The US has granted seven further countries, including Sri Lanka, exemptions from sanctions for importing Iranian oil.

South Africa, India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Turkey were given a waiver from meeting a US deadline, which is looming at the end of this month, to reduce imports from Iran.

Students at the Eastern University boycotted lessons for the third day on Saturday, protesting against the appointment of a paramilitary backed appointment of Dr Jaffer to the university's governing council, reports TamilNet.

The Sri Lankan government cautioned the US ambassador designate, Michele Sison, over her recent statements on Sri Lanka's human rights record.

A senior official of India's Intelligence Bureau has accused Tamil Nadu police officers of turning a blind eye to Tamil refugees leaving refugee camps and moving to Kerala.

The official is quoted as saying,

The ultra Sinhala nationalist party, JHU, are to take legal action over TNA leader, Sampanthan, for statements 'regarding formation of a Tamil Eelam state', reports Colombo Page.

Sri Lanka's parting representative to the UN in Geneva, Tamara Kunanayakam, sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, questioning the impartiality of the UNHRC resolution passed earlier this year, the Daily Mirror reports.

In a letter, published by the newspaper, Sri Lanka ambassador, asserts that Pillay's office, "instead of implementing the resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council at its Special Session on Sri Lanka in 2009, was playing the political agenda of the USA and other Western powers."

Citing an email communication by the head of the Asia-Pacific division of the OHCHR, Rory Mungoven, to Pillay's office, 'triumpantly announcing the adoption' of the UNHRC resolution, Tamara writes,

"The communication raises serious doubts about the impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of the work conducted by the staff of OHCHR and their respect for decisions of the Human Rights Council."

Tamara's full letter, as published in The Daily Mirror, is reproduced below:

"I am writing to you in connection with an email communication dated 22 March 2012 addressed to the staff of your Office by Mr. Rory Mungoven, Head of the Asia-Pacific Division of OHCHR, triumphantly announcing the adoption that morning of the resolution on Sri Lanka by the Human Rights Council, describing it as “the culmination of the sustained and determined work by many in the team and other parts of the house over the past few years.”

Amid strong calls for reconciliation and rehabilitation in the North, the Sri Lankan government, who are currently accused of war crimes and human rights abuses, are looking to raise $5 billion dollars, to invest into Hambantota, President Rajapaksa’s home constituency, and in the southern capital city, Colombo.

Writing in The Guardian, Donna Covey, the chief executive of a leading UK charity for refugees and asylum seekers, Refugee Council, condemned the UK's policy of deportation to Sri Lanka, following the recently published testimony of the tortured Tamil deportee, 'Hari'.