A group of Tamil political prisoners who had been detained for almost 15 years have been released this morning, after a Sri Lankan court found no evidence linking them to a 2006 explosion in Colombo.

Today marks 17 years since Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP and human rights lawyer, Nadarajah Raviraj was assassinated in Colombo. 

Raviraj was shot in Colombo at close range by unidentified gunmen on a motorbike at around 8:30am on November 10 2006, as he got into his car after giving an interview. The MP died later in hospital. His bodyguard was also killed.

Sri Lanka has signed a deal with Israel that will see Colombo send 10,000 farm workers to the country, after as many as 20,000 Palestinian agricultural workers were banned by the Israeli government.

Sri Lanka's Minister of Public Security, Tiran Alles, has been named in the latest batch of leaks in the Pandora Papers, confirming he has two firms registered in an offshore tax haven.

The construction of another Buddhist vihara in Trincomalee has continued to ramp up, as two Buddha statues were seen on the site this week.

The new building comes despite protests from locals in Iluppaikulam, Trincomalee, who have condemned the construction of a new Buddhist temple in an area predominantly inhabited by Tamil people.

Hundreds of mourners paid tribute to BBC News presenter George Alagiah at a memorial service in London this week.

Alagiah, one of British television's best-loved figures, was a Tamil who fled Sri Lanka in the wake of the 1958 pogrom and ongoing ethnic discrimination on the island.

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman concluded a visit to Sri Lanka last week, where she travelled to both Jaffna and Trincomalee before addressing a business summit on “Enhancing Connectivity”, as New Delhi aims to grow closer ties to the Tamil homeland.

A protest was held in Vavuniya on Saturday demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and an end to the military offensive that has seen over 4,000 children killed so far.

The demonstration, organised by the Mass Movement for Social Justice (MMSJ), also criticised US support of Israel, and highlighted the severe impact of the Israeli invasion on Gaza's civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of hospitals, schools, and humanitarian aid corridors.

Tamil lawmakers from the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) led a protest in Vavuniya on Sunday, demanding an end to Sri Lanka’s land encroachment across the Tamil homeland in the North-East.

^{Image courtesy of PMD}

Sri Lanka’s president Ranil Wickremesinghe decried the apparent double standard of the “West” in their approach to the current bombardment in Gaza and Sri Lanka’s own 2009 military offensive but remained staunchly opposed to an international accountability mechanism into the massacres on the island.

“Why is it one rule applies to us, and another rule applies to them,” Wickremesinghe told an audience last week.