French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday France could recognise a Palestinian state in June.

"We need to move towards recognition (of a Palestinian state). And so over the next few months, we will. I'm not doing it to please anyone. I'll do it because at some point it will be right," he said during a interview on France 5 television.

As Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya becomes the latest government figure to continue backing failed domestic accountability mechanisms for enforced disappearances, whilst Tamils continue to demand international action, we take a look at one of Sri Lanka's longest standing commissions - the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya claimed her government is “committed to delivering justice” to families of the disappeared but doubled down on domestic accountability mechanisms which have long been rejected by Tamil families of the disappeared.

Sri Lankan media organisations were reportedly excluded from covering Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-profile state visit to Colombo earlier this month, with reports highlighting how the President’s Media Division (PMD) took exclusive control of all media coordination and access.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs, Ananda Wijepala, has announced that approximately 1,700 individuals who deserted the Sri Lankan armed forces have been arrested in a major crackdown on organised crime and illegal arms, with authorities acknowledging that many of those involved in criminal activity are former members of the military.

The Palestinian group Hamas has launched a legal challenge against the United Kingdom’s 2021 decision to designate it as a terrorist organisation, submitting a detailed 106-page application to the Home Secretary calling for the proscription to be overturned.

Eight individuals have been arrested for engaging in illegal fishing activities off the coast of Mullaitivu over the past two days, amid growing concern from local fishermen about the continued degradation of their livelihoods and marine resources in the region.

Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has defended an ongoing corruption investigation involving an elderly female relative of the Rajapaksa family allegedly connected to a high-profile corruption case, declaring that no one, regardless of age, will be exempt from scrutiny if they are implicated in the misuse of public funds.

Daniel Vasanth, the Mannar District Organiser of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), has accused the Sri Lankan government and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led administration of continuing environmentally destructive mineral sand excavation projects in the Mannar district, despite promises to halt such activities.