The price of bread may rise to Rs. 60, speculated the Island on Saturday, after bakers at the Association of Bakery Owners met on Friday.

On Friday, officials at Sri Lanka's two main milling companies - Prima and Serendib - said that the price of wheat flour had been raised by Rs.6 and Rs. 4 per kilo, respectively. Both companies said the price hike was due to losses during the importing of wheat flour, following the depreciation of the rupee, and increased transport costs.

Speaking to The Sunday Island, bakers said:

"We don’t want to burden the people, we feel it too. But what can we do with the flour price going up?"

"Everything is going up.. and it is the people who will suffer"

The National Freedom Front (NFF) has written to several parties across Sri Lanka, calling on them to rally together and form an alliance against the implementation of the 13th Amendment.

The Iranian government has offered Sri Lanka the opportunity to purchase crude oil without opening Letters of Credit as a means of bypassing American sanctions on Iran, reported the Island.

Quoting the Iranian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Mohammed Nabi Hassanipour, it was reported that the arrangement was part of a package proposed to Sri Lanka to overcome the embargoes imposed by "insensitive global policemen".

A church in Trincomalee was vandalised and mosque in Anuradhapura were both damaged and vandalised by unidentified persons on Friday and Satruday night respectively, reported TamilNet.

A statue at the church, located in Paazhaiyoottu in the Trincomalee district, was defaced with its hands destroyed and lights decorating the statue removed on Friday night.

A mosque in Anuradhapura was set alight, in a case of arson, forcing the Muslim clergy to shift prayers for the Hajji festival to a nearby house.

Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has said that the US should "compensate" Sri Lanka, due to the adverse effects its sanctions on Iran are having on Sri Lanka, reported the Daily Mirror.

The US Coast Guard conducted training exercises for the Sri Lankan Coast Guard in Trincomalee recently, reports Colombo Page.

The training initiative, said to strengthen maritime security, was part of the Export Control and Related Border Security Program.

Addressing the closing ceremony the US ambassador to Colombo, Michele J Sison, said,

Sri Lanka’s Minister for Industry and Commerce, Rishad Bathiyutheen, said the country is taking measures to minimise the impact of the global financial crisis and will look towards India and China to increase their export market, reported ColomboPage.

The country’s exports to its traditional markets in the West have been declining recently and the minister said the government would take efforts to open Asian markets for their products.

As the 14th Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session gets under way at the UN Human Rights Council this week, the spotlight will once again fall on Sri Lanka and its human rights record - but just how meaningful a process will it be?

Last time Sri Lanka faced a review at the Council was in 2008, when Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had been elected on a tidal wave of popular Sinhala support for a renewed war effort, was intensifying his military offensive against the LTTE. Whilst the reports of paramilitaries, torture, abductions, killings, and the targeting of human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers were acknowledged in the recommendations, the scale of human rights abuses, war crimes and genocide that Sri Lanka unleashed less than a year later, made a mockery of the entire process. Re-visiting the 2008 recommendations, in light of what has happened and continues to take place, should be a sobering read to any within the UPR Working Group.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Mass Media and Information, Keheliya Rambukwella, said the government will discuss the effects of sanctions on Iran with the US government, reported the Sunday Times.

The Sapugaskanda oil refinery is due to close on Friday, as the supply of Iranian crude runs out.