Shunned, destitute and pushed into prostitution in some cases, Sri Lanka's Tamil widows have returned to northern Jaffna since the end of the separatist war only to discover they are not welcome even in their homeland.

Now, six years after the war ended, the women who fled the fighting on the peninsula in their thousands are pinning their hopes on the nation's new president for a better future for their families.

Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena Friday ordered the immediate dismissal of the parliament, a government spokesman said, clearing the way for a snap election 10 months ahead of schedule.

"The President signed a gazette notification a short while ago dissolving parliament with effect from midnight today," the government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said.

An Emirates A380 plane with more than 500 people on board had to make an emergency landing in Sri Lanka on Friday due to a "technical fault", aviation officials said.

The aircraft was en route to Dubai from Sydney when it was diverted to Colombo, where it landed safely early on Friday morning.

A Sri Lankan court on Thursday handed the death sentence to a soldier convicted of slitting the throats of eight Tamil civilians, including four children, during the island's separatist war.

Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake was ordered hanged over the massacre in 2000 of the ethnic minority Tamils who had returned to their bombed out homes on the northern Jaffna peninsula to try to salvage their belongings.

Sri Lanka's proposed war crimes investigation has been delayed by several months until September as the government focuses on impending parliamentary elections, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said Wednesday.

Samaraweera said he hoped the composition of the investigating team along with its terms of reference would now be finalized just before the U.N. Human Rights Council's session in September in Geneva.

Indonesia's vice president warned Monday that paying people-smugglers would amount to "bribery" after Australia was accused of handing out money to turn back a boatload of asylum-seekers.

Allegations that the captain and five crew of a boat, carrying migrants from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, were each paid US$5,000 by an Australian immigration official to turn back to Indonesia were made to police on Rote island in the country's east last week.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday Australia would do "whatever we need to do" to combat people-smuggling as he repeatedly refused to deny claims an official paid thousands of dollars to turn back a boat from Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities said they were investigating allegations told to local police that the captain and five crew of a boat carrying asylum-seekers were each paid US$5,000 by an Australian immigration official to return to the Southeast Asian nation.

Sri Lanka's new government said Thursday an investigation into allegations of war crimes would begin by September, amid international pressure to account for atrocities committed during the island's decades-long separatist conflict.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the local inquiry into allegations of abuses in the final stages of the war would start by the next U.N. Human Rights Council session, which meets in Geneva in September.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ended a visit to Sri Lanka Sunday after pledging support for minority Tamils following decades of ethnic war, a local Tamil politician said.

Kerry met heads of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main political party from the ethnic minority, a day after holding talks with Sri Lanka's new President Maithripala Sirisena.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hailed Sri Lanka's new reformist government Saturday for making "enormous progress" since the departure of strongman Mahinda Rajapakse and for pursuing reconciliation with Tamils after the island's devastating ethnic conflict.

As he met top officials including President Maithripala Sirisena, Kerry said he saw "extraordinary opportunities" opening up for bilateral ties and said Washington stood ready to help Colombo in any way it could.