A protest was held in Vavuniya on Tuesday, demanding the Sri Lankan government halt the military appropriation of private lands, repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and release Tamil political prisoners.

Responding to the ongoing political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka, the Tamil National People’s Front has signed a motion of no confidence, demanding that the Rajapaksa administration stands down.

A fervently racist Sinhala Buddhist monk joined other clergy members in prayers ‘blessing’ the anti-government protests currently underway at Galle Face Green in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

Omalpe Sobitha, a monk who is also a MP with the extremist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), was one of several monks that was spotted at Galle Face on Tuesday.

Yet another Tamil father has died this week after spending over a decade demanding the whereabouts of his disappeared son. 

Muniandy Karuppaiya, from Mulliyawalai, Mullaitivu, has been searching for his son Mohandas who was forcibly disappeared during the armed conflict.

As anti-government protests continued in Sri Lanka, a pro-government march was held by regime supporters and Sinhala Buddhist monks who carried flags and placards backing the embattled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

During the march, Sinhala extremist activist Dan Priyasad warned that they had "collected the details of all engaging in protests".

Sri Lanka's treasury announced that the government will be reducing it's spending after officially announcing that it was defaulting on it’s external debt of up to $US 51 billion.  

Canadian Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown has pledged to delist the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organisation if elected to the post, whilst vowing to acknowledge Canada’s historic failure to support Tamil refugees.

Sri Lanka’s rupee took a sharp dive today following the finance ministry's official announcement that the government was defaulting on its foreign debts worth US$51 billion. 

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis deepened today, as the finance ministry and governor of the Central Bank announced the government would no longer be able to pay its international debt obligations, effectively defaulting on US$51 billion of foreign debt.

"It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible,” the newly appointed Central Bank Governor P. Nandalal Weerasinghe told reporters this morning. “The best action that can be taken is to restructure debt and avoid a hard default."

Healthcare workers at Mankulam hospital held a protest yesterday over the severe impact on the medical sector due to the dire economic situation. 

Staff at the hospital staged the protest demanding the Sri Lankan government to not "play with people's lives" and address the worsening shortage of life-saving medicines. 

In a statement, the British Tamil Forum stressed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Sri Lanka’s exorbitant defence spending is “unjustifiable” and worsens both the political and economic crisis the island faces.

Tamils in Batticaloa called on the Sri Lankan government to release political prisoners and protect human rights as protesters in the South continue to demand the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. 

A group of United Nations (UN) human rights experts condemned the Sri Lankan Government for cracking down on peaceful demonstrations, urging the state to “guarantee the fundamental rights of peaceful assembly and of expression during peaceful protests,” in a press release this week.

Sri Lanka’s embattled Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa made repeated references to “dark” times during the island’s bloody history of conflict, as he called for an end to protests in a defiant televised address earlier today.