<p>A cross party group of British parliamentarians have written to the UK Foreign Secretary, after Sri Lanka’s president claimed that the thousands of forcibly disappeared Tamils “are actually dead”.</p>

<p>Sri Lanka is exploring the possibility of purchasing modern weapons from Russia, Yury Matery, the Russian Ambassador to Colombo, reportedly said.</p> <p>In an interview with RIA Novosti, the Ambassador stated that military-technical cooperation between Russia and Sri Lanka has been developing over the recent years.</p> <p>Matery recalled Russia’s military assistance to Sri Lanka during the armed conflict against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) where they provided the Sri Lankan security forces with helicopters, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and small arms.</p>

A Christian shrine was vandalised by a group of unknown persons in Vauvuniya earlier today, in what locals have denounced as a move to try and create religious disharmony in the region.

The Madha shrine, located by a row of private homes in Vavuniya, was found vandalised by locals.

Sri Lankan police have been informed and are reportedly carrying out investigations.

The Office of Missing Persons (OMP) have started the process of issuing Interim Reports to the families of the disappeared which will allow them to obtain a Certificate of Absence (CoA), to 'validate' the status of a person reported missing.

In a press release, the OMP stated that:

Batticaloa Magistrate's Court has ordered Sri Lankan police to detain two men over the murder of a Sri Lankan policeman in Vavunathivu last week, including a former LTTE cadre.

A 55-year-old Tamil police officer attached to Valaichchenai police station, named by authorities as Thambipillai Sivarasar, was found murdered last week.

Gunasekaran Surendran,a  former LTTE cadre from Vavunathivu, was arrested alongside 31-year-old Mohamed Azmi in connectioned with the murder.

The Sri Lankan military has recently ramped up search operations across the Tamil homeland, including the searching of buses travelling from Jaffna to the south of the island.

 

At least one person has been admitted to hospital after an explosion at a home in Mullaitivu, where a Tamil man had reportedly been collecting discarded munitions, in order to extract chemicals to sell.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa revealed that he requested a moratorium on all loan repayments to India for three years, as his regime struggles with Sri Lanka’s repayment obligations.

In an interview with The Hindu, Rajapaksa admitted that Sri Lanka’s debt repayments, with servicing totalling $60 billion, were “a worry”.

A notice has been issued to Wasantha Karannagoda, a former Sri Lankan navy chief, to appear in court over the abduction and murder of 11 primarily Tamil youths, the Colombo Gazette reported. 

This is the third notice that has been issued to Karannagoda as he has failed to appear in court on two previous occasions.   

The former Sri Lankan navy chief is the 14th suspect named in the abduction and murder of 11 primarily Tamil youths between 2008 - 2009. 

During a meeting between Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Modi stated the need for the government to “carry forward the process of reconciliation” and to implement the Thirteen Amendment, which relates to devolving power to provincial councils across the island.

In a statement Modi said;