Sri Lanka needs to raise US$ 8 billion  to bolster its economy said Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil WIckremesinghe in parliament after the country’s budget release.

Noting that Sri Lanka only gained USD600-700 million this year, Mr WIckremesinghe said the government would look to achieve the US $8 Billion by securing trade deals with several countries including China, India and Singapore.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister added that further income would be achieved, by securing the GSP+ trade concession from the European Union.

Tamils in Swansea, Wales this month launched a campaign to plant trees in remembrance of the genocide of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan state, and as part of the 'Tree for Justice' campaign in Wales. 

One of the organisers, Tharmalingam Luxshan  told South Wales Evening Post, "The Tamil community in Sri Lanka continues to face a genocide in various forms including enforced disappearances, extra judicial killings, sexual violence and ethnic discrimination over the last 70 years since the British left the island." 

"As a result, many Tamils were forced to flee in order to escape persecution and sought refuge in the UK."

Muslims in the Eastern Province protested last week over the Sri Lankan government's proposed changes to Muslim Personal Law in order comply with EU conditions for GSP+. 

Accusing the EU of intervening in Sri Lanka's internal affairs, protest organisers, the Sri Lanka Thawheed Jamaath (SLTJ), told the BBC, "the EU has imposed conditions that certain amendments should be made to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Law, the main special feature and the main part of the Sri Lankan Muslim Community's civil law." 

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) on Monday called on the UN Committee Against Torture "to visit Sri Lanka to conduct an independent investigation into the continued 'white van' abductions, torture and sexual violence committed by the Sri Lankan security forces."

"The ITJP has collected testimony from 36 Tamil victims in three European countries, who have suffered abduction, illegal detention, torture and/or sexual violence at the hands of intelligence and security officers under the Sirisena government," the group said. 

The Tamil National Alliance rejected the government's offer to build 65,000 prefabricated houses in the North-East. 

“We don’t want those steel cages,” TNA MP, MA Sumanthiran told parliament on Friday. “We don’t want prefabricated houses. We want brick-and-mortar houses that we can give to our children and grandchildren, those that can stand the test of time and that will be permanent houses.”

"We all want houses,” he added.“But we don’t want those prefabricated houses on which somebody’s making a killing."

“The prefab houses did not have a foundation... You have to fix wheels and drag it around.”

Human Rights Watch this week urged the Sri Lankan government to take a lead on ensuring accountability for the killing of two Jaffna University students by the Sri Lankan police last month, describing it as "more of the same". 

"Human Rights Watch research shows that arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings by the police are all too familiar, and the government almost never holds officers responsible," the organisation said in a statement. 

A Sinhala Buddhist monk threatened to kill a Tamil government official in Batticaloa, call him a "Tamil dog." 

The saffron clad monk's racist verbal abuse was captured in a video which shows a Sri Lankan police officer standing by watching events unfold. 

On Tuesday students at the University of Jaffna paid tribute to the two students who were last month shot dead by Sri Lankan police officers. 

Hundreds of students attended the memorial event, laying flowers and lighting candles. 

Tamil fishermen protested in Mannar this week, demonstrating against Sri Lankan state sponsored colonisation of Sinhala fishermen into the region. 

Holding banners and posters, fishermen marched and shouted slogans of protest. 

Concluding her visit to the island the UK's state minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the prime minister's special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, Baroness Joyce Anelay reiterated there was "still much more to do, both to end sexual violence and to secure long term peace and stability."