"Sri Lankan Army needs to be educated on future warfare to become a modernized army by 2025," sai

Sri Lankan army officers in Mullaitivu distributed “school accessories and educational items” to Tamil schoolchildren last week, despite continued criticism of military intrusion into civilian life in the North-East.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Biswal, today arrived in Sri Lanka, only days after a visit by another senior US official.

According to the Daily Mirror. Ms Biswal is expected to hold talks with the key government officials including Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and President Maithripala Sirisena.

A thirty-member Tamil People’s Council (TPC) was formed in Jaffna on Saturday to look into the Tamil people’s “wellbeing safety and integrity”.
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Consisting of representatives from civil society, academia, religious leaders and various political parties, the TPC will be headed by Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran and co-chaired by Dr P. Lakshman, Consultant Cardiologist at the Teaching Hospital, Jaffna and Mr T. Vasantharajah, the secretary of the Batticaloa civil society.

Leaders from Tamil National Alliance (TNA) constituent parties, such as ITAK, EPRLF and PLOTE alongside the TNPF have also been appointed as members of the council’s action committee.

Several subcommittees are due to be formed to “look into all the problems faced by the Tamil people” and will meet regularly with experts and advisers to work towards solutions, said the TPC.

Sri Lanka has requested India to extend the facilities of its currency swap agreement, provided in March this year.

The Sri Lankan government says it will oppose  India's plans to build a bridge between Tamil Nadu and the Tamil homeland in the North-East of the island.

Leader of the House, Lakshman Kiriella, who is also University Education and Highways Minister, said that Sri Lanka will not agree to the proposals, which India has repeatedly put forward in recent times.

"We are against it because people of Sri Lanka are opposed to it. We cannot let India build a sea bridge connecting Rameswaram with Thalaimannar," the minister told media on Friday.

On Wednesday, Indian Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in parliament that a bridge and tunnel will be built with ADB financing, linking the two countries.

The Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC) said the Sri Lankan government had failed to uphold its promise to release Tamil political prisoners by December 15, in a statement released this week.

Stating that the organisation was “dedicated to working towards the fulfilment” of a UN Human Rights Council resolution that Sri Lanka had co-sponsored, CTC said “the Sri Lankan government must first take meaningful confidence-building measures to address ongoing human rights violations in order to gain the trust of the Tamil people”.

“One such urgently needed confidence-building measure is to address the situation of Tamil political prisoners,” it said.

Earlier this year, Tamil political prisoners who were being detained in jails across the island launched large scale protests and hunger strikes, drawing wide support across the North-East. The issue had also drawn international attention with the British government stating it would “continue to monitor closely the situation of detainees”.  A Jaffna University student also committed suicide over the crisis last month, prompting hundreds of demonstrators on to the streets, demanding justice.

The government had pledged that the cases of political prisoners would at least be reviewed by December 15, but that deadline has since passed with no significant action having taken place.

“While the government has made certain statements regarding political prisoners in the interim, December 15 has come and gone and the Sri Lankan government has yet to follow through on this promise in any concrete manner or present a clear plan on how they intend to address this issue” said CTC.

Sri Lanka’s embassy in the United States spent Foreign Ministry funds on steaks, cognac and pornography stated Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, in a startling revelation to parliament on Friday.

Mr Samaraweera stated that staff at the embassy had "adult films, $200 shots of cognac and $288 steaks” under the previous government.

“Millions of rupees were wasted, mainly through the Foreign Minister’s vote on extravagances,” he added.

The foreign minister went on to state over 330,000 US dollars went missing in one property transaction, undertaken by the embassy.

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremsinghe reassured parliament on Friday that German car giant Volkswagen had not suspended its work in establishing a car plant in Kuliyapitiya, after concerns were raised about a delay in starting the construction.

The government information department quoted Mr Wickremesinghe as saying that the factory will commence operations within 2 years. “Volkswagen investment came to the country before 2015,” the prime minister is reported to have said.

“The company has made an investment of 265 million US Dollars and it will create around 200 job opportunities,” Minister of Development strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickema said to parliament.

Sri Lanka's budget for 2016 was passed in parliament on Friday with a majority of 109 votes, with 160 votes in favour and 51 votes against it while 13 members were absent.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation has approved Sri Lanka as eligible for the body's "threshold" programme, which will release  around $30mn worth of funding, providing assistance to the government's efforts to enact reforms in areas which constrict economic growth.

"Sri Lanka has embarked on a remarkable effort over the past year to reinvigorate its democratic institutions, improve governance, and restore protection of human rights," a statement by the MCC said.

The MCC, an independent US government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth. allocates budgets depending on how countries score on specific indicators. According to the MCC website, threshold programmes "assist countries to become compact eligible by supporting their efforts to implement key policy and institutional reforms and thereby demonstrate their commitment to MCC’s eligibility criteria" and if implemented successfully will "reduce constraints to faster economic growth and provide MCC critical information about a candidate country’s political will and capacity to undertake the types of reforms that would have the greatest impact in compacts".