Taiwan is seeking to work with Germany and France on space technology, the National Science and Technology Council said on Tuesday.
A delegation to Europe, led by National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠), has met with aerospace leaders in France and Germany to discuss the latest developments in the field and the countries’ priorities, the council said in a statement.
Wu talked with German Aerospace Center CEO Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla about the possibility of tapping into Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to develop satellite components, it said.
Wu said that Taiwan’s space industry is working to develop high-resolution remote sensing satellites and low Earth orbit communication satellites, among other craft.
The delegation, which arrived in Europe on Tuesday last week and returns tomorrow, also visited France-based Arianespace, the world’s first commercial launch service provider, to check on the progress of launch preparations for Taiwan’s first indigenous weather satellite, Triton, the council said.
It is in the testing stage ahead of its planned launch on March 10 next year, on a Vega C rocket built by Arianespace at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, it said.
Also called “Wind Hunter” (獵風者) in Chinese, Triton would primarily be used for sea surface observation, which is expected to boost Taiwan’s weather and climate forecasting capabilities, it said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the