He walked near the river of Mekong where women sell coconut drinks and tasted the local refreshment, posing for photographs and conversing with locals.

Obama arrived in Laos Tuesday morning (September 6), becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit landlocked Laos, where the United States waged a "secret war" while fighting in Vietnam, dropping an estimated two million tonnes of bombs on the country.

Obama's visit follows his attendance at the G20 summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

He is also due to attend an annual international gathering in the Southeast Asian region.</s>U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos, the White House said on Wednesday.

“In the afternoon, the President will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India,” the White House said in its daily guidance released to the press.

The two leaders are expected to make brief remarks at the top of the meeting.

This would be the eighth meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Obama in two years. They met for the first time at the White House in September 2014, when Mr. Modi travelled to Washington DC at the invitation of Mr. Obama.

Prime Minister Mr. Modi exchanged views with Mr. Obama on the sidelines of the G20 summit in China’s Hangzhou on Sunday, with the U.S. president praising the “bold policy” move on GST reform in a “difficult” global economic scenario.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to address a news conference in Laos immediately after his meeting with Mr. Modi.

He would depart for the U.S. via Yokota, Japan for fuelling, soon after his news conference.</s>VIENTIANE, LAOS — Decades after U.S. planes conducted hundreds of thousands of bombing runs over Laos, President Obama acknowledged that secret war and pledged $90 million in additional aid Tuesday to help clear unexploded bombs still strewn across the country.

“Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal,” said Obama, the first U.S. president to visit this struggling Southeast Asian nation. “And this spirit of reconciliation is what brings me here today.”

From 1964 to 1973, the United States carried out 580,000 bombing missions in Laos, dropping more than 270 million cluster bombs in a CIA-led campaign as part of the expanding regional battles from neighboring Vietnam, according to the National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action in Laos. UXO refers to unexploded ordnance.

Many of the bombings sought to cut off supplies to Vietnam, even though, officially, Laos was neutral in the Vietnam War.

Today, roughly 80 million unexploded bombs remain and continue killing and maiming dozens each year — many of them children.

In recent years, U.S. aid toward removing those bombs has slowly increased, and deaths have decreased from 300 a year to fewer than 50. Tuesday’s announcement doubled the current U.S. funding.
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 “We feel an urgency . . . to do our part to accelerate the clearance process,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters in Vientiane.

In return, leaders in Laos said they would step up efforts to recover remains and missing American service members.

Obama was just one of many leaders in the Laotian capital for the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose members take turns hosting. As this year’s chair at the three-day gathering, Laos has been thrust into the spotlight — a still relatively undeveloped nation whose nominally communist government struggles with corruption, repression and economic growth.

Landlocked Laos is surrounded on all sides by more powerful neighbors that have long exploited its resources and vied for influence. In the north, China has staked its claims on land and business. In the east, Vietnam has been razing forests for years for lumber. And in the west, Thai leaders often take a paternalistic attitude to their Laotian counterparts and have been pushing for control over the Mekong River that divides them.

Laos’s economy remains fledgling and relies heavily on foreign aid. Corruption runs rampant in the government and private sector, and rights groups have complained about hard-line government policies.

Many activists have been detained or have disappeared, including renowned agricultural activist Sombath Somphone, who was dragged from his car in December 2012 in Vientiane.

Sombath has not been seen since, and Laotian officials have said only that an investigation is underway. But rights groups suspect he was taken by police.

“Pretty quickly, those talking about it and working to free him were told, ‘Shut up.’ They were told, ‘If you talk about this, you will have problems,’ ” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

Sombath had spent his career in rural development, teaching farmers new ways to eke out a living. And he was outspoken on inequitable land-grab deals, which have angered villagers throughout the country.

Last week at a public conference in Bangkok, Sombath’s wife, Ng Shui Meng, pleaded for Obama and other leaders visiting Laos to raise her husband’s case and the issue of human rights with Laotian leaders.

“Will the Lao leaders brush off the queries by resorting to the standard response that the police are still investigating?” she said. “I don’t know, but I hope not.”

On Tuesday, Rhodes said White House officials did raise Sombath’s case but heard back the standard response that the government is investigating and does not know where he is. The case, Rhodes said, is “something we will continue to raise” with Laotian officials. He said the topic of human rights as a U.S.-Laos issue is in its nascent phase.

