Sri Lanka was this week selected to receive aid from the Millennium Challenge fund, the US government's Millennium Challenge Corporation tweeted today. 

Protests have taken place in Hambantota over a proposed deal that will see a Chinese state owned company control an 80% stake in the town's port.

Port workers and local residents blocked a main highway leading into the town to demonstrate against the $1.1 billion deal that will see China Merchants Port Holdings Company gain an 80% share of the port and adjoining land.

Today marks 10 years since the passing of Anton Balasingham, the chief negotiator and political strategist of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Sri Lanka's military approached senior TNA MP Maavai Senathirajah to gather "information" on Sunday night, according to sources in the North-East.

Two men visited the ITAK office at Martin Road in Jaffna on Sunday at around 7:30pm, asking security guards, in Sinhalese, to speak to the MP, who is also the leader of ITAK. As he wasn't in the office, the men waited until his arrival soon after.

Rejecting the UN Committee Against Torture's call on Sri Lanka to investigate the former intelligence chief, Sirisa Mendis, the state minister of defence, Ruwan Wijewardene told The Sunday Leader MR Mendis would not be investigated. 

Mr Wijewardene was quoted as saying "he does not see any need to investigate Mendis as the allegations against him are baseless." 

The government would "look into the ocncerns raised by the UN committee", he added however. 

The newly appointed Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu O Panneerselvam, has written to India’s prime minister to call for action against the Sri Lankan navy after yet another reported attack on Tamil Nadu fishermen this weekend.

Mr Panneerselvam told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that "the Sri Lankan Navy continues to unleash its reign of terror on our fishermen in the Palk Bay, where these fishermen have earned their meagre livelihood from time immemorial".

Families of the disappeared living in Vavuniya marked international Human Rights Day on Saturday with a demonstration followed by a discussion forum. 

The event was organised by the'Forum for Families of Searching, Handed, Kidnapped and Forcibly Disappeared Relatives - Tamil Homeland'. 

Photograph Sunday Times

Sri Lanka's navy commander, Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne assaulted a journalist on Saturday, who had been reporting on protests at Hambantota Port. 

Wearing civilian attire, Mr Wijegunaratne marches up to the journalist before launching a strike aimed at the cameraman. 

Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister told parliament that a resolution passed by the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) condemning the building of Buddhist places of worship in the North-East has “no legal standing”.

The Island reported Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe as telling parliamentarians that the Sri Lankan constitution did not provide any legal basis for the NPC to enforce the resolution, which called for an immediate cessation to the building of Buddhist viharas.

Russia’s ambassador to Sri Lanka urged Colombo to look to his country for the purchase of military equipment, at a press conference last week.

The Island quoted Ambassador Alexander Karchava as telling journalists that “Sri Lanka is searching for a number of products in the air, sea and land”.

“We can accommodate everything,” the ambassador said. “Russia has the originals and they are durable, unlike the duplicates."

Mr Karchava insisted that military co-operation between the two governments was continuing, pointing to the purchase of military helicopters by Sri Lanka in recent years.