The Silk Superhighway

Five years old, but vindicated, still quite relevant and accurate:

 

Who is China’s largest trading partner?

If you guessed the United States, you’re wrong. It’s the European Union.

If you got the first one right, here is another question: Who are the biggest exporters in the world? First place goes to the European Union. Second goes to China. Third would then go to Germany if it wasn’t already included within the EU. America comes in at a distant fourth place, followed by Japan.

The world has changed. Not long ago, America was both the largest exporter of manufactured goods and the world’s most important economy.

…

Yes, a shift is occurring—and it is titanic. Today’s global power centers of manufacturing and trade have swung back to Europe and China. The most important and lucrative trade routes are once again between the old world’s East and West. The modern Silk Road is swarming with the new merchants.

The EU’s Covert Military Satellite Program

The world’s biggest Earth-observation program gets underway in Europe.

The EU launched its Sentinel-1a satellite from French Guiana on April 3 as it began the rollout of its advanced fleet of Earth-monitoring satellites. Once the Sentinel-1a’s sister satellite, the 1b, is launched, the pair will be able to give radar images of anywhere on the Earth within three to six days.

They’re part of the EU’s Copernicus project which aims to give the EU an extensive view of the Earth’s surface.

“There is no Earth-observation project as big as this,” said Prof. Anne Glover, the EU’s chief scientific adviser.