One of the world’s best known aid agencies, Médecins sans Frontières, has released a collection of essays which has revealed some of the controversial policies that they undertook when negotiating with governments during their work.

Amongst those examined was their work in Sri Lanka where after being accused of being pro-LTTE, the agency found itself working within a government "pacification policy that had settled the ethnic question in Sri Lanka by bombings and military surveillance".

Alistair Burt, British Foreign Office minister has today called on Sri Lanka to release the report on the findings of the controversial Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission.

“Many hope this report will mark a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s recovery from conflict, and I call on the Government of Sri Lanka to seize this important opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to national reconciliation and accountability.

Sri Lanka’s present political predicament is already somewhat hastily being described as ‘post-conflict’ by both international and local actors, for example by both the Government of Sri Lanka and the IMF.

However, there are very good reasons for remaining sceptical about the use of this terminology, not just because of the nebulousness of definitions of conflict (and a simplistically assumed opposition with peace), and its injudicious past use in places like Afghanistan, but also due to present dynamics in Sri Lanka which are being deliberately papered over and viewed through a skewed lens.

Indeed, ‘post-conflict’ is a misnomer that flows from the predominance of a particular international common sense knowledge and the way it understands the power dynamics in the interface of the global and local that we find in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's 2012 budget reveals further proposals to aid security forces and encourage the expansion of their families.

The reading of the budget, by Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday to parliament, was interrupted by an altercation between MPs. UNP MPs holding placards criticising the proposals were assaulted by government MPs.

Extracts from a resolution passed unanimously by the annual general meeting of the York Federation of Students, the largest student union in Canada, representing 50,000 students:

“Be It Further Resolved that the York Federation of Students

“shall endorse the international call to immediately establish an independent, international, and impartial mechanism to ensure truth, accountability and justice in Sri Lanka; and

Indian investers have expressed concern at companies they have invested in, being listed among the 37 companies identified by the government through in the expropriation act as 'underperforming'. 

The investors are said to be studying the provisions of the Act very carefully.

According to reports, the investors, such as one involved in the export of Wanaspathi oil, are in the process of appealing to the Indian High Commission to intervene.

The bill, which was passed as law - the Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Underutilized Assets Act - allows the government to takeover companies it deems to be underperforming.

Twenty percent of the US$560 million of foreign direct investment received last year was from India.

Highlighting the ongoing oppression and discrimination of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government, the TNA's leader, Sampanthan, asserted that the Tamil nation "will not accept this status of inequality" in an interview with the Sunday Leader, published on Sunday.

See here for interview in full.

Extracts of Sampanthan's responses are reproduced below:

"The Tamil people have not been treated as equal citizens for a very long time."

"The Tamil people have consistently demonstrated that they will not accept this status of inequality and that they are resilient enough to come out of this tragic situation."

On the militarisation and Sinhalisation of the North-East, the TNA leader said,

"Deliberate efforts are being made by the Government to further change the linguistic and cultural identity of the Northern and Eastern provinces.

"There is no doubt whatever that the Government is aggressively pursuing a sinister programme to change the demographic composition of the Northern and Eastern provinces in such a manner as to weaken the Tamil presence and increase the majority Sinhala presence."

On accountability and investigating war crimes, Sampanthan reiterated,

"Human rights laws and humanitarian laws are a matter of universal concern. No country is entitled to violate international human rights laws and international humanitarian laws.

Every country is bound by the international conventions it has acceded to, and Sri Lanka can be no exception."

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is seeking devolution of executive, legislative and judicial power as an essential part of addressing the legitimate grievances of the Tamil nation in the North-East, said TNA MP Suresh Premachandran.

Premachandran added that police and land powers, the powers of governors and the powers to be vested with the government would also be raised in talks scheduled to take place on the 5th, 6th, 14th and 15th December between the TNA and the government.

In an attempt to quell investor fears, Sri Lanka’s Central bank has announced that the takeover bill is not expropriation.

Defending the newly passed “urgent bill”, the bank said in a statement,

"The ... act does not, in any way, constitute the nationalization or the expropriation of private assets".

Indian government-owned construction company IRCON has signed a deal with Sri Lankan Railways to reconstruct a railway line through Jaffna, in a contract worth $150 million.

The railway project is to be funded through an $800 million loan from the Government of India to Sri Lanka, with a repayment period of 20 years and a 5 year moratorium. India is also providing another loan to Sri Lanka worth $167.4 million to reconstruct railway lines in the South of the island, with IRCON involved in three other railway contracts across Sri Lanka.