A bill aimed at deepening space cooperation between Taiwan and the US cleared the committee stage in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The Taiwan and American Space Assistance Act (TASA Act) was included as an amendment to the NASA Reauthorization Act, which the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology passed with a 37-0 vote.
The TASA Act was first introduced in September last year by US representatives French Hill and Gabe Amo.
Photo: Reuters
Because of the US government’s “one China policy,” NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had “limited” authority to work with the Taiwan Space Agency, which was launched in 2022, they said in a statement.
The TASA Act would not only give NASA and NOAA additional authority, but would also instruct them to “work with Taiwan in areas of mutual benefit, including satellite programs, space exploration programs, and atmospheric and weather programs,” the representatives said.
The bill would provide an avenue for “voluntary exchange of personnel from NASA and the NOAA to the Taiwan Space Agency to further advance Taiwan’s space capabilities,” the statement said.
The TASA Act was one of 41 amendments added to a bill authorizing US$24.4 billion in funding for NASA — a slight dip from last year’s budget of US$24.88 billion, but significantly more than the US$18 billion put forth by US President Donald Trump in his budget proposal for this year.
The amendments must be passed by the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, then signed into law by the president to take effect.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS