Tag Archives: Space Diplomacy

These personal reviews are being published during the holiday season. This is Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan of Observer Research Foundation.

The World Radio Conference 2019 (WRC-19) in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, took place on 28 October to 22 November 2019. The conference brought together 3500 participants from the ITU membership representing the world of frequency management on this planet. The following commentary is a quick overview of satellite-related WRC-19 decisions.

At the 74th UN General Assembly on 5 November 2019, Germany voted on four draft resolutions on arms control in space. This commentary provides information on how and with what intention the vote was taken, and why space weapons play a central role in this matter.

The 8th African Leadership Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development was hosted at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, in Ethiopia from the 2nd to the 4th December 2019. Over 200 participants joined the conference from 31 countries, 21 of which were African countries.

The member states of the BRICS economic bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – are in the midst of negotiating a mutually beneficial framework that will allow each country to access certain Earth observation satellites from each other, according to various press reports.

The President of the French national space agency, the Centre national d'études spatiales   (CNES), Jean-Yves Le Gall, visited Dakar, Senegal, on 12 December 2019 to take part in the commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA).

SpaceWatch.Global's Torsten Kriening took the opportunity to speak with Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Schrogl, President of the International Institute for Space Law (IISL), to discover more about the current challenges in space traffic management.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Prof. Mai’a K. Davis Cross, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts.

The Iranian government has expressed its wish to enter into a cooperative arrangement with its neighbour Azerbaijan for satellite research and development as well as satellite manufacturing, according to Azerbaijani and Iranian press reports.

NATO Foreign Ministers met in Brussels on 20 November 2019 to address a wide range of security challenges in preparation for the meeting of NATO leaders in London. “We all agree that NATO remains indispensable for our security, and that despite our differences, we are stronger as we face the future together,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.