“Tamil areas in the North and East of Sri Lanka still remain under heavy military occupation. 85% of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala military is deployed in Tamil areas and 96% of Tamils live within 5-miles of an army base or checkpoint. As the High Commissioner himself pointed out, there is alarming increase in threats against human rights defenders, victims and witnesses, and there is severe escalation of violence against Tamil people of Muslim and Christian faiths.”

Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa joined the former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in supporting the Elephant Action Network, a project of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), at the foundation’s 10th annual meeting in New York.

The project aims to put an international spotlight on the crisis facing African elephants.

Several other leaders were present at the event, including Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba and the deputy prime minister of Vietnam, Pham Binh Minh.

According to the official government news site, the president was invited by Hillary Clinton earlier this year.

Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister Jaya Jayalalithaa filed two more defamation cases against the BJP’s Subramaniam Swamy for comments he made on Twitter, reported PTI on Tuesday.

The City Public Prosecutor (CPP) M L Jegan filed the cases on behalf of the chief minister, who said Swamy ridiculed her.

Jayalalithaa already filed cases against Swamy for comments in which he alleged the chief minister had financial interests in the fishing boats held by Sri Lanka.

The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka YK Sinha said at an event in Colombo, Sri Lanka “under-appreciated” the assistance it received from its neighbour, reported NewsFirst.

Sinha highlighted the lack of reporting in Sri Lankan papers on India’s involvement in the launch of the train service between Jaffna and Colombo and pointed out that Sri Lanka had forgotten what India has done for millennia, while speaking during a symposium on Anagarika Dharmapala and India – Sri Lanka Relations, organised by the Centre for Contemporary Indian Studies of the Colombo University.

“We felt that there was need to let people in Sri Lanka in particular, know, what India has done in the last few years, for Sri Lanka. Because I think the emphasis is on a ‘Look East’ policy, and to try and glorify what countries have done, for Sri Lanka in the recent past, forgetting what a country like India has done for millennia.”

The United States Tamil Political Action Council released an updated version of their #GetThePicture campaign map this week, detailing the long history of massacres that took place across the Tamil North-East, at the hands of the Sri Lankan state.

Announcing the updated maps, Dr. Karunyan Arulanantham, President of USTPAC said,

"The Tamils have suffered massacres and violence at the hands of the mono-ethnic Sinhala military since 1958 with increasing frequency and barbarity."

"This unchecked and systematic decades-long violence culminated in a genocidal onslaught in 2009 in which 146,000 Tamils are unaccounted for, and the continuing military occupation of Tamils in the North-East and forced land grabs all point to the intention and designs of Sri Lankan state to marginalize the Tamils and reduce them into a submissive minority."

China is to strengthen military ties with Sri Lanka, announced the vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, Xu Qiliang, following a meeting with Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday, reports Xinhua.

“Leaders of two countries attach great importance to military-to-military ties and the Chinese military is willing to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields with the Sri Lankan military,” Qiliang reportedly said.