Sri Lanka’s new defence secretary, Kapila Waidyaratne assured the protection of war heroes in a meeting with senior Buddhist prelates of the Asgiiriya, Malwathu and Ramanna chapters.

A Tamil journalist was summoned to Colombo by Sri Lankan intelligence last week and is facing ongoing investigation over the broadcast of a politician’s press conference.

Jaffna-based broadcast and print journalist T. Pratheepan was summoned to appear in Colombo by the Criminal Investigation Department last week to testify in relation to the broadcast of a press conference by Northern Province Councillor, M. K. Sivajilingam, in a ‘racial conflict-inciting manner’.

A Sri Lankan soldier who died in the 1991 Battle of Elephant Pass was honoured with an all-night Buddhist ceremony by the military in Jaffna this week.

The Sri Lankan navy and air force carried out a series of military exercises at Thiriyai beach in Trincomalee this week, mobilising troops, boats, helicopters and a fighter aircraft.

The Sri Lankan army organised a medical clinic at a Tamil school in Poonakari on Wednesday, with several senior military officers overseeing proceedings.

Moody's Investors Service urged the Sri Lankan government to improve its tax efficiency in order to increase the tax revenue/ GDP ratio, highlighting the country's ongong credit challenges of high general government debt, very low debt affordability and large borrowing requirements. 

Kuwait is to provide financial assistance to Sri Lanka for a number of projects, Colombo Page. 

The projects include a mushroom cultivation project, the government's Information Department was reported as saying. 

The World Health Organization is to grant US$ 34,589 to promote mushroom cultivation and to provide school bags and stationeries to children in the North, the paper added. 

The TNA's spokesperson, M A Sumanthiran told the Daily Mirror this week the party was "disappointed that many of the things that should have been done and completed are being dragged on."

"The Government does not seem to have political will to meet the promises it made in their entirety," he said. 

The US is considering adopting sanctions against Chinese firms for the nation’s failure to take a harder stance on North Korea, reports ABC news.

The timing and scope of the sanctions would depend on how China responds to calls for tougher steps against North Korea.

The families of political prisoners held without charge or trial are preparing to hunger strike if their imprisoned relatives are not released.

The damning findings of a UN Special Rapporteur report on Sri Lanka, which criticised the lack of progress on accountability and routine torture on the island, “must serve as a catalyst for wholesale changes” said Amnesty International.

Responding to the preliminary findings of Ben Emmerson, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism on Friday, David Griffiths, Amnesty International’s Senior Advisor on South Asia, said Sri Lanka must make changes.

Sri Lanka's justice minister, Wijedasa Rajapaksha rejected the statement made by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism on Friday, accusing him of dictating to the country. 

Sri Lanka’s former Navy Spokesperson Commodore D K P Dassanayake has been remanded after being arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department ( CID) in connection with the disappearance of 11 Tamil youth.

Dasanayake was arrested on Wednesday and accused of aiding the abduction and enforced disappearances of the youths from 2008-2009.

The Sri Lankan government has done “almost nothing” to hold human rights violators in the military to account said Ben Emmerson, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism on Friday, warning it was laying down conditions that may “reignite conflict”.

In a press release at the end of a five-day visit to the island, Mr Emmerson criticised the Sri Lankan government for its failure to implement a UN Human Rights Council resolution that it co-sponsored in 2015 and was quoted by Reuters as saying, 'Sri Lanka could face a range of measures, including a referral to the UN Security Council, if it fails to meet commitments it made under a 2015 UN resolution.'