Speaking at Sri Lanka Insurance Cooperation’s Silver Jubilee, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has voiced his defiance against economic conspiracies to topple his ‘progressive’ government.

Recalling challenges faced by the government in nationalising the Insurance Cooperation, the President urged employees of government managed corporations to show more commitment to improving profitability.

Human Rights Watch has called on United Nations members to hold Sri Lanka accountable for wartime abuses at the upcoming Universal Periodic Review, later this week.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the New York-based NGO gave a detailed rebuttal to Sri Lanka’s 2012 UPR submission, addressing areas of media freedom, anti-terror laws, intimidation of human rights activists, the use of torture, disappearances, the plgiht of internally displaced  persons and accountability for war crimes.

Sri Lanka's tea prices dropped this week as sanctions against Iran affected the state's exports, reports Xinhua.

According to one tea broker, John Knells Ltd. average prices have been steadily falling from 452 rupees per kilo at sale in late September, to 407.31 rupees in mid-October.

Sixty percent of Sri Lanka's tea exports is to the Middle East, with Iran one of the largest importers.

In a statement released the day before Sri Lanka's UPR at the Human Rights Council, Amnesty International reiterated the "lack of progress on a number of human rights issues highlighted in the first review four years ago", and a "culture of impunity for human rights violations".

The statement continued:

Writing for Project Syndicate, former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans has labelled Sri Lanka’s ‘savagery’ in 2009 as comparable to genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, and criticised the silence of international observers at the time.

Read the full article on Project Syndicate here.

Extracts reproduced below:

“The world has paid almost no attention to war crimes and crimes against humanity comparable in their savagery to any of these [- Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur]: the killing fields of Sri Lanka in 2009.”

“The lack of outrage mainly reflects the Sri Lankan government’s success in embedding in the minds of policymakers and publics an alternative narrative that had extraordinary worldwide resonance in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Housing, Construction and Common Amenities Wimal Weerawansa met the chief prelates of the Buddhist Clergy Siyam Nikaya, to seek approval to continue the campaign to abolish the 13th Amendment.

The Siyam Nikaya Chief Prelate, Udugama Buddharakkhitha Thero, concurred with Weerawansa’s lamentations of the 13th Amendment, noting that the Provincial Council system was not suitable for the country.

Weerawansa has also sent letters to several Sri Lankan parties to lobby them towards pressurinsf the government to abolish the amendment.

The Sri Lankan Attorney General Palitha Fernando has claimed that several high-profile human rights violations will be investigated and concluded by the end of the year.

Officials told local media that those responsible for the killings of 5 students in Trincomalee and the executions of 17 aid workers of Action Contra Faim, will be brought to justice soon, said Additional Solicitor General Suhada Gamlath.

The Sri Lankan Army has held an education programme in Jaffna, helping pupils who are studying for their O-Levels, prepare for their upcoming exams.

The seminars and lessons were organised by the Army’s 52nd Division and consisted of revision for Science and Maths papers.