“We understand and have to be mindful of the fact that we’re building a new relationship here,” he said. “We’re just beginning to have these types of conversations.”

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.</s>Aiming for closer ties to Laos, Obama honors its culture

LUANG PRABANG, Laos (AP) — Aiming to cement closer ties to Laos and its people, President Barack Obama toured a Buddhist temple Wednesday and paid tribute to Lao culture after pledging the U.S. would fulfill its "profound moral and humanitarian obligation" to clean up millions of unexploded bombs.

Obama's visit to Luang Prabang in mountainous northern Laos showcased a rich cultural and religious heritage that many in the West know little about. A UNESCO World Heritage List site along the Mekong River, the city was a hub for Buddhist faith during the Lan Xang kingdom starting in the 14th century.

Obama received a low-key reception after stepping off of Air Force One and as his motorcade snaked along a dusty, paved road through town. A small cluster of people waved from shops and open air cafes, recording the spectacle on their cellphones.

His first stop was Wat Xieng Thong, a 16th century complex of ornate gold buildings known as the "Temple of the Golden City." In shirt sleeves and black socks, Obama looked in awe at a large golden ship adorned at the bow with dragons, staring straight at the dragon's mouth.

"It's gorgeous," he said as he examined a line of golden statues.

Greeting the temple monks, Obama tried to shake hands with about 20 boys in bright orange robes, but was informed by his guide they weren't supposed to shake hands. Instead, he posed for a group photo before heading to a shop to buy gifts for daughters Sasha and Malia. After emerging with three bags, Obama went to a nearby coconut stand and drank from one of the fruits through a straw.

Obama also planned to take questions from young Southeast Asians at a town hall-style event, in what's become a staple of his overseas travels.

For Obama, the visit serves as a capstone to his yearslong effort to bolster relations with Southeast Asian countries long overlooked by the United States. The outreach is a core element of his attempt to shift U.S. diplomatic and military resources away from the Middle East and to Asia in order to counter China in the region and ensure a U.S. foothold in growing markets.

On this visit — the first by a sitting American president — Obama has placed a particular emphasis on trying to heal wounds inflicted by the secret war the U.S. waged here as part of the broader Vietnam War.

Acknowledging the dark aftershocks of the U.S. aerial bombardment, Obama paid tribute Wednesday to survivors maimed by some 80 million unexploded bombs America dropped, and said the U.S. will do more to help to finally clean them up.

Touring a rehabilitation center in Vientiane, the capital, Obama touted his administration's move to double spending on ordinance cleanup to roughly $90 million over three years.

"For the last four decades, Laotians have continued to live under the shadow of war," Obama said. "The war did not end when the bombs stopped falling."

Some 20,000 people have been killed or wounded since the war ended, Obama said after viewing displays of small rusted grenades and photos of a child missing his foot. He insisted those were "not just statistics," but reminders of the heavy toll inflicted by war — "some of them unintended."

"I'm inspired by you," he told one survivor, Thoummy Silamphan, who uses a prosthetic after losing a hand to one of the bombs.

The president did not come to apologize. Instead, he said he hoped the strengthened partnership on clearing the bombs could mark a "decisive step forward" between the U.S. and this landlocked communist nation.

Thanks to global cleanup efforts, casualties from tennis ball-sized "bombies" that still litter the Laotian countryside have plummeted from hundreds to dozens per year. But aid groups say far more help is needed. Of all the provinces in landlocked Laos, only one has a comprehensive system to care for bomb survivors.

The punishing air campaign on Laos was an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam. American warplanes dropped more explosives on this Southeast Asian nation than on Germany and Japan combined in World War II, a stunning statistic that Obama noted during his first day in Vientiane.

Obama was one of several world leaders visiting Laos to attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Taking its turn as chair of the regional forum, Laos' communist government is seizing a rare moment in the spotlight.

Lederman reported from Vientiane, Laos. Daniel Malloy in Luang Prabang contributed to this report.</s>VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday became the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in the isolated Southeast Asian nation of Laos, opening a three-day visit meant to rebuild trust and close a dark chapter in the shared history between the two countries.

