A story to tell by SOMASUNDARAM SKANDAKUMAR Source: Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade In  February 2017, my team and I at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia was informed that then-Prime Minister (PM) Ranil Wickremasinghe had been invited to deliver the keynote address and accept an honorary doctorate at the Deakin Law School graduation. We immediately communicated the news to  Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and inquired if the trip could be made into an official state visit – after all, that year marked  the 70th Anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and  Sri Lanka, and it was over 60 years since a Sri Lankan PM had made an  official state visit to Australia. The request was well received, and the dates were fixed for February. Earlier, the High  Commission learnt that Sri Lanka Cricket had confirmed a brief tour to  Australia for a ...

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THE P.M. & THE POPE – By Des Kelly Both are very much in the news as I write this piece of “BREAKING NEWS” for eLankan readers in Australia at the moment, 90% of whom are sick to their back teeth, of what goes on, both in Canberra & Vatican-City right now. As regards to Prime Ministers, firstly, I know that, like me, quite a few of us were not too good at Arithmetic (in school), &, as such, it is difficult to keep track of how many P.M’s we have seen, come & go, recently. We elect them, hoping for the best, only to see them challenged for this “position” that, to my thinking, change even their young  “good looks” into wrinkled, pasty-faced individuals, sometimes even seeming to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If one was broke, homeless, downtrodden, unemployed & already depressed, I could well ...

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