Richard Lord

?Rwan­da has be­come the 54th mem­ber of the Com­mon­wealth. The ap­pli­ca­tion of the African coun­try was ac­cept­ed dur­ing the 20th Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing, which end­ed at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day. New Chair of the Com­mon­wealth, T&T Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing his clos­ing state­ment. Lat­er, a fi­nal CHOGM news con­fer­ence at the same ho­tel, Man­ning elab­o­rat­ed on Rwan­da's suc­cess­ful ap­pli­ca­tion. He added that there was a four-stage process with­in the Com­mon­wealth for ap­prov­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion.

He said what­ev­er doubts mem­bers might have had about Rwan­da's ap­pli­ca­tion would have been dis­pelled, and all that was left was for the ap­pli­ca­tion to be ac­cept­ed at CHOGM 2009 in Port-of-Spain. "Rwan­da came to that hap­py po­si­tion and we were very pleased to ac­cept Rwan­da's ap­pli­ca­tion for mem­ber­ship here in Port-of- Spain." Man­ning al­so said the 21st meet­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment would take place in Aus­tralia in 2011; Sri Lan­ka would host CHOGM 2013, and Mau­ri­tius in 2015. (RL)