Obama is one of several world leaders coming to the country of nearly 7 million people, where the one-party communist state tightly controls public expression but is using its moment in the spotlight as host of the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open up to outsiders.

Under a steady, tropical rain, Obama arrived late Monday and began a full day of ceremony and diplomacy Tuesday morning with a meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit. The president was greeted by a military band and a display of the troops at the presidential palace.

The visit comes during what is probably Obama’s final trip as president to Southeast Asia, a region that has enjoyed intense attention from the U.S. during his tenure. Obama’s frequent visits to oft-ignored corners of the Asia Pacific have been central to his strategy for countering China’s growing dominance in the region. By bolstering diplomatic ties in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar, the Obama administration has declared it wants to compete for influence and market access in China’s backyard.

In Laos, Obama will wrestle with the ghosts of past U.S. policies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. rained bombs on Laotian villages and the countryside as America’s war with Vietnam spilled across the border. The Laotian government estimates that more than 2 million tons of ordnance were released during more than 500,000 missions — one bomb every eight minutes for nine years.

An estimated 80 million cluster bombs did not explode, leaving tennis ball-sized “bombies” littering the impoverished countryside to wound and kill unsuspecting people.

In his meeting with Vorachit, Obama quickly acknowledged the “challenging history.” He is expected to announce additional aid to clean up unexploded ordnance, while the Laotian government is expected to offer help in accounting for missing and dead U.S. service members.

Obama said Monday in China, before he departed for Laos, that diplomatic work on war legacy issues will be “a show of good faith on the part of the country and a way for us to move into a next phase of a relationship.”

He cited Vietnam as the model. Aides said Obama’s visit will probably echo a stop in Hanoi, Vietnam, in May, when the president declared he was “mindful of the past, mindful of our difficult history, but focused on the future.”

In both countries, Obama benefits from not carrying baggage that might have complicated his message. Too young to have served in the Vietnam war, Obama serves as a generational page turner — eager to speak directly to those too young to remember the troubled past.

In Laos, as he has across Southeast Asia, he’ll hold a town-hall-style event for young people. The White House said he’ll encourage Laos’ slow political opening and budding entrepreneurial culture.

Obama will be speaking to people like 33-year-old Anysay Keola, who remembers his mother’s stories of running and hiding from the bombs and of memorizing a phrase roughly translating to: “The U.S. dropped the bomb on us.”

But Keola, an entrepreneur and filmmaker and part of Vientiane’s growing creative class, also grew up on American music and fashion. The war’s ill will faded long ago, and his friends are excited about Obama’s arrival but not necessarily for political reasons.

“He is perceived as like a celebrity,” Keola said. “It’s just on the surface: ‘Ooh, Obama’s coming. Ooh, big plane.’ Or things like that. Or his Cadillac car is here. Those are the things that people share and talk about.”

While the U.S. is known as a rich country with an outsized cultural influence, China, by contrast, is seen as the huge neighbor helping to spur this small nation’s robust growth. Massive Vientiane construction sites come adorned with Mandarin script. China has committed to financing a $7 billion high-speed railroad to bisect the country.

Though Vorachit is seen as edging closer to Vietnam than to China, the country has managed a diplomatic two-step this year. As chair of the Southeast Asian nations’ group, it has projected neutrality in other countries’ disputes with China over the South China Sea.

Associated Press writer Daniel Malloy in Luang Prabang, Laos, contributed to this report.</s>During an address to the Lao people in the country's capital, Obama pledged $90 million in a joint three-year project with the country's government to clear tens of millions of unexploded US bombs.

"Villages and entire valleys were obliterated," during US bombardments, Obama said. "Ancient plains were devastated. Countless civilians were killed. That conflict was another reminder whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll, especially on innocent men, women and children."

Obama is beginning a three-day stop in Laos. He's the first US president to visit to country.

