Sri Lanka has returned 21 containers of up to 260 tonnes of waste, back to Britain after officials say the waste was brought onto the island in violation of international laws governing the shipping of hazardous material.

The containers which were supposed to carry used mattresses carpets and rugs, contained mostly hospital waste, plastic and polythene.

Officials have not revealed what type of hospital waste, but previously illegally imported containers included rags, bandages and body parts from mortuaries.

Responding to the widespread hartal across the North-East, in protest of Sri Lankan attempts to ban the commemoration of those who gave their lives for Tamil rights, Ceylon’s Teachers Union has called on educators to stand in solidarity with the protest movement.

A Sinhala Buddhist monk has called on the Sri Lankan president and military to investigate the hartal that is currently underway across the North-East, claiming it was a "call for a separate Tamil state".

On a video clip that has been widely shared across social media, the monk Ampitiye Sumangala called said Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the "true Sinhala-Buddhist President" of Sri Lanka and called on him to investigate the protest.

Just days ago the monk, who has become notorious for his frequent violent outburst and assaults, threatened officials of the Department of Archaeology over a delay to demarcate an archaeological reservation land in Chenkalady

(Police patrolling Vavuniya)

Sri Lankan police have attempted to break the hartal being carried out across the North-East by threatening and intimidating participants into reopening their stores.

A hartal is being carried out across the North-East today, as Tamils were joined by Muslims and others across the region as they protested Sri Lankan attempts to ban the commemoration of those who gave their lives for Tamil rights and ongoing intimidation.

The hartal - a day long shutdown - took place despite intimdation from the Sri Lankan security forces, with reports that traders were threatened to continue business as normal.

Sri Lanka’s president has wasted little time in getting to work. Within weeks of his party sweeping parliamentary polls, Gotabaya Rajapaksa rapidly produced the long-promised 20^th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution, which seeks to further concentrate power into the executive presidency he occupies. As expected, there are few checks on his power and with a super-majority in parliament, a determined Rajapaksa looks set to steamroll it through.

Tamil political parties and civil society actors have planned a hartal across the North-East in protest of a Sri Lankan court ban and intimidation from the security forces, preventing them from commemorating those who gave their lives for Tamil rights.

A coalition of Tamil diaspora groups around the world released a joint statement commemorating Thiyagi Thileepan’s sacrifice, calling for action “demanding that the militarised Sri Lankan dictatorship recognise international conventions on the right to remember the dead”. 

The British Tamils Forum (BTF), Australian Tamil Congress (ATC), Solidarity Group for Peace and Justice in Sri Lanka (SGPJ), Irish Tamils Forum (ITF) and United States Tamil Action Group (USTAG) statement details Thiyagi Thileepan’s hunger strike and his demands for the self-determination of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. 

Former Inspector General of the Police, Pujith Jayasundara, testifying before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing the 2019 April attacks, claimed that the bomber of the Tropical Inn in Dehiwela had met with an intelligence official 45 minutes before he blew himself up.

Mohan Peiris, former attorney general and legal advisor to Mahinda Rajapaksa has been appointed as the new permanent representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in New York.

Peiris was congratulated by the UN representative in Sri Lanka, Hanaa Singer, in a tweet despite Peiris being found on record to have misled the UN Committee against Torture (CAT). Singer’s tweet has been met with backlash from activists critical of Peiris’s record. His appointment is seen as an expansion of the Rajapaksa’s inner circle.