Warning of “bloody” confrontation over the South China Sea with China if they invaded into the Filipino territory, Duterte said he would jet ski into the conflicted South China Sea region and plant the flag of Philippines. According to an official statement released by the Presidential palace, he said, “I don’t care about human rights, believe me”.
Advertisement
An exhibit of “bombies”, or cluster submunitions, at the visitor center for the non-profit COPE.
Obama is recounting the nine-year “secret war” that the US conducted in Laos during the Vietnam War.
Obama is the first sitting US president to set foot in the impoverished, landlocked country.
US funding for clearance of unexploded ordnance and victims’ assistance has steadily grown since 2010, when Congress mandated that the USA government give at least $5 million for unexploded ordnance removal.
As Duterte arrived in the Laos capital, Vientiane, for the Association of South-east Asian Nations summit on Monday evening, he was already rowing back on the remark, saying he did not want a fight.
The U.S. dropped the bombs over a nine-year period during the Vietnam War.
In an exhibit in downtown Vientiane, dozens and dozens of round “bombies”, each the size of tennis ball, hang from the ceiling like necklaces.
Obama is beginning a three-day stop in Laos. “So … people who live in glass houses should not” throw stones”, Duterte said, the Associated Press reported. In return, the Lao government pledged to ramp up assistance in locating and returning remains of Americans missing in war.
In the central Lao province of Xieng Khouang, the area most heavily bombed by United States aircraft during the war in neighbouring Vietnam, there is a trail of devastation.
The U.S. directed much of its firepower at the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which North Vietnamese fighters used to infiltrate the South, by way of Laos and Cambodia.
“Many of the bombs that were dropped were never exploded”.
The booklet said that since Duterte took office 7,532 drug operations had been carried out, 12,972 pushers and users had been arrested, and police operations in July reduced crime by 49 percent from a year earlier.
To this day, less than 1 percent of the bombs have been cleared, according to USA -based non-government organization Legacies of War.
“The United States is helping Laos clear unexploded ordnance, which poses a threat to people and hampers economic development”, it said. But she was so handsome, I think the mayor should have been first.
Advertisement
In fields across Xieng Khouang province, MAG technicians root out the bombs and carry out controlled detonations to “destroy the bombies, to make these areas farmable and safe again”, says Rhea. He was answering a reporter’s question about how he intends to explain the extrajudicial killings to Mr. Obama.
