Following a recent round of footwear inspections, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection yesterday said 48 percent of children’s footwear on the market contains excess amounts of phthalate plasticizers.
Phthalate plasticizers are chemical substances used to soften rubber or other materials, making them more flexible and fluid. It is also a known endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC), which can cause males to develop more feminine traits and increases the risk of females developing breast cancer.
Chinese National Standards (CNS) regulations say that total levels of EDC should not exceed 0.1 percent in plastic shoes.
Among the 21 pairs of children’s shoes inspected by the bureau ahead of Children’s Day on Monday, it found only 11 pairs passed the EDC levels test.
Excess levels of EDC were found in the remaining 11 pairs, ranging from 5.8 percent to 42.2 percent, or 422 times the CNS standard.
According to bureau deputy director-general Huang Lai-ho (黃來和), EDCs may easily be absorbed into the human body if the children do not wear socks, or if ECDs come into contact with human skin to which frost-bite cream has been applied.
All models examined by the bureau found to contain excessive levels of EDCs have been ordered off the shelves immediately, according to bureau officials.
The bureau also said it found that 1,326 items out of the 92,266 items examined did not meet labeling standards in accordance with the Commodity Labeling Act (商品標示法).
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it