<p>The United States has announced nominations for key positions including the new Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs.&nbsp;</p> <p>Robert Williams of Virginia, who has specialised as an intelligence officer and analyst in South Asia and Afghanistan will be nominated to the position.&nbsp;</p> <p>Williams serves as Associate Deputy Director for Intelligence and Directorate for Operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington, D.C since last year.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The European Union today said it welcomed the "peaceful and democratic resolution" of Sri Lanka's political crisis, following Rajapaksa's resignation as Sri Lanka's prime minister and Ranil Wickremesinghe's re-appointment to the post over the weekend.&nbsp;</p> <p>The re-appointment of Wickremesinghe comes after almost two months of political turmoil which saw the dissolution of parliament, widespread reports of bribery and parliamentary violence.&nbsp;</p> <p>The crisis resulted in a declining rupee, downgrading of the country's sovereign by credit agencies and a suspension of international funds.&nbsp;</p>

The Sri Lankan military announced its plans to cultivate jackfruit in land that it is currently occupying in Jaffna.

The military declared that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Lions Clubs International to cultivate more than 500 saplings inside its massive Jaffna military camp in Palaly.

The Sri Lankan army has continued its training of “counter insurgency” training for foreign troops, despite unresolved and continuing reports of human rights abuses committed by the security forces.

An official military website declared that ‘Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare (CIJW) Course No 23’ took place in Mullaitivu earlier this month, with “local and foreign students including instructors” present.

The Sri Lankan army continued with its militarisation of the North-East as fully uniformed soldiers in camouflage gear, attended a Hindu ceremony at a temple in Mullaitivu on Thursday.

Lake House, Sri Lanka’s oldest major press house, has hoisted up banners of Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the UNP leader was sworn in again as prime minister on Sunday.

The banners were displayed just days after UNP supporters attempted to storm the building on Thursday, leading to clashes that ended with the deployment of Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force.

Sri Lanka’s newly reinstated prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pledged that his party will “have discussions” to bring about a political solution to the island’s ethnic conflict within a unitary state, in a statement released on Sunday.

“We have created an environment in which different ethnic groups can live together in harmony and co-existence,” Wickremesinghe claimed in the statement.

Families of the disappeared from all eight districts of the Tamil homeland participated in a rally in Mannar on Wednesday.

Demonstrating outside the Mannar government agent office, the protesters demanded action to identify the victims found in the Mannar mass grave.

Thirty-one complaints of torture have been registered against police in Jaffna this year, the Human Rights Commission (HRCSL) regional official T Kanagaraj said last week.

The number of claims of torture by police had gone up compared to last year, Kanagaraj said.

The commission had also received 13 complaints of unlawful detention he said.

While the commission’s numbers covered the period up until November 2018, more than two instances of torture carried out by police departments in Jaffna have been reported in December.