The Sri Lankan government is set to receive a loan of US$75 million from the World Bank in order to address “challenges in the financial sector”.

Sri Lanka’s Secretary to the Treasury, Ministry of Finance and Media met with World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough to sign the agreement from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA).

Photograph: ColomboPage

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister repeated his assurance that whilst all religions will be treated equally in Sri Lanka, Buddhism would continue to hold the foremost place on the island.

There is an “obvious gap” between the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) manifesto promises to the Tamil people in 2015 and the Steering Committee proposals it has accepted in 2017, said journalist J S Tissainayagam, in a piece for Asian Correspondent on Wednesday .

The TNA has “asked voters to support its demand for a constitution based on shared sovereignty” said Mr Tissainayagam, whilst “the UNP and UPFA manifestoes unequivocally rejected a federal constitution”.

Families of Tamil political prisoners have called for the TNA to pressure the Sri Lankan government and secure the rapid release of the political prisoners.

Hundreds of Jaffna University students staged a protest outside the university campus today, calling for the release of Tamil political prisoners.

Tamil farmers in Trincomalee have threatened legal action against Sinhala Home Guard members for the continued encroachment of their cultivation lands.

The lawyers of five Tamil farmers from the Thennamaravady village on the Trinco-Mullaitivu border in the Kuchchaveli division have written to five Sinhala Home Guard members as a first step to initiating court action against the encroachment.

The Australian government is demanding thousands of dollars to return the body of a dead Tamil asylum seeker to his family in Sri Lanka.

The body of a Sri Lankan soldier was recovered at an army camp in Mullaitivu on Monday morning.

The body was discovered in the infantry camp on the Mullaitivu-Manalaru highway and was taken for post-mortem at the Mullaitivu District Hospital.

Mullaitivu police have said they are investigating the incident.

Former Sri Lankan minister Basil Rajapaksa denied reports that Sri Lankan troops committed war crimes, whilst speaking in Jaffna on Sunday.

Mr Rajapaksa, the former Economic Development Minister, was speaking at a public meeting of the Jaffna branch of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna.

"Our troops did not do war crimes,” said the former minister. “There may have been individuals who did the crime."

A Tamil refugee who fled Sri Lanka has been found dead at an Australian offshore detention centre on Manus Island.

The man had apparently killed himself, having known to have made at least one previous suicide attempt. He was also known to have a history of mental health problems.

British parliamentarians attending the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva have called for action to ensure that Sri Lanka fulfils its commitments set out in the council resolution 30/1 which was co-sponsored by Sri Lanka two years ago.

A signature campaign calling for justice for all the Eelam Tamil children killed by the Sri Lankan army took place in Jaffna on Sunday morning.

A Tamil fisherman died when a Sri Lankan Navy boat crashed into a fishing boat in the waters of Karainagar, Jaffna on Saturday night. Another fisherman is seriously injured and is receiving treatment at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital.

Local fishermen have accused the navy personnel of sailing while intoxicated and expressed anger about the navy’s encroachment of fishing waters.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is set to visit Sri Lanka later this year.

The visit by the Working Group will take place from the 4^th to the 15^th of December 2017.

The announcement of the visit comes after United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence Pablo de Greiff’s visit to Sri Lanka next month.