Footage obtained by the Tamil Guardian appears to show Sri Lankan soldiers selling large quantities of vegetables grown on occupied Tamil land to a Keells collection centre in Jaffna, directly contradicting the deputy defence minister's assurance to parliament, just days earlier, that the military farms this land only to feed itself.

Displaced Tamil landowners of Valikamam North protested at Palaly Junction for a fourth week running, demanding the return of land held by the military for 36 years, as police barred the mostly elderly demonstrators from even erecting a shelter against Jaffna's punishing mid-July sun, days after the government confirmed the land would never be given back.

Former Sri Lankan state minister and paramilitary leader Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, widely known as Pillayan, has been further remanded until 24 July as the Criminal Investigation Department continues its probe into five killings in Batticaloa in 2008.

The death toll from the deadly clashes at Negombo Prison has risen to 31 after two more prison officers died while receiving treatment at the National Hospital in Colombo.

A fresh attempt to acquire Tamil land in Vadamaradchi East for reported Sri Lankan military use was suspended on Thursday after the landowner, local residents and activists intervened to block the survey.

Sri Lanka's deputy defence minister has told parliament that land held within the Palaly High Security Zone deemed vital to national security will not be returned to its Tamil owners, and that a further 1,661 acres are to be permanently acquired for the military, with still more sought to expand the airport, even as displaced families across the North-East enter their third month of weekly protests demanding their land back.

A Tibetan independence activist has died after setting himself on fire outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, in a act of protest that Tibetan exile groups described as an appeal for Tibetan independence and unity.

Relatives and clergy have gathered at St Peter's Church in Navaly to mark 31 years since the Sri Lankan Air Force dropped 13 bombs on the church and a neighbouring Hindu temple where hundreds of Tamil civilians, urged by the military itself to shelter in places of worship, had taken refuge, killing 147, an atrocity for which no Sri Lankan government has ever accepted responsibility.

As Sri Lanka's Buddhist clergy faces an unprecedented reckoning over child sexual abuse, with nearly 300 monks accused in three years and one of its most senior figures under arrest, the Chief Prelate of the Asgiriya Chapter has called on Buddhists to close ranks, casting the mounting allegations as a defamatory campaign against the faith.

Prison officers responding to the deadly unrest at Negombo Prison were attacked by inmates who allegedly dropped large stones onto their heads, according to Sri Lankan prison authorities, as investigations continue into one of the country's deadliest prison incidents in recent years/

Amnesty International has called for an urgent and independent investigation into the deaths of two prisoners transferred from Negombo Prison, warning that allegations of torture and ill-treatment against other inmates are “deeply alarming”.

Hamas has announced the dissolution of its governing body in Gaza and said it is ready to hand civilian authority to a Palestinian technocratic committee, in a move aimed at reviving a stalled US-backed ceasefire plan as Israel continues to control large parts of the devastated territory.

Tamil families of the forcibly disappeared across the North-East have announced an international conference on 30 August, renewing their rejection of Sri Lanka's domestic accountability mechanisms and their decade-long demand for international justice, as more than 400 mothers and fathers have now died without ever learning the fate of their loved ones.