"The remnants of war continue to shatter lives here in Laos," Obama said. "Many of the bombs dropped never exploded. Over the years thousands of Laotians have been killed or injured, farmers tending fields, children playing. The wounds, a missing leg or arm, last a lifetime. That's why I've dramatically increased or funding to remove these unexploded bombs." The move was welcomed by Laos President Bounnhang Vorachit as a way of strengthening mutual trust after the devastating campaign, that still maims or kills 50 people who stumble upon unexploded mines each year. In return, the Lao government pledged to ramp up assistance in locating and returning of Americans missing in war. Efforts to find the bombs will be aided the Pentagon, who will supply records of where they were dropped. Between 1964 and 1973, US warplanes rained more than two million tons of bombs on Laotian villages and countryside to try and cut off the Vietnamese army's supply trail. To this day, less than 1% of the bombs have been cleared, according to US-based non-government organization Legacies of War. US funding for clearance of unexploded ordnance and victims' assistance has steadily grown since 2010, when Congress mandated that the US government give at least $5 million for unexploded ordnance removal. This year, Congress allotted $19.5 million, but now, for the first time, an American president has publicly recognized that the US has a responsibility to do more. "That conflict was another reminder that whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts terrible toll, especially on innocent men, women and children," Obama said. "Today I stand with you in acknowledging the sacrifices on all sides of that conflict. From the anguish of war, there came an unlikely bond between our two peoples." The HALO Trust is the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance organization. It works in Laos to clear unexploded ordnance. Here, two HALO technicians use a Large Loop Detector to clear a hazardous area. HALO prioritizes land which will be used for community development projects and agricultural land. A HALO team walks through a paddy field to get to work. Dense vegetation and a very wet rainy season can make the job difficult. A HALO Technician uses a detector during the clearance of a Confirmed Hazardous Area (CHA). Ms Toyota, one of HALO's team leaders, prepares what she needs to conduct the demolition of a cluster munitions. A HALO supervisor shows where the organization has found items of unexploded ordnance -- the yellow sticks indicate how close they are to one village house.</s>VIENTIANE, Laos -- President Barack Obama on Monday became the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, opening a three-day visit meant to rebuild trust and close a dark chapter in two nations' shared history.

Obama is one of several world leaders going to Laos, where the one-party communist state tightly controls public expression among the country's nearly 7 million people and is using its moment in the spotlight as host of the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open up to outsiders.

Obama canceled a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines scheduled for today in Laos, after the Philippine president directed an expletive at Obama on Monday.

Duterte warned Obama not to ask him about extrajudicial killings related to his crackdown on drug dealers, a campaign pledge that helped sweep him to victory in the country's presidential election in May.

"I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony," Duterte told reporters before he left his country for Laos.

"I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody," he said. Apparently addressing Obama, he added: "You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions." Then, using a curse in Tagalog that can be translated as "son of a b****," he added, "I will swear at you in that forum."

Obama had planned to meet Duterte in Laos, but the White House said early today that the meeting had been canceled.

"Clearly, he's a colorful guy," Obama said Monday. "I always want to make sure if I'm having a meeting that it's productive."

Duterte has been under intense global scrutiny over the more than 2,000 suspected drug dealers and users killed since he took office. Obama had said he planned to raise the matter in his first meeting with Duterte, but the Philippine leader insisted he was only listening to his own country's people.

The visit to Laos comes during what is probably Obama's final trip as president to Southeast Asia, a region that has enjoyed intense attention from the U.S. during his tenure. Obama's frequent visits to often-ignored corners of the Asian Pacific region have been central to his strategy for countering China's growing dominance in the region. By bolstering diplomatic ties in Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma, the Obama administration has declared it wants to compete for influence and market access in China's backyard.

In Laos, Obama will wrestle with the ghosts of past U.S. policies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. rained bombs on Laotian villages and the countryside as America's war with Vietnam spilled across the border. The Laotian government estimates that more than 2 million tons of ordnance were released during more than 500,000 missions -- one bomb every eight minutes for nine years.

An estimated 80 million cluster bombs did not explode, leaving tennis ball-size "bombies" littering the impoverished countryside to wound and kill unsuspecting people.

Obama planned to acknowledge this history and its damaging effect on Laos' development, tourism and agriculture. He is expected to announce additional aid to clean up undetonated ordnance, while the Laotian government is expected to offer help in accounting for missing and dead U.S. service members.

Obama said Monday in China, before he departed for Laos, that diplomatic work on war legacy issues will be "a show of good faith on the part of the country and a way for us to move into a next phase of a relationship."

