The Sri Lankan government announced the so-called ‘presidential palace’ in Jaffna, which was constructed by the military in 2012 on land that it had seized from local Tamils, will now be leased out to a private university.

The Sri Lankan government has announced that it will distribute air rifles to farmers to fight of an expanding population of monkeys and other animals that are destroying crops.

The Colombo Magistrate Court has finally released former MP Vijayakala Maheshwaran from a case filed against her more than five years ago after she made remarks calling for a resurgence of the LTTE to curb high crime rates in North-East.

Former Tamil parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran expressed his scepticism regarding the credibility of a Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department (CID) report which claimed that a Tamil judge who resigned from his posts and fled the island due to death threats, did not face any issues.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached an agreement with Sri Lankan authorities to unlock the second tranche of bail-out funds worth approximately US$330 million after they were initially withheld by the global body.

A protest condemning the action of the Sri Lanka navy and demanding the immediate release of detained Tamil Nadu fishermen was staged in Rameshwaram last week.

The former British Prime Minister once spearheaded efforts on accountability for war crimes on the island. Now, he is drumming up investment for a controversial multibillion-pound Chinese project in Colombo.  

Sri Lankan police hesitate to uphold President’s order by failing to keep Sinhalese Buddhist encroachers away from Tamil livestock farmers’ land in Batticaloa. The order was made after a new Buddhist statute was erected under the leadership of notorious Buddhist monk Ampittiya Sumanarathna Thero, in the Mayilathamadu Madhavanai area of Batticaloa.

This weekend marked the 36th year since the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) massacred Tamil hospital staff and patients at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. A commemoration event remembering the victims of the massacre took place on Saturday at the Hospital.

Comparing the May 2009 mass killings that Tamils in the North-East were subjected to and which the Sri Lankan state remains accused of, to the present situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, TNPF leader and MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam accused Sri Lankan ministers of being hypocritical in calling for UN intervention in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Image courtesy of @awanthaartigala on Twitter.com

A hartal has taken place across the Mullaitivu district today, protesting against the intimidation of a Tamil judge who was forced to resign and flee the island last month.

The hartal was initiated due to the resignation of Mullaitivu Judge, T. Saravanarajah. The Judge had resigned from all his posts due to the threats that had been issued against him and the pressure for him to change his verdict regarding the Kurunthurmalai archeological site. As an extension of these demands, Tamil politicians demanded that the independence of the judiciary be preserved, and highlighted the ramifications of the ongoing Sinhala colonisation project of the North-East that is being carried out by the state.