The chairman of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, a hard line Sinhala nationalist party, has been selected by the UNP to become a member of parliament on its national list.

Athuraliye Ratana, a Buddhist monk, will represent the United Front for Good Governance and was selected alongside Karu Jayasuriya, UNP chair Malik Samarawickrama, D. M. Swaminathan and Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne to be on the national list of the party.

Sri Lanka has ranked 122nd out of 152 countries in the Human Freedom Index compiled by the Fraser Institute, which was released earlier this week.

The Human Freedom Index, which uses 76 indicators of personal, civil and economic freedoms, such as Association, Assembly, and Civil Society, Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Expression to rank countries from around the world.

Using data collected from 2008-2012, Sri Lanka ranked 128th on personal freedom and 98th on economic freedom.

The French government called on Sri Lanka to “promote human rights and reconciliation between communities” in the wake of this week’s parliamentary elections.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development Spokesperson in a statement, that it “stands alongside the Sri Lankan authorities and people in this process and intends to work with the new government toward strengthening our bilateral relations".

See the full statement here.

Four Tamils have been arrested at Colombo airport over the last week and are being held in a high security prison in Negombo, JDS reported on Thursday.

Two men were arrested after being deported from Turkey, while a man and a teenage woman were detained as they were about to board a flight to Qatar.

K Rajkumar (36) from Batticaloa and Gengadaran Saranya (19) from Puthukkudiyirippu were arrested on August 18. Police claimed that Mr Rajkumar was on his way to Malta via Italy and that Ms Saranya was going to join her husband in Switzerland, JDS said. They were both charged with carrying forged travel documents wyhen produced before courts by the CID on Wednesday.

Kurunathan Nirushan (26) from Kopay and Frederick Lawrence from Ragama were arrested following their deportation from Turkey on August 16. Both men were charged with possessing false travel documents.

Several MPs of the UPFA met in Colombo earlier today to discuss the agreement of the SLFP to form a national unity government with the UNP and its UNFGG coalition.

Former minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara said a large number of newly elected MPs, including former president Mahinda Rajapaksa objected to the agreement.

The Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU), a member of the UPFA coalition also opposed the agreement, as it was against the UPFA’s mandate.

General Secretary Udaya Gammanpila, who came third in the preferential votes list in Colombo, said people voted for the UPFA in protest at the UNFGG’s policies and forming a national unity government was not mentioned in the party manifesto.

Mr Gammanpila said former president Mahinda Rajapaksa completely rejected the national government concept in his election rallies.

“People voted for UPFA because they rejected UNP’s manifesto and forming a national government with them is against the mandate. We saw what happened to those who acted against the mandate at the general election. The same thing will happen to those who act against the mandate at the next election,” he said.

The National Freedom Front, led by former minister Wimal Weerawansa, won 5 parliamentary seats in Sri Lanka’s general election earlier this week.

The party ran on the UPFA’s platform and five candidates from Matara, Kalutara, Moneragala and Colombo will now be in parliament.

Mr Weerawansa, who is a close ally of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, received the highest number of any UPFA candidate in Colombo’s 16 polling divisions, with 313,801 preferential votes, second behind Ranil Wickremesinghe who won 500,566 preferential votes.

In fact, the preferential vote results show that although the prime minister topped the list, he is followed by four candidates of the UPFA, including the leader of another hardline constituent of the UPFA alliance, the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya’s Udaya Gammanpila, who came third with 198,818 votes.

Mahinda Rajapaksa has pledged to continue to engage in Sri Lankan politics, in a statement released on Wednesday.

The former president, who was defeated in this week's parliamentary elections, said he "humbly accepts" the results of the poll.