Aruni Wijewardane, a career civil servant, has been appointed Sri Lanka’s new foreign secretary replacing a former Navy admiral Jayanath Colombage, who stands accused of overseeing the Illegal detention and torture site known as “Gota's Camp” within the Trincomalee Naval Complex.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka’s current Prime Minister, has been appointed as the country’s Finance Minister amidst the ongoing economic crisis.

A Tamil youth who was arrested by Sri Lankan authorities under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in 2009 and tortured, has finally been acquitted of all charges today.

Sundaralingam Ketheeswaran from Kaluvanchikudy in Batticaloa was just 21-years-old when he was arrested under the draconian PTA on March 18, 2009.

Australia’s newly elected Labor government confirmed that a group of asylum seekers who were fleeing from Sri Lanka have been sent back to the island, after their vessel was intercepted by Australian authorities last week.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles confirmed in an interview with Sky News Australia that the asylum seekers were ‘processed’ under Operation Sovereign Borders and then flown back to Sri Lanka on a chartered aircraft.

After Labor leader Anthony Albanese emerged victorious in Australia’s election last week, fresh hope has been raised for the Murugappan family, a Tamil family of asylum seekers who were removed by Australian authorities from their home in Biloela almost four years ago.

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa swore in 8 new cabinet ministers on Monday but has kept himself as minister of finance as he continued to defy calls to resign from anti-government protestors.

Since the appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister earlier this month, Rajapaksa has now appointed a total of 10 new ministers.

Despite a 40,000 metric tonne consignment of petrol having arrived in Sri Lanka under an Indian credit facility just yesterday, the country’s cabinet has cleared a proposal to seek a further US$500 million from New Delhi for more.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power spoke with newly appointed Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe earlier today, where she reiterated “her support to the people of Sri Lanka” and “stressed the need to urgently undertake political and economic reforms”.

Hundreds of people were reportedly arrested by Tamil Nadu police officers on Sunday, as they attempted to mark the 13^th anniversary of the massacre of Tamils by the Sri Lankan state.

(Photo of Sri Lankan Garment Workers, Credit ILO Asia-Pacific)

A shipment of urgently needed medicines, rice and milk powder from Tamil Nadu arrived in Sri Lanka on Sunday, as the island’s economic crisis continues.

Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force has reportedly arrested as many as 21 Tamils last week, as they prepared to flee the island to seek asylum abroad.

As many as 42 Eelam Tamil asylum-seekers have launched a hunger strike after eight months of being detained on a military base 3,000 miles south of India, as a plea to the UK government to allow them to seek asylum in another country.  

The 42 refugees are part of a group of 89 Eelam Tamils, including 20 children who set out from southern India in a fishing boat in late September 2021 in the hopes of claiming asylum in Canada. Most of the group fled to India years earlier to escape death and violence during the culmination of the Tamil Genocide in Mullivaikkal of 2009. At least one of the asylum seekers took part in the Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) protest rally last year

Vivekanandan Piriyangan has been hospitalised after being brutally assaulted by thugs with close ties to Sri Lankan military intelligence for organising the commemoration event in Mullivaikkal earlier this week.