US Ambassador Samantha Power praised the Sri Lankan president’s pledges to reduce his presidential powers as “striking” in an address to the UN Security Council this week.

Speaking on what Ambassador Power called “this desire to extend one’s term or to ignore term limits” in parts of Africa, she drew on her recent visit to Sri Lanka and the North-East of the island.

A Tamil youth has been arrested for photocopying the suicide note of R. Senthuran.

The 23-year-old man from Jaffna, Balendran Prakash, was arrested by Koppay police on Tuesday.

Rajeswaran Senthuran committed suicide last Thursday in protest at the ongoing detention of Tamil political prisoners.

His suicide note, a letter in which the 18-year-old called on the Sri Lankan President to release all Tamil political prisoners with immediate effect, was found in one of his exercise books.

Sri Lanka’s increase in defence spending sends the wrong message, said Taylor Dibbert whilst commenting on the “continued militarisation of the historically Tamil northern and eastern provinces.”

Noting that the Sirisena administration was “yet to address the issue of militarisation,” Mr Dibbert added that “there are no legitimate national security reasons for justifying” such an increased budget for Sir Lanka’s defence.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Mr Dibbert added,

The Sri Lankan government will not released any fishing trawlers seized from Tamil Nadu fishermen but plans to auction them off instead, the Daily FT quoted the director general of the department of fisheries and aquatic resources, Lal Fernando as saying.

“The Ministry has taken a firm decision not to release any trawler or mechanised boat caught violating the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) of Sri Lanka. We will release the Indian fishermen, but not their boats and trawlers,” Mr Fernando reportedly said.

“Though, we keep the trawlers in our custody to discourage them poaching into our waters, there is no reduction in the number of Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lankan territorial waters,” he added.

Evidence that a torture cell existed in the Varani army camp was released by former Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran on Monday.