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.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. 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’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS