Sri Lanka owes USD 37 billion in foreign loans and Rs. 19.6 trillion in domestic loans, officials from the State Debt Management Office told the Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) this week, laying bare the scale of the island’s economic crisis.
The US Embassy in Colombo has publicly congratulated two Sri Lankan navy officers for completing training programmes in the United States, marking another show of deepening military cooperation between Washington and Colombo, even as concerns persist over Sri Lanka’s record of war crimes, torture, and impunity.
Former Sri Lankan army commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka launched an explosive tirade against former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, accusing him of large-scale corruption, abuse of state property and betrayal of the country, declaring Rajapaksa “deserves death by hanging.”
Sri Lanka has once again rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on accountability and reconciliation, condemning the continued operation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) Sri Lanka Accountability Project (OSLAP) as an “unprecedented and ad hoc expansion” of the Council’s mandate.
A human skeleton has been discovered on in Mankulam, in the Mullaitivu district, prompting a police and forensic investigation to determine the identity of the deceased and the cause of death.
A remembrance event for Lt. Col. Kumarappa and Lt. Col. Pulendran, two senior Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders, and ten others who died in 1987, was held in Theeruvil, Jaffna, organised by the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF).
The United Kingdom paid tribute to Dr Kasipillai Manoharan at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) this week, honouring the Tamil father who spent nearly two decades fighting for justice for his son and four other students murdered by Sri Lankan security forces in Trincomalee in 2006.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has adopted a new resolution extending the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) mandate on Sri Lanka for a further two years, despite growing Tamil criticism that the text has been diluted and fails to deliver justice.
Tamils in Thaiyiddy, Jaffna, once again took to the streets today demanding the removal of the Tissa Vihara, a Buddhist temple that has been illegally constructed in the Valikamam area.
Tamil youth across the diaspora marked the 38th remembrance of Lt Col Thileepan this September with a month-long international campaign that combined art, political activism, and protest by activist group Phoenix: The Next Generation.
Farmers in Muthunagar, Trincomalee, have entered the eighteenth consecutive day of a satyagraha protest, braving torrential rains as they continue to demand the return of their seized farmlands from the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).
The Mannar District Federation of Public Organizations has condemned the Sri Lankan government’s one-sided decision on the Mannar wind power project, calling it undemocratic and a violation of fundamental rights
More than 140 organisations and individuals have jointly condemned the continuing surveillance, harassment and intimidation of Tamil photojournalist Kumanan Kanapathipillai, calling on the Sri Lankan government to end its campaign of persecution against him and other Tamil- journalists in the North-East.
Twenty-two countries have signed on as co-sponsors to a revised UN resolution that will be voted on this week, extending the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) mandate on in Sri Lanka for another two years.
Public and civil society organisations from the Eastern Province have condemned the Sri Lankan government for carrying out projects that they say violate the rights and livelihoods of Tamils in the North-East under the guise of “development.”