Animal rights activists yesterday rallied in front of the Legislative Yuan building, urging lawmakers to pass laws to ban animal testing in the making of cosmetics products.
More than a dozen people wearing white T-shirts that read: “Beauty with Heart,” fake bunny ears and holding signs that read: “Say no to animal testing” or bearing pictures of white rabbits used in such animal testing marched to the Legislative Yuan’s front gate yesterday morning.
The organizers of the rally — animal rights group the Life Conservationist Association and an international cosmetics company, said yesterday marked the one-year anniversary since the European Commission announced a total ban on animal testing for cosmetics.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The phasing out of animal testing for cosmetics in the EU began in 2003 with a ban on testing cosmetics products and cosmetics ingredients on animals. The EU later banned the sale of cosmetics products and ingredients that were tested on animals.
“Animal testing is only done because it is relatively cheap, but it limits the marketability of the products, because they cannot be sold to countries in the EU,” association member Tang Yi-jhih (湯宜之) said. “Taiwanese should learn from the EU’s example and refuse to use cosmetic products that were tested on animals.”
Taiwan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals executive director Connie Chiang (姜怡如) said that many cosmetics sold by international brands have proved that thousands of ingredients are safe, and no longer require animal testing.
She said animal testing for cosmetics include applying the ingredients or products on the skin of rabbits after their fur has been shaved off, dripping the substances into rabbits’ eyes and observing their reactions and “lethal dose tests” that test the limit of the animals’ survivability after being exposed to different dosages of chemicals.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) urged women in Taiwan to take a stand against animal testing by only using products that guaranteed they had not been tested on animals.
DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Apollo Chen (陳學聖) also appeared at the rally to show their support and urge the public to boycott all cosmetics that had been tested on animals.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS