Sri Lankan soldiers held yet another blood donation event in the North-East earlier this month, despite previous controversial comments by Sri Lankan leaders on ‘Sinhalese blood’ being given to Tamils.

The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT) is to advise Sri Lanka on implementation of treaty obligations during its visit to the island next month. 

Rejecting criticism of Australian troops conducting military training with Sri Lankan counterparts, an Australian envoy stressed however, that the allegations of war crimes were "serious" and required investigation, the AP reported. 

In its latest report the NGO, Society for Threatened Peoples, detailed the pervasive militarisation that continues to take place across the North-East a decade since the end of the armed conflict. 

Rejecting the Sri Lankan government's rhetoric that a hybrid court is unconstitutional, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson, M A Sumanthiran and the former chief minister, C V Wigneswaran, argued that such a court was within the country's constitution. 

Members of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) youth wing yesterday cleared the memorial grounds of Annai Poopathy in Kallady, Batticaloa. 

Sinhalisation activities in Vavuniya North forest villages have been continuing rapidly despite opposition from local residents and authorities.

Residents in Vavuniya expressed their anger at the government's decision to hold the first Buddhist congress in Vavuniya.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) yesterday called on the Sri Lankan government to hold provincial council elections in the North-East as soon as possible. 

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has demanded the government recall its ambassador from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, after Sri Lanka co-sponsored a resolution which granted it two further years to set up a hybrid court to prosecute for mass atrocities;.

Colombo Gazette reports SLPP MP Janaka Wakkumbura as saying Sri Lanka’s president had made it clear the ambassador “had betrayed him and the military”. His party demanded that ambassador A.L.A. Azeez now be recalled.