“While the Embassy does not endorse the views of any particular media outlet, the United States believes that a free and independent media is vital to ensuring the health and continuation of any democracy. 

Slamming Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper's threat to boycott the next Commonwealth meeting, which is to be held in Sri Lanka, if there is not satisfactory progress on war crimes investigation, Sri Lankan foreign minister, G.L. Peiris, claimed that such views did not reflect Canadian foreign policy towards Sri Lanka.

A new bill, allowing the takeover of 36 private companies is due to be presented in parliament on the 9th of November, the Daily Mirror reports.

The bill, called ‘The Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Underutilized Assets’, will allow the state to take over the companies and their assets.

International human rights group, Amnesty International, slammed the Commonwealth for failing a "critical moral challenge" through its inaction on Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth last week.

Amnesty's National Director, Claire Mallinson, said,

“It is an absolute disgrace that Commonwealth leaders have agreed to hold their next meeting in Sri Lanka in spite of its appalling human rights record.”

Sri Lanka has been aiming to boost its trade with Canada, with a delegation meeting with businessmen in Toronto earlier this week, despite Canada’s continued concern regarding Sri Lanka’s war-time abuses committed against the Tamil people.

The ten-member delegation visited the country after a gap of almost three years, attempting to enhance trade links between the two. The visit though comes at a time when Canada is lobbying for Sri Lanka to be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian law.

Sri Lanka’s controversial reconciliation commission has completed its report and will present it to President Mahinda Rajapakse in the second week of November.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was set up by the President and was supposed to look into the conflict with the Tamil Tigers, but it has been slammed by human rights organisations and foreign officials as a farce.

The spokesman for the LLRC, Lakshman Wickramasinghe told reporters, that it is not in the commission’s hand to make it public.

Defence Secretary Gothbaya Rajapakse said that,