Two Sinhala traders were arrested in Jaffna yesterday for illegally harvesting aloe vera from a plantation in Jaffna. 

A former Officer In Charge (OIC) with South Provincial Special CID was arrested today over the abduction and murder of two businessmen in Rathgama last month. 

Citing the threat of drug cartels the Sri Lankan government has authorised the use of further arms by Sri Lanka's notorious Special Task Force (STF) officers. 

The metal entrance way to the iconic Hindu temple in Mannar, Thiruketheeswaram, was the vandalised by a group believed to be Christian fundamentalists, the day before the festival of Maha Sivarathiri. 
 

Villagers in Vavuniya have reacted with anger to Sri Lankan government plans to hold the first Buddhist congress in the region, criticising the decision as "evidence of further state sponsored Buddhisation of the Tamil homeland."

Displaced families from Keppapulavu marked the start of their third year of continuous protest on Friday, campaigning for their homes to released from military occupation. 

The Australian Foreign Office said Sri Lanka's progress was slower than it should be and also expressed alarm at the government's plans to renew the use of the death penalty, during a Senate Estimate Hearing last week. 

Sri Lankan police have arrested another man in relation to the finding of a bag in Vavuniya this January, which reportedly contained 4 hand grenades and a pistol. 

Residents of Iranaitivu who resettled themselves into their homes in a daring protest against military occupation, said that almost one year on the area still lacks basic facilities. 

"The government authorities is turning a blind eye on us," residents told the regional human rights commissioner, Mr Kanagaraj, on Thursday. 

Residents told him of how they currently have to walk 5km to fetch water. 

Kanagaraj is the commissioner for Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts. 

The United Nations is deceiving itself and continuing to fail Tamils, ten years on from the genocide, by granting Sri Lanka an extension on its UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution, the former Chief Minister of the Northern Province has said.

Speaking to journalists after attending a rally with families of the disappeared in Kilinochchi on Monday, the former Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran said the UNHRC should understand the feeling behind the mass demonstrations across the North-East denouncing the extension to the resolution.