The Sri Lankan Army has said it will target 150 Tamil women from the North-East for recruitment to the Army Volunteer Force.

100 of the Tamil women will be recruited in Kilinochchi and 50 from districts in the east.

A press release by the army said that the recruitment is voluntary.

The Sri Lankan Army has been collecting the details of unemployed youths, aged between 25 and 30, in the Mullaitivu district over the past few days, reported the Uthayan.

Senior officials have said they were not aware of the purpose of the data collection.

Sri Lanka’s National Languages and Social Integration Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has called on South Asian countries not to allow the US to pass a resolution against the country at the UN Human Rights Council session in March.

The minister said that interference in Sri Lanka may be the first step by the US to interfere in South Asia and warned that they may attempt to force a change of government in the island.

“I find it very disturbing that a country whose independent history is rooted in the struggle for democratic rights and free speech should have taken what is, in effect, an act of overt political censorship”.

Members of the military are demanding information from the Divisional Secretariats about the people who reported to the presidential commission on the disappeared in Jaffna,  reported the Uthayan newspaper.

The Buddhist organisation Sinhala Ravaya has called off its campaign to ban the slaughter of cattle in Sri Lanka after President Mahinda Rajapaksa assured that necessary action will be taken to address the issues raised.

Three monks from the organisation started a fast-unto-death, which turned out not to last that long, after the presidential intervention.

The Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council, CV Wigneswaran has told the BBC in an interview that the Tamil people feel very strongly about accountability and that’s why the NPC passed a motion calling for an international probe into war crimes.

Asked by Charles Haviland on his views about the president, the Chief Minister was reluctant to answer, but said that the perception the Tamil people have is that the "majority community" does not want the NPC to work due to “a far more deep-seated attitude”.

See below for response given by Wigneswaran when asked for his view on the NPC resolution passed last month, and the rest of the interview.

CVW:  You see that is the feeling of the people. Every person who has lost somebody in that war feels very strongly about it. There must be some sort of a judicial inquiry into this and those who have done wrong must be brought to book. So it is easy to say, "well, it is all in the past why are you worried about the past". No. everything that has been done, if it has been done deliberately, you can’t say, a person can’t be heard to say, "well I murdered somebody, but then now that is of the past let’s forget about it", no you can’t. So it’s in that spirit that the people, people’s representatives, wanted a resolution to be passed.

CH:  Obviously you meet the president regularly, how is your relationship with the president and to what extent do you see him as a man that wants you to have appropriate powers or do you feel he is really representative of a government that just wants to keep all the powers for itself and mistrusts the idea of devolving power to the north?

CVW:  You are trying to put me against the president..

CH:  No I’m asking…