Supposed seatmates Obama & Ban both have history with Duterte for their remarks on rampant extra judicial-killings in the Philippines since his reign, to which he responded with insults & threats to leave the United Nations (only a joke, he followed), respectively.
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Throughout the campaign, Obama has repeatedly denounced Trump and deemed him “unfit” to serve as commander in chief, arguing that he’s pulling the Republican Party in a unsafe and unprecedented direction. Obama has endorsed Hillary Clinton and has said he plans to campaign full-force for the Democrat before the November 8 election.
Obama’s visit to Laos follows a stop in China, where he attended the G-20 summit of global economic powers.
Obama said that he had always been a friend of India and would continue to be a “strong partner of India and help in any way I can”, according to sources. During the so called “secret war” that ran in parallel to the Vietnam war, the USA conducted 580,000 bombing missions in an effort to take out Vietnamese troops using the jungle corridors and parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran into Laos, and also the communist Pathet Lao, who were running Laos from caves in the north. Obama said he planned to do everything possible to persuade lawmakers to approve it before year’s end.
“I am not ready to concede”, Obama said, adding that his administration was making progress in reducing the prison’s population.
It was a day that mixed America’s wartime legacy in Southeast Asia with Obama’s hopes for a future of deeper engagement with the region.
It was ultimately decided that the meeting would be cancelled, says a White House spokesman.
Even Donald Trump – the champion of birther rumors who may disparage President Barack Obama as much as Hillary Clinton – seemed insulted after Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte recently called Obama a “son of a b*tch”.
Duterte made the remark about Obama while explaining that he would not be lectured over extrajudicial killings in the war against drugs he has launched since taking over two months ago and which has killed about 2,400 people. “Do not just throw questions”, he said, finishing by declaring, “Putang ina, I will swear at you in that forum” – a Tagalog phrase for “son of a b–h”.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said here Wednesday that relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made great strides and effectively promoted regional peace, stability and prosperity.
Veering off his prepared speech, Duterte launched into a tirade about United States military killings in the Philippines when it was an American colony from 1898 to 1946, according to three diplomats AFP spoke with who were in the room.
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Evan Medeiros, Obama’s former top Asia adviser and now a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, saw the row as a “speed bump, not a road block” in U.S. -Philippines ties.
