The Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court has granted bail to Yoshitha Rajapaksa, the second son of former Sri Lankan president and accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa, following his arrest by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.

Action Against Hunger calls for a new investigation into the killing of 17 humanitarian workers in Muttur, Trincomalee, in August 2006.

The weighing of some 10,000 gold items seized by the Sri Lankan army from the Tamil homeland during the armed conflict, the bulk of them the pawned jewellery and possessions of Tamil civilians, has been completed, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has told a Colombo court.

A ten-foot banner depicting the Jaffna District MP Ramanathan Archchuna garlanded with footwear was erected along a main road on the outskirts of Jaffna on Friday, in a public expression of anger over his conduct, before the MP himself arrived and tore it down.

The number of skeletal remains identified at the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna has risen to 366, as excavators uncovered further remains of children on Tuesday, at one of the largest mass graves unearthed on the island and a site long tied to the enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing of Tamils by the Sri Lankan military.

India has handed over a consignment of military stores and a trauma care system worth more than USD 5 million to the Sri Lanka Army, deepening a defence relationship that has expanded, as the Sri Lankan military continues to occupy the Tamil homeland.

Sri Lankan authorities carried out an excavation in the Eastern district of Amparai on Wednesday in search of weapons and gold allegedly buried by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but no items were recovered.

A new English-language print magazine has been launched in the Tamil homeland, with events in Jaffna and Batticaloa timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Vaddukoddai Resolution.

Displaced residents of the Valikamam North region of Jaffna held protests on Monday, in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat and near Palaly Junction, marking 36 years since their forced displacement and demanding the right to return and resettle in their lands.