Managua, March 16 The National Assembly (parliament) of Nicaragua on Wednesday approved the consideration of a bill to include the Central American country in the Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency (ALCE), promoted by Mexico, to coordinate space activities in the region. The so-called “initiative for the approval of the Decree of the Constitutive Agreement of the Space Agency of Latin America and the Caribbean” was sent to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Parliament, where, in accordance with the law, it will be open for consultations, before being rejected or ratified by the plenary session. ALCE’s founding agreement, which, according to the Mexican government, aims to coordinate “cooperation in exploration, research, space technology and its applications” to promote the development of the region, was opened for signature last September and was quickly approved. 19 countries. For the Latin American Space Agency to become a reality, at least 11 countries in the region must certify its work, according to its statute. The signatories so far are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia. and Venezuela. Among the ALCE’s objectives are “strengthening” capacity in “Earth observation systems, for agriculture, disasters caused by natural phenomena (drought, floods, fires, hurricanes), security and surveillance, oceanography, meteorology, natural resource exploration and urban intelligence and mapping.” In February 2021, the National Assembly created the “National Secretariat for Outer Space, the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” at the request of President Daniel Ortega, to defend “the supreme national interests and the search for opportunity.” Last October, the Nicaraguan government inaugurated a bust in honor of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), the first man to travel into space, at a ceremony attended by his compatriot Fyodor Yurchikhin, one of the men with longest tenure. It stayed in space, with 673 cumulative days. Nicaragua is a country with no tradition or experience in space issues. EFE wpr / gf / jrh