Speaking on the day of Sri Lanka's UPR at the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International's Sri Lanka expert, Yolanda Foster, said that Sri Lanka's promises on human rights should not be accepted by the international community.

Foster said,

“Sri Lanka has been making empty promises about human rights for decades. This was made clear by a number of countries which questioned Sri Lanka’s lack of progress in ending human rights violations during the review,”

“Three years after the end of the civil war, the government continues to stifle dissent through threats and harassment, and has failed to take steps to end enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.”

“Four years after the UN’s first review of human rights in Sri Lanka, there has been virtually no progress – as shown today - on any of the commitments the government made to end arbitrary detentions,”

“The persistent lack of justice in these cases is shocking and flies in the face of repeated promises by the government for the past six years that it would investigate them properly. Victims’ families won’t believe the government until some practical action is taken. As a very basic first step the 2007 commission’s findings should be made public,”

A Tamil asylum seeker at Maribyrnong Detention Centre in Melbourne, Austrlia, who was facing deportation to Sri Lanka today and attempted to take his own life in the early hours of this morning (see here and here), has won a last minute reprieve, only a few hours before he was due to be flown home.

The Federal Court in Sydney decided to overturn an earlier court decision on the man, who is known as "Anjan" and said to be in his 40s.

News of his attempted suicide had earlier prompted several refugee solidarity activists to form a community blockade outside the detention centre, preventing the police from attempting to deport the individual.

In a statement released prior to news of the reprieve, the Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, said: 

“We are extremely concerned about the fate of this asylum seeker,”

“Sri Lanka remains a dangerous place for anyone deemed to be an opponent of the Rajapaksa regime. The use of torture is systemic."

The World Bank has withdrawn its offer of financial assistance to two parliamentary oversight committees - COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) and PAC (Public Accounts Committee), citing a lack of progress on changes the government agreed to implement in return, reports DailyMirror.

The Bishop of Mannar has stated that the 13^th Amendment is “fundamentally flawed” and has called for the recognition of the Tamil people as a nation as crucial to bringing about peace on the island.

Speaking via Skype at a side event at the 14^th session of the Universal Periodic Review currently underway in Geneva, Bishop Rayappu Joseph told the audience that,

“Our solution does not lie in the 13^th Amendment but on the Tamil nationhood to be recognised. We are not a minority.

From the beginning of history there have been two nations, that must be recognised.”

The Bishop then went on to state that the 13^th Amendment was “fundamentally flawed” and called for the Tamil people to have the “right to rule”.

Bishop Joseph also commented on many other issues, telling the audience that despite testifying to the Sri Lankan government several times that a recorded 146,679 people were missing from the end of armed hostilities in May 2009, he was yet to receive a response.

He also stated that crimes such as extra-judicial killings had to be investigated, saying,

“We know the people behind these crimes… there must be accountability”.

Commenting on the Sri Lankan government’s prohibition on commemorating those that had died in Tamil areas, the Bishop said,

“There are a lot of people walking like skeletons… They have lost their mind, they need to heal… A lot of money is spent on celebrating the war but where are our people?

We are not allowed in our areas, Mannar for example… to grieve our dead people. The dead must be respected and justice served.”

The Mayor of Jaffna and Jaffna’s District Government Agent have announced their appreciation of the Sri Lankan Army’s presence in Jaffna.

Both speaking at a prize-giving ceremony organised by the Army for Year 5 students, Mayor of Jaffna, Mrs Yogeswari Patkunarajah is reported to have said:

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.