FOG BLOG WORLD NEWS LOG: BIDEN IN NORTHERN IRLELAND!

Joe Biden hails Northern Ireland young people on Belfast visit US President Joe Biden has praised Northern Ireland's young people, saying they are at the "cutting edge" of its future during his visit to Belfast.

Earlier he met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before briefly speaking to some of Stormont's political party leaders.

He is on a four-day visit to Ireland to mark 25 years since the Good Friday peace agreement, which ended decades of violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

He hailed the "tremendous progress" since the deal was signed in 1998.

"This place is transformed by peace; made technicolour by peace; made whole by peace," he said.

He hailed Northern Ireland as a "churn of creativity", having produced some of the world's most popular films and TV series over the past decade, and said that major economic opportunities for the region were "just beginning".

President Biden was speaking as he opened the new Ulster University campus in Belfast, his only official engagement in Northern Ireland.

His visit comes at a time when Northern Ireland's power-sharing government at Stormont is not functioning.

It collapsed last year when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - one of the biggest parties - pulled out as part of a protest against post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland.

Mr Biden urged politicians to make a return to governing but praised them for their unity after the attempted murder of one of Northern Ireland's top detectives in February.

John Caldwell was shot several times by two gunmen in Omagh, County Tyrone.

During his speech, the president said: "Northern Ireland will not go back [to violence]."