By RICHARDSON DHALAI Tuesday, November 24 2009

THE Leader of the Opposition’s offices were closed in solidarity with the People’s Democracy, (PD), call for a two-day shutdown yesterday and today.

Meantime, the party’s position papers on climate change and other issues will be forwarded to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), secretariat on either Thursday or Friday morning, prior to the start of the international conference. Opposition leader, Basdeo Panday, in a telephone interview yesterday, said these were the different papers, which had been presented by several parliamentarians at a pre-CHOGM briefing held on Sunday at the Opposition Leader’s Office on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain. The documents he explained, were presently being correlated and prepared for delivery to the local CHOGM secretariat. UNC MP Vasant Bharath said he would be guided by the Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma, on the procedure for distribution of the document. “I will be guided by him (Sharma), on how the document will be distributed but we expect that all the Heads would have a copy in their possession by the time they leave the country,” added Bharath.

At Sunday’s briefing, the party produced its positions on Youth and Women Affairs, Climate Change, Food Security and Renewable Energy Resources. Bharath, who noted that while the decision on whether or not to take the vaccine was solely up to the individual parliamentarian, said he too would not be taking the vaccine.

“I will not be taking the vaccine until those people who are most at risk are inoculated first,” he said, adding that the limited supplies should be distributed in those areas which had recorded deaths due to the pandemic influenza virus.