A new hospital, built with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been inaugurated by a US official in Palai, Jaffna district.

USAID Mission Director Sherry Carlin and with Dr. P. Sathiyalingan, Minister of Health and Indigenous Medicine for the Northern Provincial Council, openend the $525,000 facility on Tuesday.

45 Tamil women that have been enlisted into the Sri Lankan army were taken on tour of ‘key’ places in the south of Sri Lanka.

The Defence Ministry described the process of introducing the Tamil women to ‘key places’ as part of reconciliation with the Tamil community.

The Sri Lankan government has rejected accusations by Action Contre la Faim (ACF) that the military was responsible for the massacre of 17 aid workers in Muttur.

In a statement, released by the army, the government questioned the motives behind ACF’s report, asking why the organisation had withheld evidence from the government.

"This is another instance of a pattern which has emerged since the end of the conflict where certain organizations level allegations against the GoSL without providing sufficient details to enable an investigation. These accusations are then repeated in several other documents, by different agencies, thereby contributing to forming an opinion which is then propagated, without substantiation.

A report by the US embassy concluded that members of Sri Lanka's Special Task Force, and the Muslim Home Guard, were the likely perpetrators.

“For instance because one of the provisions of our declaration is that there will be no amnesty in peace agreements for crimes of sexual violence and that there will be real accountability for what happened in the past. It is easy to see why the Sri Lankan government do not want to embrace those issues, but we will keep on raising them with them.”

China now supplies the largest amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sri Lanka, accounting for 24% of the total inflow of $1.2bn, reported Xinhua.

Hong Kong invested 12% and Singapore 10% of the total FDI, with the Netherlands and Malaysia making up the rest of the top 5.