The Tamil UNP MP, Vijayakala Maheswaran, who was forced to resign from her ministerial post after Sinhala politicians objected to her call last month for a resurgence of the LTTE to control the violent crime in the North-East, said she was not sorry for her comments. 

“I will not succumb to others’ sentiments or pay a price that I am not entitled to settle," she told Ceylon Today in an interview. 

500 acres of military-occupied land in the North-East is to be released at a cost of Rs 780 million to relocate the camps, the Sunday Times reports.

Around 500 acres of privately-owned land including some located in High Security Zones are to be released before December, the resettlement ministry secretary told the newspaper.

A memorial for a 1984 massacre of Tamil co-operative workers was opened on Saturday in Chavakachcheri.

On 13th August 1984, ten civilians including workers from the Thenmarachchi West Multipurpose Co-operative Society were killed by Sri Lankan soldiers.

The Sri Lankan military took students from a college in the south of the island on a tour of the Palali High Security Zone (HSZ) in Jaffna this week, an area that the army has blocked off to local Tamils that own private land there.

The Global Tamil Forum (GTF) called on the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to ensure there is accountability for human rights violations committed in Sri Lanka, warning that not doing so would be “an undesirable failure the UN system cannot afford”.

The Sri Lankan navy claims to have recovered parcels containing 83.5kg of Kerala cannabis, at Kankesanthurai in Jaffna earlier today.

The Manthai East Divisional Council has passed a resolution to remove a Sri Lankan military camp that has been set up in front of a Tamil school.

The Divisional Council passed the resolution at a meeting this week following a proposal from Northern Provincial Council member T Ravikaran.

Sri Lanka's Office on Missing Persons (OMP) said on Thursday that it would be publishing an interim report with recommendations on August 30, to coincide with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. 

The interim report will be launched at a commemorative event organised by the OMP in Colombo's J. R. Jayawardene Centre, named after the former Sri Lankan president who oversaw the pogrom of Black July 1983. 

Sri Lanka's OMP has been repeatedly criticised by Tamil families of the disappeared as an "exercise in futility", stating it lacks independence and failed to take their views into account. 

A Sri Lankan soldier has described how the military used to conduct operations disguised in LTTE uniforms to infiltrate LTTE defences. 

Japan's defence minister, Itsunori Onodera will visit Sri Lanka next week from August 20 to 22. 

Mr Odonera is expected to hold talks with Sri Lanka's state minister of defence, Ruwan Wijewardene. 

This will be the first visit by a Japanese defence minister. 

Sri Lanka’s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa has said he told the CID he doesn’t remember having a telephone conversation with current parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya about the abduction of journalist Keith Noyahr.

Karu Jayasuriya told police he telephoned the then president in 2008 to ask for help after Noyahr was abducted.

"I don't remember such a telephone conversation," the former president told reporters after he was questioned at home.

Tamils in the North-East have joined calls across Tamil Nadu for the release of May 17 movement leader Thirumurugan Gandhi, who was arrested by Indian police last week.

Last Thursday, the Central Crime Branch of the Chennai police arrested Mr Gandhi at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on counts of violating Section 124A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code, respectively, sedition and promoting race-based enmity.

A number of high profile Australian figures and entrepreneurs have joined human rights campaigners in calling for airlines Qantas and Virgin Australia to end deals with the Australian government to deport refugees.

Australian musicians, writers and artists as well as entrepreneurs have signed a statement by Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) which says,

Sri Lankan soldiers surrounded, forcibly entered and searched the Tamil National People's Front office in Mullaitivu yesterday, in what the party has described as a “blatant attempt to intimidate us”.