A commemoration event was held this morning to mark 22 years since the Mirusuvil massacre, where Sri Lankan soldiers murdered eight Tamil civilians in Jaffna, including three children, before dumping their bodies in a mass grave.

A joint statement by several Tamil diaspora organisations has called on Tamil parliamentarians to affirm their commitment to the non-negotiable core principles of the Tamil nation.

The statement stressed the need for the international community, including the IMF, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank, to tie aid to Sri Lanka to “a permanent political solution to address the legitimate aspiration of the Tamil people”.

Minister for Labor and Foreign Employment  Manusha Nanayakkara, noted that 300,000 Sri Lankans have left the island for foreign employment.

Addressing an event to mark International Migrants Day, Sri Lankan Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara said this is the highest number of Sri Lankans leaving for foreign jobs in its post-independent history.

The minister said that the remittances they send will help Sri Lanka overcome the current economic crisis.

Deputy Chief of the Chinese Embassy, Hu Wei visited the Eastern province between 8-10 December and noted that China is ready to 'assist all communities' across the island.

Hu Wei was following up on recent donations made by the Beijing government which included  10.6 million litres of diesel to farmers and fishermen, 9,000 metric tonnes of rice to students from underprivileged families and 100 sets of solar streetlights donated by China’s Yunnan Province to 38 schools across the Eastern Province.

After the Office of Missing Persons, 244 family members of the disappeared to appear for investigation in the Mullaitivu district, members of these families staged a protest demanding that they end their sham investigations.

Cyclone Mandous situated in the Bay of Bengal brought high levels of pollution from India to Sri Lanka forcing schools to be closed last Friday.

The cyclone was situated in the Bay of Bengal, with winds blowing anti-clockwise around the central low pressure, sweeping the polluted air from India across the Palk strait into Sri Lanka. Subsequently, this merged with Sri Lanka’s local air pollution, leading to unhealthy pollutant concentrations that created a haze across parts of the country, including the capital, Colombo.

The Sri Lankan Navy has detained 5 Tamils who were attempting to flee to the island.

The Sri Lankan Navy detained 5 Tamils before handing them over to the Mannar Police. The group which consisted of 3 Men and two women were from the areas of Trincomalee,Vavuniya and Pesalai. 

There were arrested for attempting to flee the island to India. Talaimannar police produced the detained before Mannar's magistrate's court on the 18th.

Tamils in Denmark marked 16 years since the death of Anton Balasingham, the chief political strategist of the LTTE.

Balasingham, aged 68 years, passed away at his home in South London on December 14, 2006. His death sparked grief across the Tamil nation, with three days of mourning declared.

The body of a Tamil refugee who took his own life in Vietnam in protest of the country’s deportation attempts, has been repatriated to the island.

Sundaralingam Kiritharan, who was aged 37 at the time of his death, was one of 303 Tamil refugees rescued by the Singapore Navy last month when their boat was in danger of sinking in waters near Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. After being rescued, the refugees, who had attempted to go to Canada by boat from Myanmar, were placed in a refugee camp in Vietnam.

Another longstanding and active member of the Tamil families of disappeared struggle died on Thursday.

E. Valliamma, aged 78, of Kalmadu Poompuhar had been searching for her son Ramachandran Senthuran for over 15 years.

He was abducted aged just 16 on May 17, 2007, while on his way to work as a daily wage labourer in Vavuniya.