He cited Vietnam as the model. Aides said Obama's visit will probably echo a stop in Hanoi, Vietnam, in May, when the president declared he was "mindful of the past, mindful of our difficult history, but focused on the future."

In Laos, as he has across Southeast Asia, he'll hold a town-hall-style event for young people. The White House said he'll encourage Laos' slow political opening and budding entrepreneurial culture.Though Laos' new president, Bounnhang Vorachit, is seen as edging closer to Vietnam than to China, the country has managed a diplomatic two-step this year. As chair of the Southeast Asian nations' group, it has projected neutrality in other countries' disputes with China over the South China Sea.

Information for this article was contributed by Kathleen Hennessey, Josh Lederman, Daniel Malloy and Teresa Cerojano of The Associated Press; and by Christine Hauser of The New York Times.</s>Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet U.S. President Barack Obama for an unscheduled bilateral meeting on Thursday on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits they are attending in Laos.

The White House said the meeting would take place on Thursday afternoon after they both attend the East Asian summit, and would be followed by a press conference by Mr. Obama.

The two leaders had already met in Washington in June this year, in what was meant to have been a “farewell call” ahead of the U.S. elections.

However several substantive bilateral issues remain to be discussed, said officials, including India’s NSG membership bid, and the U.S. administration’s hope that India will ratify the Climate Change agreement from Paris by the end of 2016.</s>Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit and President Barack Obama inspect an honor guard at the Presidential Palace in Vientiane, Laos on Tuesday.

Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP</s>Laos temple town excited it's on world map with Obama visit

LUANG PRABANG, Laos (AP) — Growing up in Wisconsin, Son Inthachith's classmates in school had no idea where his native Laos was. Thanks to President Barack Obama, not only is the little landlocked country on the world map but so is Inthachith's sleepy hometown of Luang Prabang.

The town of about 50,000 people, known to a relatively small number of international tourists for its stunning temples and quaint streets, welcomed Obama on Wednesday as he made a side trip from the capital, Vientiane, where he is attending a regional summit on Thursday.

"President Obama is giving Laos the highlight it needs," Inthachith, 42, said, choking up with emotion. "I think it's going to bring more investment, more people interested."

Inthachith left Laos as a boy and ended up in Madison, Wisconsin, part of a post-Vietnam War refugee exodus from the communist nation. But he returned to Luang Prabang in 2006 to start a company that connects visiting students with volunteer rural development projects.

During the war the U.S. secretly bombed Laos in an attempt to destroy communist trails from neighboring Vietnam. More bombs were dropped on the country than on Germany and Japan combined in World War II.

Obama visited Wat Xieng Thong, or Temple of the Golden City, a tourist destination because of its architecture, history and artwork. Construction of the temple began in the 16th century, when Luang Prabang was the seat of Lao royalty. It remained under royal patronage until 1975, when the monarchy was abolished.

Inside the temple grounds is a large golden barge, adorned with golden dragons at the bow. Obama looked in awe at the structure, staring straight at the dragon's mouth. Then he walked to the back wall of the temple to look at a line of large golden statues.

"It's gorgeous," he said.

Obama also held a town-hall meeting with 350 young leaders from the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, which is hosting him at Thursday's summit.

The hour-long question and answer session that followed was remarkable for Laos, where top officials in the one-party state are inaccessible and not answerable to the common people. Even the open expression of opinions and free questioning of leaders is unheard of.

Chan Ti Da, 22, was excited at being in the same room as Obama, even though she didn't get called on to ask a question. The Vientiane resident said Obama's emphasis on youth was striking.

"I am so very proud that he is the president of the USA but he also cares about youth to be the priority to develop the country," she said.

Ret Thaung, 28, of Cambodia was inspired by hearing Obama address how to balance environmental and economic concerns — an ongoing fight for her and a conservation group she belongs to, Fauna & Flora International. Biodiversity conservation can be a tough slog, but Thaung said "the U.S. could influence my government to be way more eco-friendly."

Thaung's work involves protecting endangered Asian elephants. When she was told that Obama joked about riding an elephant — a practice some consider abusive — during his Vientiane speech Tuesday, she replied, "We're trying to (create) awareness (among) people not to ride elephants."
Barack Obama pledges US$90 million to clear Laos of unexploded ordnance dropped by the United States during the Vietnam War.