Following the publication of their report on the impact of Chinese investment and the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) in Sri Lanka, Chatham House held a wide reaching and informative discussion on the economic, political, and geopolitical role of China in Sri Lanka.

Effigies of former parliamentarians and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP’s Sivagnanam Sritharan and M A Sumanthiran were burnt in Jaffna yesterday. 

A young Tamil man was assaulted by army soldiers in the Alangulam, Eruvil area and has been hospitalised at the District General Hospital in Killinochchi following his extensive injuries from the attack. 

Speaking at 44^th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, a delegate for Sri Lanka responded to the Core Group’s (UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia and Montenegro) expression of “profound disappointment” by insisting that Sri Lanka would only commit to purely domestic process aligned with the government’s policy framework.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has the defended much criticised decision to dissolve parliament for over 6 months as he claims, “the hostile Parliament was not inclined to support the President”.

Rajapaksa defence of the President’s actions came a speech in which he maintained that the “global community will need to come forward to assist all developing nations”. He further requested IMF and World Bank to provide a debt standstill to all developing nations for two years, claiming that such relief will allow for a rapid recovery.

^{Photograph: FT.lk}

Sri Lanka’s state-owned Bank of Ceylon entered a long-term facility with the China Development Bank, the largest development financial organisation in the world, for USD $140 million this week, as Colombo’s economic crisis worsened amidst piling debt repayments.

Sri Lanka’s Cricket World Cup final match-fixing controversy has taken yet another twist today with former captain Kumar Sangakarra the latest individual to be summoned by the Special Investigation Unit of the Sports Ministry, after allegations of match fixing by Sri Lanka’s former Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage.

Sangakarra will follow both former opener Upul Tharanga and selector Aravinda de Silva in giving statements on the most recent debacle within Sri Lankan cricket. As confirmed by KDS Ruwanachandra, current sport ministry secretary, the investigation is “handled by the independent Special Investigation Unit on sports-related offences.” 

The Metropolitan Police have announced the launch of a murder investigation after a five-year-old British Tamil girl was stabbed to death in Mitcham, South London this week.

The victim has been named as Sayagi Sivanantham.

Sri Lankan security forces have arrested more than a dozen Tamil youth on charges of attempting to “regroup the LTTE,” as a military crackdown took place in the North this week.

Amongst those arrested is a 17-year-old Tamil child.

The European Union (EU) has decided not to lift their ban on travel from Sri Lanka due to the coronavirus pandemic, despite the Sri Lankan embassy in Brussels “actively lobbying for Sri Lanka’s inclusion in the list”.

The EU has begun to gradually lift the temporary restrictions it had imposed on non-essential travel into the region, with Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating it had been “actively lobbying for Sri Lanka’s inclusion in the list”.