or not the Wii's Gamecube drive will be region-free is unknown at the moment.

Kaplan also revealed a bit more info on the ownership of Virtual Console downloads. After donloading a virtual console title, it will be tied to your account. Although, if for whatever reason you get a new Wii, you'll still be able to play the games you already purchased.

When asked on the storage capabilities, Kaplan responded by saying at first, Memory would be stored only using flash memory (internal memory and SD cards). When questioned about using external USB memory storage, she said that Nintendo have no plans at the moment, however a Wii specfic HDD is a possibility for the future. From what was discussed, it doesn't seem like Wii owners will be able to use their own USB memory devices from the get-go.

WiiPlus will keep you updated.
Source

personally i think its great news..... it means i can import games easily if they come out in the US way earlier than UK... and if tomorrows UK conferences goes badly and we (people in europe) have to wait a long time to get the Wii (some places saying March) then i think ill simply import one and hook up a transformer...