Yvonne Webb

Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Ju Jin­tao will not be at­tend­ing the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Port-of-Spain, PNM Chair­man Con­rad Enill has con­firmed. At a me­dia brief­ing fol­low­ing the par­ty's gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Enill said the time frame does not per­mit the Chi­nese pre­mier to at­tend. How­ev­er, he said he had no in­for­ma­tion with re­spect to the sec­ond vis­it this year by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Bar­rack Oba­ma, who it is ru­moured was ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions on cli­mate changes.

Enil said CHOGM was be­ing seen as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for world lead­ers to lay foun­da­tion ahead of the Unit­ed Na­tions Cli­mate Change con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen, hence the rea­son a lot of lead­ers who are not mem­bers of the Com­mon­wealth–such as Den­mark Prime Min­is­ter Lars Lokke Ras­mussen and UN Sec­re­tary Ban Ki Moon–will be at­tend­ing.