This is how Duterte will meet US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the first time.
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After touring the rehab center, Obama was taking a short flight to Luang Prabang, a city in mountainous northern Laos that is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
There are now 300,000 American citizens living in the Philippines and millions of Filipinos in the U.S. This is one of the most enduring aspects of the US-PH partnership, the binding and personal ties between people.
Speaking at a Q&A session with young leaders in Laos, Obama said he thinks focus on the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the USA and 11 other countries will resume after the election. Obama plans to tour a Buddhist temple, before opening himself up for questions from young Southeast Asians at a town hall-style event at a local university.
Greeting the temple monks, Mr Obama posed for a group photo with about 20 boys in bright orange robes after being informed they were not supposed to shake hands.
And with a slight bow, he accepted flowers from Miss Luang Prabang.
President Barack Obama says Laotians have been living under the “shadow of war” for four decades. “The war did not end when the bombs stopped falling”. Obama says the US dropped some 270 million cluster bombs, including 80 million that never exploded and remain a threat.
But he also said that the two governments will continue to have differences, adding that the United States will continue to speak up on what it considers to be universal human rights, including the rights of the Lao people to express themselves freely and decide their own future.
He touted his administration’s move to double spending on ordnance clean-up to roughly 90 million dollars (£67 million) over three years.
President Obama blamed the failure to pass a multinational trade agreement on the US presidential election campaign Wednesday, saying it’s hard to get things done during political season.
Earlier Wednesday, Obama paid tribute to survivors maimed by some 80 million unexploded bombs the USA dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War.
Obama is also telling the survivor of one of the bombs that he’s inspired by him.
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Half a century ago, the U.S. turned Laos into history’s most heavily bombed country, dropping two million tons of ordnance in a covert, nine-year chapter of the Vietnam War. Vowing the USA will do more to help finally remove them, he touted his administration’s move to double spending on ordnance clean-up to roughly 90 million U.S. dollars (£67 million) over three years.
