• From June 9 to16, US President George Bush will be touring Europe, visiting Slovenia for the EU-USA summit on June 9 and10, Germany (10 and 11), Italy and Vatican (11-12), France (13-14), UK and Ireland (15-16). He is expected to confer with allies on matters of war, terrorism and trade. Bush will mark the 60th anniversary of both the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift.

• On June 10, bookseller Waterstones will auction in London the secret of what happened before boy wizard Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, an 800-word-long outline of a prequel to the seven-book series penned by author J. K. Rowling.

• In Pakistan, lawyers plan to begin “long march” protest covering several cities on June 10 to demand reinstatement of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf.

• On June 11, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet a key aboriginal demand when he stands up in Parliament and formally apologises to native Indian children survivors, who were forcibly removed from their parents from the 1870s to the 1970s and sent to distant residential schools, where many say they were abused mentally, physically and sexually.

• On June 12, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is to be handed out. It is open to books written in any language.

•Kosovo’s independence will take effect on June 15, when its constitution comes into force and the U.N. mission that has run Kosovo since 1999 is expected to hand over its remaining powers. A full UN withdrawal, however, appears doubtful and it is not clear whether the EU missions that are moving in and the UN can work together.