Using the Tagalog phrase for “son of a bitch”, he then said: “Putang ina, I will swear at you in the forum”.
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Obama said Tuesday it’s important to acknowledge the secret war and “the suffering and sacrifices on all sides of that conflict” especially among innocent men, women, and children. “But we are concerned about the upwards of 15,000 survivors around the country that are still in need of support”. He was to tour a Buddhist temple before taking questions from young Southeast Asians at a town hall-style event. The U.S. has contributed $100 million to the effort in the last 20 years, as annual deaths have fallen from more than 300 to fewer than 50, the White House said.
For nine years, the US conducted a punishing, covert bombing campaign on landlocked Laos in an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam. The Lao government, meanwhile, said it will boost efforts to recover remains and account for Americans missing since the war.
National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Obama won’t go through with a scheduled bilateral meeting with Duterte on Tuesday at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos.
That’s more bombs than the USA dropped on Germany or Japan during World War II, Obama noted, and it makes Laos – a country about the same size as Minnesota – the most heavily bombed country per capita in history, he said.
During the first-ever visit to Laos by a USA president, Barack Obama announced Tuesday that America will put $90 million toward removing unexploded bombs from the Southeast Asian country.
In a statement issued by his office on Tuesday, Duterte said he regretted that his comments warning the US against interfering in a war on drugs “came across as a personal attack”.
Obama filled the hole in his schedule by meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in a display of unity a day after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles.
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The White House officials said earlier that Obama would confront Duterte about his country’s handling of drug dealers, including extrajudicial killings, which are government executions without the benefit of judicial proceedings. Obama vowed to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang, but said the door wasn’t closed to a more functional relationship.
