A remembrance event was held in Jaffna yesterday to mark the 48th anniversary since the killing of eleven Tamils by Sri Lankan police officers at the 1974 World Tamil Research Conference. 

In a public statement, the Tamil National People's Front slammed the 13^th Amendment and maintained their steadfast commitment to “the hallowed Tamil National principles of nationhood and self-determination”.

Concluding his first diplomatic tour of the new year, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi maintained that China’s relationship with Sri Lanka “should not be interfered with by any third party”.

Captain Pandithar, who was a senior member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was commemorated on the 37th anniversary of his passing at his residence in Jaffna yesterday. 

A Tamil Nadu schoolgirl has won widespread praise after identifying three ancient copper coins from Tamil Eelam that her father had unearthed from a field in the Ramanathapuram district.

The three copper coins reportedly date back to the 11th and 12th centuries and were issued to mark Rajaraja Chola I’s rule over the island.

A “top emerging-market money manager” is reportedly “waiting for Sri Lanka to default”, as an economic crisis in the country has left Colombo struggling to keep up with international payments.

N K Jayawardena, the president of the All Ceylon Bakery Association has warned that the country faces imminent shortages of bread as wheat and flour importers informed them of supply chain disruptions caused by the forex crisis, which have left foreign dollar reserves at an all-time low.

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has been compelled to enforce daily hour-long power cuts in Sri Lanka, as a worsening economic crisis has meant the power utility is unable to purchase fuel oil for its power stations.

The Sri Lankan government has caved to pressure from Beijing and agreed to pay almost US$6.9 million for a shipment of fertilisers that it had previously rejected as substandard.

The 37th anniversary of the assassination of Tamil human rights activist and local Catholic parish priest, Reverend Father Mary Bastian, who was shot dead by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) in 1985, was commemorated at the Vankalai St. Anne’s Church in Mannar last Thursday.  

With the country on the brink of financial default, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has requested for debt restructuring from China.

To boost the country’s foreign reserves the government has sold over half its gold reserves, worth an estimated $382.2 million at the end of November.

Its value plummeted by half by the end of December reaching a value of $175.3 million.

The Sri Lankan military has undertaken massive deforestation of parts of the Tamil homeland since the end of the armed conflict. Sharing images from Google Earth on Facebook, Kilinochchi journalist M. Thamilselvan illustrated the loss of forest cover surrounding army camps on the east side of the A9 road between Mankulam and Murikandy in the Mullaitivu district.

Murdered Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge was commemorated in a ceremony held by the Batticaloa Press Club earlier today, marking 13 years since he was gunned down in Colombo.