The President of the European Council has backed the return of the GSP+ trade concessions for Sri Lanka, said Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Following a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Mr Wickremesinghe tweeted that Mr Tusk “greatly admired the sacrifices made by the government of Sri Lanka… to make Sri Lanka a democratic state, despite undergoing dictatorships, corruption and terror in the past”.

Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has praised the current Sri Lankan president for speaking out against corrupt investigations into former military personnel.

“I am happy that the truth has finally dawned on the President about these things,” said Mr Rajapaksa in an interview to BBC Sinhala last week.

The Director General of Sri Lanka’s Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption  has told Sri Lanka’s president that she intends to resign reports the New Indian Express.

Sri Lankan authorities ruled that the use of ‘Sinhale’ flags was not illegal and have returned all seized items to their owners, reports The Island.

The Sri Lankan police had initially seized ‘Sinhale’ flags from an event in Colombo earlier this year. After ruling that the use of these flags, which depict a lion holding a sword, was not illegal, the flags have since been returned to the Swarnahansa Foundation, which organised the event.

Photograph: ColomboPage

The head of Myanmar’s government Aung San Suu Kyi met with Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday, w

The mass rally in Jaffna last month that drew tens of thousands of protestors, was a move by the people of the North-East to “show their resistance” to acts such as Sinhala Buddhist colonisation to the international community, said Batticaloa District Tamil National Alliance Parliamentarian Gnanamuttu Srinesan.

Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council C V Wigneswaran revealed details of plans to assassinate both him and Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, reports Ceylon Today.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran said that he was “confident of success” in changing a proposed draft counter terror law, which has been approved by Sri Lanka’s cabinet.

Speaking to The New Indian Express, Mr Sumanthiran said he would ensure the bill is discussed at Parliamentary Oversight Committees for Justice and National Security at the end of October, where he would work to ensure the law is changed.

A confidential draft of Sri Lanka’s proposed anti-terror legislation has been circulated across the internet, days after it had been approved by the Sri Lankan cabinet.

A group of Sri Lankan policeman accused of torturing and killing a Tamil youth have been produced before the Kilinochchi District Court on Friday.

The four policemen, who manned the Chunnakam Police Station, stand accused of being part of a group of officers, involved in the torture and murder of Sumanan Sriskandarajah.

Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama visited Switzerland last week, where he met with Tamil Hindus at a temple in Bern as part of his visit to the country.

The Dalai Lama went to the House of Religions, a community project that opened in 2014 with eight religious places of worship housed in the building. Tamils from the North-East who now reside in Switzerland, set up the Saivanerikoodam Temple there in 2014, one of several Tamil Hindu temples dotted across the country.

Marking the 50th year since the 21st October 1966 uprising against caste and untouchability in Sri Lanka, the Mass Movement for Social Justice held a conference today in Kokuvil, Jaffna. A series of academics and activists spoke about the history of the struggle against caste on the island and also about the ongoing perpetuation of caste-based discrimination and the disregard paid to it by Tamil political parties and leaders.

8 months after the Sri Lankan government passed a resolution establishing a Constitutional Assembly to draft a new constitution, the government has launched a website detailing the constitutional drafting process and the membership of those involved in the Steering Committee, the Sub-Committees and the Panel of Experts.

Locals in Vavuniya on Friday signed their names against a petition calling for the release of Tamil political prisoners. 

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Sivasakthi Ananthan also joined locals in signing the petition. 

The event was organised by the Mass Movement for Social Justice.