A team from the European parliament is to visit Sri Lanka this week evaluate progress on made on GSP+ accession. 

The delegation, which includes members of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, is expected to visit April 4 to 6. 

The delegation comprises the Standing Rapporteur for South Asia Sajjad Karim, European Conservatives and Reformists member Jan Zahradil, Socialists and Democrats member David Martin, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) member Tiziana Beghin, European People's Party (EPP) member Paul Rubig and the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) member Franz Obermayr. 

Sri Lanka’s former president and current head of the ‘Office for National Unity and Reconciliation’ (ONUR) remained silent and offered no response as mental health professionals and civil society representatives detailed the ongoing sexual exploitation perpetrated by the armed forces, police and government officials against Tamil women in the North.

The Tamil National Alliance’s constituent parties will decide whether or not to oppose the no-confidence motion being brought against the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, independently of the TNA/ITAK leadership.

Suresh Premachandran of EPRLF, who have one MP, told the Daily Mirror that their support for the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, would be dependent on his response to the party’s demands for solutions around land grabs in the Tamil homeland and the ongoing plight of Tamil political prisoners.

Families of the disappeared who have been protesting for 390 days in Mullaitivu were paid a visit by Mangala Samaraweera, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Finance and Media, on Sunday. The minister informed the families that Office for Missing Persons officers would come to see them soon.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Finance and Mass Media Mangala Samaraweera met with the Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran to discuss possible ways to utilise RS 1 billion rupees allocated by Sri Lanka’s 2018 budget to the Northern Province.

Speaking at the council, Mr Samaraweera said the Budget had also made provisions to help resettle former LTTE cadres and provide them with soft loans.

The Office of Missing Persons (OMP) will not be used as a punitive body and will not lead to criminal procedures or prosecutions said its chairperson Attorney Saliya Pieris.

Speaking in an interview with dailynews.lk, Mr Pieris said,

“Our function is not to punish. The law specifically says the findings of the OMP cannot be used in any criminal or civil proceeding. They cannot be used as evidence in a criminal proceeding.”

Commenting on what the office would do if potential violations of criminal law were found, he said,

The Tamil National People’s Front will support the Tamil National Alliance to ensure that Sinhalese parties don’t take control of Vavuniya North.

Speaking at the Jaffna Press Club today, the TNPF’s national coordinator V. Manivannan said that the TNPF was committed to ensuring that Tamil parties led the Tamil homeland and would ally with the other Tamil nationalist parties to ensure that Sinhalese parties did not takeover control of the Vavuniya North divisional council (pradeshiya sabha).

The 120th birth anniversary of S J V Chelvanayakam was marked at his memorial statue in Mannar today.

The only option for the PM is to step down, said State Minister Dilan Perera on Friday.

Describing the incumbent prime-minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as a roadblock in the functioning of the unity government, Mr Perera called on the prime minster to step down whilst speaking at a press conference.

Mr Perara accused the prime-minister of blocking efforts to resolve the Bond scam crisis which saw UNP politicians accused of corruption.

See more here.

As evidence into the murder of Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge unfolds in court with high-level police officials implicated in coverups and destruction of evidence, a report has shown that two Tamil youths were abducted and murdered and had their motorcycle stolen in an attempt to frame the LTTE for the journalist’s assassination.

A report by the Daily Mirror states:

“According to the ‘B’ Reports, the motorcycle had been stolen in Vavuniya on January 18 by blindfolding and abducting Balraj Ram Prakash and Kumarasingham Vishnukumar whist they were travelling to Settikulam.