Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's flight out of Aus­tralia fol­low­ing the re­cent­ly-con­clud­ed Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment (CHOGM), was af­fect­ed by the Qan­tas air­line's in­dus­tri­al is­sues as well as re­cent floods in Bangkok.Min­is­ter in In­for­ma­tion Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, con­firm­ing the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team were ex­pect­ed to re­turn home from Aus­tralia af­ter the CHOGM end­ed in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia, last Sun­day.

How­ev­er, af­ter its con­clu­sion, flights by Aus­tralia's na­tion­al air­line, Qan­tas, were ground­ed due to in­dus­tri­al ac­tion be­tween the air­line and Aus­tralian unions. As a re­sult Per­sad-Bisses­sar's team had to make al­ter­na­tive trav­el arrange­ments, Dy­er-Grif­fith said.She said: "The Prime Min­is­ter was oblig­ed to re­main in Perth for a longer time than an­tic­i­pat­ed. Flights al­so were af­fect­ed by floods in Bangkok.

"This re­quired two ad­di­tion­al stops in Sin­ga­pore and Hong Kong, pri­or to the team's ar­rival in Lon­don, one of the orig­i­nal stops on the air­line's route home," Dy­er-Grif­fith added.Mean­while, both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment are on a break this week, ad­journed to a date to be fixed.At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day on the PM's re­turn he would re­port to her on the is­sue con­cern­ing taped re­marks in­volv­ing al­leged FI­FA bribery and Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er which Per­sad-Bisses­sar had man­dat­ed Ram­lo­gan to ex­am­ine. (GA)