Speaking from their hospital beds in Mullaitivu, two Tamil Guardian correspondents who were attacked whilst working on a story on illegal deforestation have recounted the assault and spoken out about their fears of further attacks.

On Monday the 12th of October, two Tamil Guardian correspondents were assaulted and hospitalised in a brutal attack in Mullaitivu.

Our two colleagues, Kanapathipillai Kumanan and Shanmugan Thavaseelan, were working on an important story on illegal deforestation when they were set upon and attacked with iron rods. The vicious attack left them both with injuries that required hospital treatment. Both journalists had the evidence they had gathered deleted and money stolen.

This assault of our colleagues is yet another blatant attack on the freedom of the Tamil press. It remains completely unacceptable and must be urgently addressed.

The former head Sri Lanka's army and accused war criminal Sarath Fonseka labelled 12-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran, who was murdered in May 2009, a “terrorist”, in a debate in parliament last Tuesday.

Updated 19.00

Tamil Guardian's Mullaitivu district correspondents were assaulted this morning by four persons in Murippu, Mullaitivu, while reporting on illegal logging and timber smuggling in the area.

A document that has been released in public domain and on multiple news websites shows that the Supreme Court will approve the proposed 20th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.

A master’s degree in Tamil has been added to the accepted qualifications at the Pandit Deenadayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology in India, following opposition from political leaders in Tamil Nadu.

The postgraduate diploma course in Archaeology at the institution initially listed master’s degrees in Indian Classical languages such as Sanskrit, Pali, Prakriti, Arabic or Persian as qualifications but omitting Tamil and other classical languages as acceptable qualifications.

Thousands of hair salons across Tamil Nadu closed in protest of a court’s decision to acquit an accused child rapist last week. The protests held demanded justice for the child victim, who was raped and murdered.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary, Jayanath Colombage, has reported that US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, will be visiting Sri Lanka following a meeting between President Rajapaksa and senior Chinese diplomats.

A Tamil mother, who spent 12 years searching for her missing son who was forcibly disappeared, passed away in Vavuniya.

Today marks thirty-three years since the death of 2nd Lt. Maalathy, the first female fighter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to lose her life in the Tamil armed struggle.

During a meeting between senior Chinese diplomats and the Rajapaksa administration in Colombo on Friday, the Chinese diplomats pledged to strengthen economic ties with Sri Lanka and to defend the country at “international fora including United Nations Human Rights Council”, reports the Sri Lankan President’s Media Division.

Speaking at a memorial for Lt. Col Thileepan, who died in 1987 during an 11-day hunger strike to demand that India fulfil its promises to the Tamil people, former President of the Irish Republican party Sinn Fein, Des Dalton, maintained support for the Tamil community and their struggle for “national sovereignty, independence and autonomy”.

Tamil politicians from the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have called for the upholding of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord, in the wake of renewed discussion between India and Sri Lanka around the 13^th Amendment and devolution of power to Tamil regions of the island.

The head of the Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam said the Tamil people will hold India to account over pledges made in Accord, as he addressed Sri Lanka’s parliament this week.

Excavations were carried out today on the land of an individual who claimed to have weapons believed to have been buried by the LTTE in the Vadduvaakal area under the Mullaitivu Police Division in the Mullaitivu District.