The Sri Lankan Prime Minister is to present a bill to establish an Office for Reparations in Parliament on Tuesday, despite concerns raised by civil society.

While the international community has urged for speedier progress in establishing a reparations mechanism, civil society members have pointed out that the government is trying to push through a bill in which the Office would have no direct policy-making power and would not be politically independent.

Sri Lanka's prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe said police were investigating almost 1.4 billion rupees paid by China Harbour Engineering Company to the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa prior to the last election. 

Eighty-two cheques were drawn out in the names of members of the Presidential Secretariat in the run up to Rajapaksa's election defeat, Mr Wickremesinghe told fellow UNP members. 

In a letter to the Office on Missing Persons, mothers of the disappeared who have been holding demonstrations against the OMP process, outlined their reasons for losing faith in the process. 

The letter, which lists 8 points, comes after two days of protests outside the OMP hearings in Jaffna and Kilinochchi. 

Sri Lanka's former external affairs minister, G L Peiris, who is currently the chairman of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) said he would be writing to the newly appointment UK foreign secretary to urge him to withdraw the co-sponsored UN Human Rights Council resolution. 

“It has now come to light that the basis for this resolution is entirely flawed and based on facts which are untrue,” Mr Peiris told the Daily Mirror. 

2017 saw limited progress in the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, a UK government report has said, citing particular concerns around inter-communal tensions and the slow delivery of key human rights and reconciliation commitments, including delays in replacing the Prevention of Terrorism Act and operationalising the Office of Missing Persons.

The Sri Lankan military is accused of illegally raising a wild leopard, which went on to injure several Tamil villagers in Kilinochchi last month, according to a report in the Sunday Observer.

The leopard, which injured at least seven people near a local school, was eventually killed by villagers, after Wildlife Department officers arrived and then abandoned the area after the animal had begun injuring more people. Sri Lankan police were at the scene throughout the episode.

The Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army addressed a United Nations conference on counter-terrorism last month, telling delegates the “Sri Lanka continues to be vigilant” against the “changing face of terrorism”.

Speaking at the first ever United Nations High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter Terrorism Agencies of Member States at the UN headquarters in New York, Major General W.B.D.P. Fernando said,

A military delegation from Nigeria was taken on a tour of Jaffna earlier this year, where they held discussion with Sri Lankan security forces stationed in the peninsula.

During their visit, the deleagation met with female soldiers serving the 7 Sri Lanka Army Women's Corps (SLAWC).

The heads of embassies of several Western states have written to Sri Lanka’s president expressing their opposition to the reported resumption of capital punishment on the island.

Residents of Chavakachcheri confronted Sri Lankan soldiers attempting to dig up grass and soil for their camp from the banks of a lagoon, in an area designated as a public leisure space.

The incident took place yesterday in Kovitkudiyiruppu, with angered locals demanding soldiers stop digging up the grasses and soil in an area designated as a public leisure and tourism spot by the Chavakachcheri Urban Council.

Sri Lanka’s United National Party has instructed the armed forces to take immediate action when information about LTTE commemorations is received, according to UNP Minister Navin Dissanayake. The Minister also claimed that the commemorations were being held as an organised campaign to attract Tamil diaspora money.

The New Star Sports Club (NSSC Montreal) hosted their 4th Annual Mega Blast and Sports Festival on Saturday July 7th, 2018 at Parc Saint Maxime in Laval, Canada.

In collaboration with Tamil One TV, the Trinco Association of Montreal and NSSC Montreal held a day full of various activities for all ages, including a volleyball tournament, inflatable game and tug of war competition amidst many more.

A Tamil asylum-seeker in Australia faces permanent separation from his wife and baby daughter after receiving a deportation notice on Friday, the Tamil Refugee Council said, adding that he could be deported as soon as Monday.

30-year-old Thileepan had fled Sri Lanka after being tortured and interrogated by Sri Lankan security forces, arriving in Australia in June 2012.

There were scenes of further demonstrations today outside the Office on Missing Persons hearing as families of the disappeared demanded an international investigation into the whereabouts of their missing loved ones. 

The OMP hearing which took place in the Kilinochchi this morning, follows a sitting in Jaffna yesterday where families of the disappeared protested outside, rejecting the process.