The US Secretary of State has announced plans to provide almost $300 million in security assistance to improve security relationships across the Indo-Pacific region, which will include funding to cover projects in Sri Lanka.

Announcing the funding plans at the ASEAN Regional Forum on Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the funding will cover projects in maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief assistance, peacekeeping operations and countering transnational crime.

This assistance includes $290.5 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF).

On August 4th 2006, Sri Lankan troops lined up and summarily executed 17 aid workers with the French NGO Action Contre la Faim (ACF) in Muttur. Sixteen of the aid workers were Tamil, one Muslim. Twelve years on, no one has been held to account for this crime.

The lawyer and TNA MP, M A Sumanthiran has represented a petitioner challenging the appointment of the TNPF national organiser, V Manivannan to the Jaffna Municipal Council, who is currently opposition leader within the Council. 

Mr Sumanthiran, who is also one of the president's counsels despite being the spokesperson for Sri Lanka's official opposition party, appeared for the petitioner Stephenson Ronoldan, who argued that Mr Manivannan was not a resident of the JMC when he cited 'Ramanathan Road, Jaffna' as his residential address on the ACTC nomination paper before the election. 

The chief minister of the Northern province, C V Wigneswaran reiterated the Tamil people's demand for autonomy and self-rule at an event of the Office for National Unity & Reconciliation in Jaffna on Thursday. 

"Give us autonomy [and] let us rule ourselves," Mr Wigneswaran told the event, which was presided by Sri Lanka's former president, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. 

"The government must give us this," he stressed. 

Despite ongoing criticism of its involvement in civil affairs in the North-East, the Sri Lankan military arranged another pre-school visit to Palali military airport yesterday. 

Pre-school children and their parents from Achchuveli, Koppai, Vallipuram were escorted around the airport, which falls within a high-security zone.

The festival of Aadivel was celebrated in Paala Kathirkaamam in Jaffna on Wednesday with street parades, fire dancers and decorated floats. 

The parade, which began at the weekend, travelled around Jaffna town, finishing at the temple on August 1. 

An affidavit by Sri Lankan Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, requesting the dismissal of a petition filed against him on the issue of resettlement of Muslims in the Wilpattu Forest Reserve, was dismissed by Sri Lanka’s Court of Appeal on Friday.

A group filed a petition claiming that Mr Bathiudeen, who was also a minister in the previous regime under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa abused his power to encroach over 700 acres of the Villattikulam Forest Reserve in the Mannar district to resettle displaced Muslims under the pretext that they were reclaimed areas previously occupied by the Muslims before they were evicted by LTTE in 1990.

A Sri Lankan minister has said that talks between Sri Lanka and India for the latter to acquire a controlling stake in the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport are “progressing”, contrary to comments made by Indian Minister of State for Civil Aviation who had said there was no such proposal last week.

According to The Hindu, the two governments have agreed that India will contribute $225 million to revamp and run the airport, for a 70% stake, while Sri Lanka will invest the balance.

The draft agreement states that India will operate the airport on a 40-year lease The Hindu quotes a Transport and Civil Aviation Ministry official as saying.

The Sri Lankan military decided to take part in renovating a church in Kilinochchi earlier this year, as criticism over the armed forces’ involvement in civil activities continues.

Sri Lanka’s Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy predicted that economic growth on the island would be just 4 percent for 2018, lower than previous estimates.

“This is not a formal estimate that I am giving you,” he told reporters, but if one is realistic, it is unlikely that growth will be more than 4 percent this year”.

“Our potential growth rate, we see as being 5.75 percent. So, there is a significant output gap,” he added.