The new Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured President Rajapakse that his country would continue to support efforts to protect Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, reported the DailyMirror. During a phone call on Saturday, Rajapakse congratulated President Xi and thanked him for China’s assistance in rebuilding the country. Read more .

A British tourist was denied entry into Sri Lanka when officials at Colombo's Bandaranaike airport deemed that he showed a lack of respect to Buddhism. The official said that when the tourist was asked about a tattoo of Buddha on his arm, the tourist has answered "very disrespectfully". The official added that such views would have been a "threat to his own safety" in Sri Lanka.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council during the general debate on Friday, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, the leader of the TNPF who was representing the NGO International Educational Development, called for "we call for the establishment of a transitional administration, under international supervision, in the North and East of Sri Lanka – the traditional homeland of the Tamils – as an urgent measure to stop the on-going destruction of the Tamil people." See here . Reproduced in full below: 'International Educational Development has followed the progress of the UPR since its inception. Now, in its second cycle we note a decided failure of some States to implement the recommendations of the first review - as is glaringly apparent in the second review of Sri Lanka. The review of Sri Lanka also demonstrates the paucity of opportunities for a people, such as the Tamil people, who identify as a collective political entity – that is as a Nation - based on historical independence, ethnicity, language and customs to be heard and taken into account. Their genuine grievances and aspirations are reduced to mere individual human rights problems rather than the destruction of their Nation. Sadly, except for one statement made by Austria concerning the rape of Tamil women, the Tamils as a people are not even named—the UPR is “de-Tamilized” to the point that, anyone not fully cognizant of the facts of the 65 year long Tamil-Sinhala conflict would not even know who is to be a party to “reconciliation.”

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council during Sri Lanka's UPR review session, the US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe expressed disappointment at the overwhelming rejection of recommendations by Sri Lanka. In statement, Donahoe said: 'We welcome the Government’s statement of its intention to accept recommendations to combat gender-based violence, to carry out an independent and credible investigation into the allegations of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and to strengthen the independence of institutions, including the Human Rights Commission, Police Commission, and Election Commission. During the review, a number of States called for the implementation of the recommendations of Sri Lanka’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). We are disappointed that the Government rejected all UPR recommendations from States that called upon it to implement the LLRC recommendations. Further, the Sri Lankan delegation attempted to reframe Sri Lanka’s human rights commitments in terms of the government’s National Plan of Action, which does not address the broad spectrum of recommendations put forward by the LLRC report, and by lobbying other delegations to revise their UPR recommendations to exclude reference to the LLRC report after they had been orally presented. Major changes were made to the substance of recommendations after the interactive dialogue. This is inconsistent with the transparent, interactive character of the UPR.