As Sri Lanka’s embattled president looks to reshuffle his cabinet in a bid to quell ongoing anti-government protests, one position remains entirely unchanged from before the demonstrations began – the appointment of Douglas Devavanda as Sri Lanka’s fisheries minister.

As the anti-government protest continues at Sri Lanka’s Galle Face Green, a host of Sinhala celebrities, from cricketers to musicians and politicians have joined the demonstration.

However, social media users have quickly spotted a few familiar faces, from those who have previously been staunch supporters of the Rajapaksas, to racists and homophobes.

We look briefly at a few of them who have been seen at the Galle Face protest over the last week.

As crisis-stricken Sri Lanka reluctantly turns to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for urgent financial assistance this month, dozens of parliamentarians have urged Britain to use its influence at the global institution to attach conditions that will ensure there is deeper-rooted change and political stability on the island.

The day before Sri Lanka declared it would be unable to repay US$ 51 billion in international debt, a group of 90 British lawmakers urged the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer to add conditions on any IMF assistance that may be granted, “to put the country on the path of economic recovery”.

13 years ago today, thousands of British Tamils continuously occupied Parliament Square in London for 72 days as Sri Lanka intensifed its military offensive which led to the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamils in Mullivaikkal. 

As anti-government protests engulfed the south of Sri Lanka this week, Tamil students at the University of Jaffna have expressed their frustrations at how Sinhalese students had failed to join them at previous protests as they joined a rally through the Northern city on Monday.

Sri Lanka has been thrown into turmoil as all of the government’s cabinet ministers tender their resignation apart from Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, in the wake of protests as the island plunges into deepening political and economic crises. 

A curfew has been imposed across parts of Colombo as the military is called to squash anti-government protests. 

Sri Lanka is currently facing its worst economic crisis in decades with routine power outages and shortages of essential items impacting the whole island.

Today the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) announced that it would impose a 13-hour power outage across many parts of the island, as diesel fuel ran out, severely impacting power generation across many plants. However, a list released by the Public Utilities Commission detailed 191 areas across the country where power cuts would not be implemented, the President's House being one of them. 

As Sri Lanka’s president claimed to welcome the global Tamil diaspora to invest in the cash-stricken country, many across the world remain wary - particularly as corruption, human rights abuses and repression of the Tamil people continues on the island.

"This is all just a farce," said Theepan*, a Tamil rights activist based in Switzerland. “After forcing us out of our homeland, torturing, raping and killing us, now the Sri Lankan state needs our help."

In the midst of Sri Lanka’s worst financial crisis in living memory, a massive music festival with international acts, pyrotechnics and thousands of people was held in Colombo on Saturday, even as locals endured power cuts and hours-long queues for basic supplies.

As reports of a Russian airstrike on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine begin to surface, we take a look at what international law states on the targeting of hospitals and on when they have been hit in Sri Lanka.