GLOBAL DIARY
“The enlargement must be quicker ... It would be great if more or less all the countries of the region could enter the EU together” – BORUT PAHOR, PRESIDENT OF SLOVENIA
JOE BIDEN VISITS EUROPE ON FIRST OVERSEAS TRIP AS US PRESIDENT US President Joe Biden embarks on his first overseas trip where he met European partners and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. His eight-day visit to Europe - which has included a G7 leaders’ meeting in the UK, an audience with the Queen and his first NATO summit as president - concludes by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva. G7 leaders seeking to rival China have adopted a plan to support lower- and middle-income countries in building better infrastructure. President Biden said he wanted the US-backed Build Back Better World (B3W) plan to be a higher-quality alternative to a similar Chinese programme.
SERBIAN SCIENTIST GORDANA VUNJAK WON EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 2021 Serbian-American biomedical engineer and university professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic won the Award’s Popular Prize, having received the most votes from the public in an online poll. Vunjak-Novakovic, who had been nominated in the “Lifetime achievement” category, opened new horizons in regenerative medicine by developing a way of growing new tissue ex vivo (outside the body) using the patient’s own cells.
COLOMBIA OFFERS REWARD AFTER PRESIDENTIAL HELICOPTER SHOOTING Colombia has offered a reward of three billion pesos ($796,000; £573,000) for information about an attack on the president’s helicopter. Iván Duque was nearing Cúcuta airport near the border with Venezuela when his aircraft was hit by gunfire on 25 June. Photos released later showed bullet holes in the rotor and tail of the helicopter. Nobody on board was injured. The UN, EU and US have all condemned the attack.
16
July
