Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the largest free trade area in the world, comes into effect for Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Elon Musk completes his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter 2023 Croatia adopts the euro and joins the Schengen Area, becoming the 20th member state of the Eurozone and the 27th member of the Schengen Area. Trade The World Trade Organization reported that trade growth had stagnated and that trade restrictions were increasing as the decade began. The sectors most affected by import restrictions were mineral and fuel oils (17.7%), machinery and mechanical appliances (13%), electrical machinery and parts (11.7%), and precious metals (6%). Regional trade agreements were also found to be increasing. Stock markets Crashes Cybersecurity and hacking Health Epidemics/Outbreaks Pandemics Science and technology Space 2020 Space company SpaceX sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on 30 May 2020, marking the first time a private company completed a crewed orbital spaceflight mission. NASA launched the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter drone on 30 July 2020 as part of their Mars 2020 mission to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. On 19 April 2021, the Ingenuity helicopter drone performed the first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on a planet other than Earth. The Royal Astronomical Society announced the detection of phosphine gas in Venus' atmosphere on 14 September 2020, which is known to be a strong predictor for the presence of microbial life. 2021 China sends Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to assemble and then occupy and work aboard the Tiangong Space Station. Following the formal releases of three videos of UFOs (also known as UAPs) in 2020, a report on the subject by the United States Intelligence Community would be published on 25 June 2021 with the report concluding that UFOs existed. This would be the first time a government would officially confirm the existence of UFOs, though no conclusion was made on what these phenomena were, extraterrestrial or otherwise. On 11 July 2021, Virgin Galactic became the first spaceflight company to independently launch a paying civilian into outer space using the 50-mile high definition of outer space, having flown Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson above the 50 mile mark, enabling him and the rest of the crew to experience approximately 3 minutes of weightlessness above Earth's