Sri Lankan government Minister Wimal Weerawansa has warned that newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi poses a threat to Sri Lanka’s stability, according to the Colombo Gazette.
 
The leader of the National Freedom Front said, “it is only the Sri Lankan people who can decide on the 13th Amendment and what’s best for Sri Lanka”, with reference to the Indian Prime Minister.

His comments come after Prime Minister Modi told the Sri Lankan President that he must go “beyond” the 13th amendment, when they met in Delhi.

Police powers will not be devolved to the provinces even if the 13th Amendment to the constitution is implemented said the Sri Lankan government today.

Cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, speaking at a press conference in the southern city of Kandy, said that the government had already decided that police powers will not be distributed and remain with the central government, reports Colombo Gazette.

Photograph Uthayan

The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered the release of the 29 fishermen arrested by the Navy earlier this week, as a goodwill measure, reports ColomboPage.

Photograph Channel 4

Next week, the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict is due to take place in London, co-hosted by the UK's Foreign Secretary, William Hague and the Special Envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie.

In the run up to the ESVC summit, we revisit the mounting evidence which documents the widespread, systematic and on-going use of sexual violence by Sri Lanka's military against Tamils, that occurs with absolute impunity.

See our full feature: 'Sexual Violence in Conflict: Sri Lanka'

As the armed conflict drew to an end in May 2009, Sri Lanka's soldiers committed acts of sexual violence against Tamil women and men, both civilians and LTTE cadre, at will.

One Sri Lankan soldier told Channel 4 in July 2011:

"They [Sri Lankan soldiers] shoot people at random, stab people, rape them, cut their tongues out, cut women's breasts off. I have witnessed all this with my own eyes. I have seen small children laying dead."

"If they wanted to rape a Tamil girl, they could just beat her and do it. If her parents tried to stop them, they could beat them or kill them. It was their empire."

"One day I saw a group of six soldiers raping a young Tamil girl. I saw this with my own eyes."

Much of the photographic and video evidence of sexual violence in the final stages of the armed conflict emerged in the form of 'trophy videos', filmed by Sri Lankan soldiers themselves whilst committing the crimes.

The Tamil Eelam Football Association will play their first match of the 2014 ConIFA World Football Cup today against Arameans Suryoye.

The players trained for the first time since their arrival from their training camp in Norway on Sunday, with all the players fit for the big match.

A school boy has been reported missing in Vavuniya, after he failed to come home on May 27th, Global Tamil News reports.

Seventeen year old Mahalingam Rajeevan, a student at Kalmadu MV School, left his home in Tharanikulam, Sasthiri Kulankulam at 5am that morning by bicycle with a 10kg of long green beans, which he took to a vegetable vendor at Vavuniya town.