Obama, Philippines President Arroyo to meet
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will discuss how the two countries can work together to fight terrorism and global warming on July 30, the White House said on Saturday.
Arroyo will be the first Southeast Asian leader to visit the United States since Obama took office in January. She will also meet with members of Congress, private sector partners and business groups, the White House said.
The United States has hundreds of troops, including special forces, in the Philippines' southern Mindanao region to counter rebels from the Abu Sayyaf, a radical Islamic group linked to al Qaeda and the regional Jemaah Islamiah.
The soldiers are banned from combat, but provide training and logistics support to Philippine troops.
Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change because of the high economic activity along its long coastlines, and its heavy dependence on agriculture, forestry and other natural resources.
The region's economies could lose as much as 6.7 percent of combined gross domestic product yearly by 2100, more than twice the global average loss, the Asian Development Bank said in a recent report.
Ties between the Philippines, Asia's largest Catholic nation, and its former colonial ruler have see-sawed for decades. The United States is the Philippines' biggest trading partner with bilateral trade at about $17 billion last year.
There are about 4 million people of Filipino descent in the United States, the largest Asian ethnic group there after the Chinese. Over 250,000 Filipinos served alongside the U.S. military during World War II.
(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
