Extracts from the editorial Friday of The Hindu, which has hisotircally been a vocal supporter of President Rajapaksa’s regime and its predecessors:

Comments by Juliette De Rivero, advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution on Sri Lanka on Thursday:

Sri Lankan Minister Mervyn Silva has threatened human rights activists who attended the 19th UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva, where a resolution about Sri Lanka was adopted yesterday.

The US state department has eased restrictions on defence exports to Sri Lanka on Thursday, the same day as the passing of a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council, AP reports.

Tensions between the countries are high, as Sri Lanka rejected the US-sponsored resolution and condemned the interference into what it says are internal matters.

Dayashri Jayasekara, an MP with Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP), told parliament that Rs. 6.35 million sent as aid to areas highly affected by floods in the East of Sri Lanka in 2011 had been misappropriated.

Jayasekara stated during a debate that several officials involved with the bank had been involved with embezzlement.

Writing in The Guardian on Tuesday, UK MPs, including former UK foreign secretaries, Douglas Alexander MP, David Miliband MP, Jack Straw MP and Margaret Beckett MP, urged member states to back a resolution tabled at the UNHRC.

Extracts reproduced below:

New evidence has emerged detailing the sequence of events that led to the killing of the senior LTTE commander, Colonel Ramesh, after in the custody of the Sri Lankan army, The Global Mail reports.

In an interview to the Debrief news channel, Robert O'Blake, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia, warned of renewed violence in Sri Lanka if the government failed to take "real concrete action".

The UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution calling on Sri Lanka to investigate alleged human rights violations.

The resolution, sponsored by the US and co-sponsored by 40 other nations, was passed by 24 votes to 15, with 8 abstentions.

“This is a very good start, but it is just a start. We need to keep up the pressure to make sure there is real change. The call for an independent international investigation remains, and will until it is answered.

Speaking to journalists on the resolution tabled at the UNHRC, the US ambassador, Eileen Donahue, said,

"We don't think of this as a symbolic vote,"

In a joint statement, a large coalition of activists and civil society actors in India have urged the Indian government to follow through on its recent statements expressing an inclination to support the resolution.

"Our communications with activists and community leaders in Sri Lanka have confirmed need for significant improvements, including efforts to help trace the missing, to devise and implement a political solution, to widen space for civil society groups and to address land conflicts, remain pressing issues, which if left unaddressed can undermine the existing situation in Sri Lanka, where there is a real opportunity for lasting peace."

“The unwillingness of Sri Lanka to make progress on the LLRC and other measures such as the talks with the Tamil National Alliance is the fundamental obstacle to move forward.

"It is thus incumbent for other governments, such as ours, to encourage the Sri Lankan government to do so."

“The U.S.-sponsored resolution calls for Sri Lanka to report back to the UNHRC on the implementation of the LLRC and to accept technical support from the U.N. to implement it. We sincerely hope that the Government of India will follow through on its own statement by supporting this resolution, and strongly urge it to do so."

Giving the term ‘public-private partnership’ a new twist,

Sri Lanka’s leading corporations staged their own demonstration Tuesday against growing international pressure over accountability for mass atrocities in the final months of the island’s war.