Sri Lankan army uniforms, army helmets and live rifle bullets were amongst the items seized by police during a raid on the house of an underworld drug kingpin accomplice this week.

The Sri Lankan military has manufactured its own multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs), a weapon that the army used to devastating effect in a military offensive that slaughtered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians almost a decade ago.

<p>International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials are to visit Sri Lanka on February 15 to discuss granting the fifth tranche of the US$ 1.5 billion loan.&nbsp;</p> <p>The granting of the tranche was postponed last year following weeks of political crisis after the president sacked the prime minister and dissolved parliament.&nbsp;</p> <p>The IMD disbursed US $1 billion of the $ 1.5 billion three year EFF loan that was agreed in 2016.&nbsp;</p>

Senior US policy figure Samantha power will be speaking at an event in Colombo later this month marking “30 years in parliamentary politics” for Sri Lanka’s current media minister Mangala Samaraweera.

The force commander of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali praised the “discipline” of Sri Lankan peacekeepers this week, as he met with Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo. 

The Sri Lankan army has been accused of selling cigarettes to underage students at a canteen it runs on occupied land in Mullaitivu.

Residents of Puthukudiyiruppu said the army canteen, named ‘Kamuko Café’, had been selling cigarettes to local students, despite it being illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.

A new media centre funded by a British Tamil student group was opened at a Mullaitivu school on January 29.

The media centre at Kumulamunai Maha Vidyalayam was a project conceived and funded by the UK Tamil Students Union (UKTSU).

Families in Keppapulavu, demonstrating outside a military camp against the occupation of their lands, were forced to cover their make-shift shacks with sheets due to ongoing military harassment. 

The protesters, many of whom are woman, reported being continously photographed and watched by military intelligence, expressing concern and intimidation at the military's continous gaze.

Activists in Tamil Nadu, India held a protest this week in Bangalore condemning the Sri Lankan president's visit to the country to speak at an event organised by The Hindu newspaper. 

Protests continued today in Vavuniya as families of the disappeared demanded action from Tamil politicians on the issue. 

The families, who have expressed increasing frustration towards the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance's (TNA), who they argue are in the hands of the United National Party, protested today outside the Road Development Authority's office. 

Continuing months of protest, families of the disappeared today held a demonstration outside the Jaffna District Secretariat's Office. 

Mothers wept holding photos of their disappeared children as they demanded answers and justice. 

<p>Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner for Pakistan has thanked Pakistan for “taking a stand with Sri Lanka against the resolution presented in UNHRC to investigate the alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan government,” Pakistan newspaper The News reports.</p>

The United Kingdom is providing £49 million of funding for a British firm to build 250 bridges in rural parts of Sri Lanka.

The project has been designed to accelerate Sri Lanka’s development through improvements in its rural transport infrastructure, UK Export Finance (UKEF) said in a press release.

The department claims that families and businesses would benefit directly from the project thanks to reduced distance to reach essential services and lower transport costs.

<p>Sri Lankan military forces are reported to have released lands in different districts across the North-East this year, although they had already failed to meet the Sri Lankan president’s highly publicised deadline to release all occupied lands by December 31, 2018.</p> <p>On January 22, the Sri Lankan army announced it had released 40.74 acres of state land and 13.64 acres of private land in Vavuniya.</p>