The Tamil UNP MP, Vijayakala Maheswaran, who was forced to resign from her ministerial post after Sinhala politicians objected to her call last month for a resurgence of the LTTE to control the violent crime in the North-East, said she was not sorry for her comments. 

“I will not succumb to others’ sentiments or pay a price that I am not entitled to settle," she told Ceylon Today in an interview. 

“I was born on Tamil soil and if the people from the South had lived with us they will have the same sentiments I have expressed."

500 acres of military-occupied land in the North-East is to be released at a cost of Rs 780 million to relocate the camps, the Sunday Times reports.

Around 500 acres of privately-owned land including some located in High Security Zones are to be released before December, the resettlement ministry secretary told the newspaper.

The Government would allocate Rs 780 million to relocate the camps, the secretary said.

A memorial for a 1984 massacre of Tamil co-operative workers was opened on Saturday in Chavakachcheri.

On 13th August 1984, ten civilians including workers from the Thenmarachchi West Multipurpose Co-operative Society were killed by Sri Lankan soldiers.

The Sri Lankan military took students from a college in the south of the island on a tour of the Palali High Security Zone (HSZ) in Jaffna this week, an area that the army has blocked off to local Tamils that own private land there.

The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) called on the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure there is accountability for human rights violations committed in Sri Lanka, warning that not doing so would be “an undesirable failure the UN system cannot afford”.

In a statement released to welcome the appointment of former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet as the new UN human rights chief, the GTF called for Sri Lanka to continue “to be under the purview” of the UN Human Rights Council.

The Sri Lankan navy claims to have recovered parcels containing 83.5kg of Kerala cannabis, at Kankesanthurai in Jaffna earlier today.

The Manthai East Divisional Council has passed a resolution to remove a Sri Lankan military camp that has been set up in front of a Tamil school.

The Divisional Council passed the resolution at a meeting this week following a proposal from Northern Provincial Council member T Ravikaran.

Teachers at the Manthai Paalinagar Vithiyalayam in Mullaitivu had told the NPC member that the presence of the camp was having an impact on the children’s education, with schoolchildren in fear of attending.

The resolution comes as the Sri Lankan military consolidates its presence in the North-East, with ongoing military involvement in activities in Tamil schools.

Sri Lanka's Office on Missing Persons (OMP) said on Thursday that it would be publishing an interim report with recommendations on August 30, to coincide with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. 

The interim report will be launched at a commemorative event organised by the OMP in Colombo's J. R. Jayawardene Centre, named after the former Sri Lankan president who oversaw the pogrom of Black July 1983. 

Sri Lanka's OMP has been repeatedly criticised by Tamil families of the disappeared as an "exercise in futility", stating it lacks independence and failed to take their views into account. 

A Sri Lankan soldier has described how the military used to conduct operations disguised in LTTE uniforms to infiltrate LTTE defences. 

"We go for an operation dressed in a uniform similar to those worn by the LTTE and fitting sandal soles to the boots. Then the eight of us spread out. We have protected others and achieved our targets," the soldier, known as Sagara told the Daily Mirror in an interview about his time in the military. 

Japan's defence minister, Itsunori Onodera will visit Sri Lanka next week from August 20 to 22. 

Mr Odonera is expected to hold talks with Sri Lanka's state minister of defence, Ruwan Wijewardene. 

This will be the first visit by a Japanese defence minister.