The Australian government has come under criticism after the launch of a website that includes video games and a film competition, supposedly to deter asylum seekers from Sri Lanka fleeing the island.

Shritharan Sivagnanam, a parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), denounced the growing presence of China in the Tamil homeland in light of the recent visit made by the Chinese Ambassador to Jaffna and Mannar. 

This week marked 21 years since the Mirusuvil massacre, where Sri Lankan soldiers murdered eight Tamil civilians in Jaffna, including three children, before dumping their bodies in a mass grave.

Earlier this month, the US State Department announced that Sunil Rathnayake, one of the soldiers involved in the massacre, would be barred from entry to the United States over his role in the killings.

Locals in Jaffna have lodged a complaint to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, stating that a drunken Sri Lankan police officer entered a home in Kayts last week and assaulted the occupants, including a woman and a 17-year-old child.

The United States has donated 820,000 additional Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccines to Sri Lanka's Ministry of Health. The US has now donated a total of 3.4 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and USAID has provided $17.9 million to Sri Lanka's Ministry of Health. 

Sri Lanka’s Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), the union for Doctors across Sri Lanka, began their strike in five provinces; Mannar, Trincomalee, Nuwara Eliya, Ratnapura, and Polonnaruwa today.

Locals in Jaffna have lodged a complaint with Sri Lankan police, after a Pillaiyar statue was found to be missing from the Kankesanthurai Kumara Temple – opposite to where a newly constructed Buddhist vihara has been erected.

The US Senate has approved the nomination of veteran US diplomat Julie Chung to be the next Ambassador to Sri Lanka.

Nine Muslim prisoners who were transferred from Batticaloa to Badulla prison in 2019, have been brutally assaulted inside the premises of the prison earlier this month, leaving many requiring hospitalisation.

A protest was held in Mullaitivu today, demanding justice after a 13-year-old Tamil girl was found dead last week.

The child, who has been identified as 13-year-old Yogarasa Nidarshana, was discovered in a dilapidated plot of land just a few hundred meters from her family home.

According to an autopsy carried out on her body, her body had signs of injuries to her genitals. It also revealed that she was approximately 2 months pregnant at the time.

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has written to India’s External Affairs Minister, as protests were launched in Rameswaram today, after the Sri Lankan navy seized at least eight boats and arrested 55 fishermen on the charge of poaching.

During a graduation ceremony, students at the University of Colombo refused to accept their degree certificates from the newly appointed University Chancellor, and Rajapaksa-aligned, Buddhist monk Muruththettuwe Ananda.

Responding to a joint letter signed by seven UN Special Rapporteurs calling for a moratorium on the use of Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act; the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has dismissed the statement as "factually incorrect" and noting that they were only provided 48 hours to comment.

Responding to the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka, Fitch Rating agency has downgraded the country’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘CC’, from ‘CCC’, a move that reflects the dire state of Colombo's finances.

“The downgrade reflects our view of an increased probability of a default event in coming months in light of Sri Lanka's worsening external liquidity position, underscored by a drop in foreign-exchange reserves set against high external debt payments and limited financing inflows. The severity of financial stress is illustrated by elevated government-bond yields and downward pressure on the currency” the report notes.