<p>A Tamil mother of two was released on bail this week after being imprisoned for four years.&nbsp;</p> <p>The release of the 31-year-old political prisoner came after repeated intiatives by the Mannar Citizens' Committee calling for the release of the woman, whose family live below the poverty line.&nbsp;</p> <p>Mathani Ravinthiran was arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) in March 2014 in Visvamadu, Mullaitivu. Welimada Police filed a case with Padaviya Circuit Magistrate Court against her under sections 443, 369 and 394 of Penal Code Act. Another case was filed against her for handling demining equipment.</p>

<p>The Sri Lankan government has made “empty promises” on transitional justice and its willingness to tackle impunity, which is “evidenced by a litany of failures”, write Yasmin Sooka and Frances Harrison for the London School of Economics’ South Asia blog this week.</p>

The history of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka after Western colonisation is a history of oppression by the chauvinist Sinhala-Buddhist state. Because of strength and resilience, the Tamil people acted against this oppression with resistance. This goes from peaceful protest for equal rights to a militant fight for a separate state. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians and combatants lost their lives throughout the armed conflict.

A former Northern Provincial Council (NPC) minister has written to Vavuniya’s government agent (GA), querying how a Buddha statue was allowed to be placed at an archaeological site in the district.

Former health minister and NPC member P Sathiyalingam wrote to the GA after visiting the wooded land in Kachal Samanankulam where a Buddha statue and huts that are allegedly to make way for a Buddhist vihara and Sinhala settlement were erected recently.

A Tamil political activist has been remanded by a Sri Lankan court over a hartal in protest at the appointment of former UPFA MP Hizbullah as governor of the Eastern Province last month.

Kanapathipillai Mohan, who heads the Thamizh Unarvaalar Amaippu, has had an order issued against him by the Eravur Circuit Magistrate Court, holding him on remand until February 13.

The court head that Mohan was arrested after organising the hartal against Hizbullah, who locals have accused of exacerbating inter-community tensions in the East during his time in the Eastern Provincial Council.

The court also called for the other organisers of the protest to be arrested.

<p>Sri Lanka is facing delays in receiving a $300 million (USD) loan offered by the Bank of China, Reuters reports.</p> <p>The loan was due to be released before the end of January but is now unlikely to be finalised until later this month.</p> <p>A Sri Lankan government official told Reuters that the negotiation, which was due to be closed in the last week of January, had dragged on after the Chinese bank had asked for “in-depth and lengthy data unlike in the previous negotiations” to compile the loan and the Finance Ministry needed more than a week to compile the data.</p>

Students from the University of Jaffna joined an event held by the US Consulate in Chennai to mark Black History Month.

The Jaffna students joined in with the event, a screening of a documentary on black civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr, via video conference.

The screening was held at the same hall in Presidency College where King had addressed students during a historic visit to Chennai fifty years ago.

The former TNA MP Chandranehru and LTTE political head Kousalyan, as well as the LTTE cadres who were killed with them in an ambush by Sri Lankan paramilitaries were remembered in Batticaloa on Thursday.

The group were attacked by gunmen, at the time thought to be Sri Lankan soldiers but later linked to Karuna’s paramilitary, on February 7, 2005, while travelling back to the East from Vanni after a meeting about tsunami rehabilitation efforts.

At least two people have died as the Sri Lankan navy clashed with villagers in Kinniya, Trincomalee, last week, after members of the military attempted to arrest a group of men they claimed to be involved in illegal sand mining.

The Sri Lankan navy, acting on a reported tip off, arrived at Kandakadum by the Savaru Bridge last Tuesday in a joint operation with the Special Task Force as they attempted to arrest of men.

<p><img alt="Image removed." src="/core/misc/icons/e32700/error.svg" title="This image has been removed. For security reasons, only images from the local domain are allowed." height="16" width="16" class="filter-image-invalid"></p> <p>The development of Palaly airport and the sea port at Kankesanthurai (KKS) is to commence next week on February 15, the Jaffna District Secretariat’s office said on Tuesday.&nbsp;</p> <p>The development projects, which are to be a joint Indian and Sri Lankan venture, have been stuck in the discussion stage for several years, despite the armed conflict ending 10 years ago.&nbsp;</p> <p>As recently as last month, India's&nbsp;ministry of external affairs (MEA) had not approved a report on the project due to the&nbsp;Airports Authority of India (AAI) citing political instability&nbsp;on the island, following last year's turmoil.&nbsp;</p>