The emergence of new evidence of war crimes against Tamil civilians has led to questions on Britain's tacit backing of the Sri Lankan government.

Speaking in the House of Commons against the deportation of Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka, opposition (Labour) MP Siobhain McDonagh said the UK government had Tamil blood on its hands.

“Though Sri Lanka became independent, the Tamils living in that country were struggling for many years against the injustice of being treated as second class citizens.

Cricket commentator and former England captain Mike Atherton wrote in The Times Thursday:

“The government and its agents continued to be responsible for serious human rights problems.

“The targeting of civilians is a war crime. If proved, these charges go right up the chain of command of Sri Lanka’s military and government.

Speaking after Tuesday’s transmission of Channel 4’s documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’, Britain's Foreign Office Minister for South Asia, Alistair Burt, said in a statement:

“The UN Panel of Experts suggested that only an international accountability mechanism could investigate the serious allegations properly.  Such a mechanism is crucial to avoid a horrifically negative precedent for lawless behaviour worldwide, and to act as a neutral and independent body to bring out the truth that mu

TYO-UK (Tamil Youth Organisation - UK) welcomes the broadcast of the documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ by Channel 4 as a harrowing but vital insight into the truth of the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka during 2009. It is an outstanding example of investigative journalism that has uncompromisingly presented the horrors that occurred. The documentary’s irrefutable evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity serves as a reminder to all journalists of the responsibility they carry to highlight such atrocities wherever they occur.

The horrors that the documentary exposed, were repeatedly and clearly voiced by many, including the Tamil Diaspora, and international human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, throughout the first half of 2009, as events unfolded. Serious concerns were repeatedly raised regarding credible accounts of daily rape, torture, abduction and mass killings of Tamil civilians. Yet sadly, these calls were dismissed as mere rhetoric and propaganda.

The majority of the Sri Lanka women's cricket squad have signed up for jobs in the armed services.

Some 90% of the national cricketers in the pool have already been recruited, with 14 out of 30 joining the air force, and 13 recruited by the navy.

See BBC Sinhala service’s report here.

Since late 2010, the Sri Lankan government has made much of the country’s soaring stock market as indicative of a post-war boom.

The claim has also been repeated by some international analysts.

However even by October 2010, it was becoming clear that the stock index was being boosted by the government itself.

State-owned pension funds were doing much of the buying - even as foreign investors have been largely taking their funds out.

See our earlier post ‘Sri Lanka’s stocks: a closer look’

But now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Indians top tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka, the country’s tourism authority says. (See Xinhua’s report here)

68,830 Indians visited Sri Lanka between January and May this year – up 54% from the same period last year.

Rathika Sitsabaiesan, MP, representing the Scarborough-Rouge River constituency, addressed the Canadian Parliament for the first time on Friday: