Sri Lanka has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to extend a $1.5 billion loan by another year and for tight spending targets to be relaxed ahead of key election, Reuters reports.

The IMF programme is crucial for Sri Lanka to continue ensure favourable borrowing terms. However the fund delayed discussions on the sixth tranche of a three-year loan in November following the country’s plunge into a political crisis over the Sri Lankan president’s attempt to replace the prime minister.

A British MP has requested clarification as to whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) intervened in favour of withdrawing an arrest warrant issued on a Sri Lankan brigadier after he was found guilty of public order offences including threatening Tamil protesters in London last year.

Writing to the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt about Brigadier Priyanka Fernando, the former military attaché at the Sri Lankan High Commission in London, Siobhain McDonagh MP said:

Calls for the Mayor of the London borough of Harrow to resign continued among the local Tamil community today, despite the Mayor being forced to apologise for photographs she had taken with senior Sri Lankan military officials, including the brigadier found guilty of threatening Tamil protesters in London.

Two Sinhalese youths have been arrested for illegal sand-mining in Vavuniya.

British Tamils protested in London on Monday, in solidarity with Tamil families of the disappeared protesting in Kilinochchi.

Residents of a Mullaitivu village who were unable to travel to the disappearances rally in Kilinochchi on Monday held a solidarity protest in their village instead.

Families of the disappeared from across the North-East held a mass rally in Kilinochchi today rejecting the prospect of Sri Lanka being given more time to deliver on its co-sponsored UN Human Rights Council resolution. 

Business across the North held hartals today to express their solidarity with families of the disappeared protesting in Kilinochchi this morning. 

Families from Irainativu have complained that they still lack basic facilities, including clean water and electricity, almost a year since reclaiming their island from Sri Lankan navy occupation.

In April 2018 Iranaitivu residents sailed to the island in around 200 boats to peacefully reclaim the island from the navy, after years of failed campaigns for the island’s release.