Canada’s foreign minister Mélanie Joly has announced targeted sanctions against Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well as Sunil Ratnayake and Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi for “gross and systematic violations of human rights during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka”.

The sanctions will effectively freeze any assets they may hold in Canada, bar them from financial or related services and deem them inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Commenting on the sanctions Joly stated:

V Mannivannan with TMTK leader C V Wigneswaran

Viswalingham Mannivannan has joined the Tamil Makkal Thesiya Kootani (TMTK) party ahead of the island's local elections. 

A remembrance event was held in Jaffna today to mark the 49th anniversary since the killing of eleven Tamils by Sri Lankan police officers at the 1974 World Tamil Research Conference. 
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On January 10, 1974, the final day of the conference, Sri Lankan police officers, led by the Deputy Inspector of Police for Jaffna, Chandrasekara, opened fire at the audience, killing 11 civilians. 
Chandrasekara was later promoted to the post of Inspector of Police by the then-prime minister, Srimavo Bandaranayaka.

Captain Pandithar, a senior member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was commemorated on the 38th anniversary of his passing at his residence in Valvettithurai, Jaffna yesterday. 

Pandithar served in the political wing of the LTTE and lost his life during a clash with the Sri Lankan army in 1985 near Avarangal, Jaffna.    

Koppay police excavated private land in Kokuvil, Jaffna after they allegedly received a "tip-off" that weapons belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were buried there. 

The police obtained permission from Jaffna Magistrate Court to carry out the excavations. Despite excavating four different sites, no weapons were recovered. 

Sri Lankan state forces have been accused of using weapons raids as a cover for continued repression and surveillance of the North-East.

According to 182 economists and development experts, powerful hedge funds and investment companies are preventing vital help from reaching crisis-hit Sri Lanka.

The group stated that private sector creditors were preventing a debt relief deal for the island.

Last year the Sri Lanka defaulted on $51 billion in debt. The sovereign default left civilians without food, fuel and critical medication.

Slain journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge was remembered on the 14th anniversary of his death in Batticaloa yesterday. 

Wickrematunge, the former editor of Sunday Leader, a staunch critic of the various human rights violations perpetrated by the Rajapaksa government and the corruption by its ministers was gunned down on January 8, 2009 on his way to work. 

Assassinated human rights lawyer and former leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Kumar Ponnambalam was remembered by the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) on Friday to mark 23 years since his death. 

For the third day, Tamils across the homeland called upon Tamil politicians to push for the reunification of the North and East as a separate provincial unit.

Popular Sri Lankan YouTuber and social activist, Sepal Amarasinghe, has been arrested in Boralesgamuwa by the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department (CID) following allegedly defamatory remarks he made towards the Buddhist Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (‘Dalada Maligawa’) in Kandy.

In his video, the YouTuber reportedly caused offence through his description of the Sacred Tooth Relic as a ‘labba’, which is often used in Sinhala as a euphemism for male genitalia.