The Sri Lankan Air Force and the United States Pacific Air Force are currently holding joint exercise codenamed “Exercise Pacific Angel” in the Jaffna peninsula. The program is aimed at enhancing disaster responses, according to ColomboPage . Both militaries will also host a Health Services Outreach and Engineering Civil Programme on the peninsula. Engineers from both forces will renovate three schools in the Jaffna district, which “will provide benefits to the local population, while allowing both multinational responders and Sri Lankans to practice providing emergency medical assistance and...

The DMK leader M Karunanidhi has called for the Indian government to boycott the forthcoming Commonwealth heads of government Meeting in Colombo. "Our party chief M Karunanidhi has asked the government to boycott the November conference of CHOGM. We cannot have normal relations with a government that is insensitive to the demands of Sri Lankan Tamils," DMK spokesman and MP TKS Elangovan told the Economic Times .

The shooting of unarmed protesters by a state’s military, as took place in Weliweriya this week , is horrific. The profound perversity of a state turning its military apparatus on the people it purports to protect is universally felt. The Tiananmen Square massacre, Bloody Sunday and even Egypt today, are cases in point. The insurmountable inequity of force and the ensuing bloodshed of the unarmed protesters form a chilling reminder of a state’s simmering potential to abuse its monopoly on violence. The outrage and shock that has reverberated through Sri Lanka’s south following the Weliweriya incident is thus well placed. Yet as with the killings of other dissenting individuals, this tragedy highlights the intractable fallacy of an equal or inclusive ‘Sri Lankan identity’. In Sri Lanka, even death is no equaliser. The killing of a dissenter is defined by ethno-political identity, both that of the individual and their demands.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Sri Lankan military's attack against journalists covering the incident at Weliweriya . In a statement published on Monday, the press freedom group, said: “We are very disturbed by the repeated use of violence against journalists in Sri Lanka,” “At best, the police take no action when journalists report that they have been the targets of violence. At worst, the army itself, equipped with lethal weapons, organizes and executes these attacks , as it did in Weliweriya.” “These unacceptable incidents show that, although the civil war is now over in Sri Lanka, violence by the armed forces is still far from being brought to an end and that freedom of information is still in great danger .”