President Mahinda Rajapaksa will today announce that High Security Zones in the Jaffna peninsula will be dismantled. They will be replaced by buffer zones extending 300 metres outwards from military installations.

Human plasma, extracted from blood donated to the National Blood Transfusion Service during campaigns to collect blood for security force personnel and for Thalassemia patients, has been exported to a private company in India – with a health union accusing the ministry of indulging in a bloody betrayal.