The Know Daily - Monday 10 July 2023

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Rather than going to waste, an award-winning garden from the Chelsea Flower Show has been relocated to St Margaret’s House community centre in Bethnal Green, London. The design of the garden, which came first place in the All About Plants category, was inspired and sponsored by Talitha Arts - a charity that uses therapeutic arts to help people affected by trauma. Blooming wonderful 🌼

🇺🇸 Biden in London

US President Joe Biden has landed in the UK ahead of a Nato summit in Lithuania later this week and is set to meet with PM Rishi Sunak later today.

Tell me more.
The two leaders are expected to discuss various issues, including the war in Ukraine. The BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner has said that this could be a “potentially awkward visit”, due to disagreements between the US and UK over who should be the next secretary general of Nato.

The meeting comes after the US decided on Friday to fulfil a Ukrainian request for cluster bombs as part of a new military aid package, prompting the UK and other Nato allies to voice concern over the risk that such weapons pose to civilians.

Why are the weapons so controversial?
“Cluster bombs typically release lots of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area”, explained the BBC, and “unexploded bomblets can linger on the ground for years before they detonate”. The UK is one of 123 countries signed up to an international treaty which bans the production or use of the weapons.

Biden told CNN that it had been a “very difficult decision” to fulfil Kyiv’s request, but that it was needed because Ukraine’s weapon stocks are dwindling. The US has said its cluster bombs fail less frequently than those Russia is already using, and that it has received written reassurances from Kyiv that the weapons will be used to liberate Ukrainian territory and not in Russia or urban areas.

Is there anything else I should know?
Members of Nato - a military alliance of 31 Western nations - will meet in Vilnius on Tuesday and Wednesday. The summit “is set to be dominated by the alliance's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Kyiv membership application”, reported Euronews. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy is expected to attend the summit, but is reportedly pessimistic about his country making progress towards joining Nato.