The state-run Sri Lankan Airlines have announced that they will turn their focus away from European destinations, and instead look towards routes in Asia and the Middle East, as the airline continued to make losses for a fourth straight year.

Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe reportedly stated that the returns from European flights were currently less than satisfactory, with Chief executive Kapila Chandrasena commenting,

"This is especially prudent in the context of the economic crisis that is sweeping Europe at present and is likely to lead to a slowdown in tourism from Europe,"

The residents of Dambulla - a land claimed to be of sacred value to the sinhala Buddhists - have received written notice, asking them to vacate by the end of next month, reports Colombo Page.

According a board member from Dambulla mosque, which has been targeted by Buddhist monks on several occasions, the Urban Development Authority has written to 52 houses and 23 shops, who are apparently living in land that falls under the Sacred Area Development Act.

They have been instructed to move within two weeks, and told they can move to land on Kandalama Road.

The first “Dhamma School” in Jaffna will  be opened later this week to help “rekindle Buddhism in the North”, reported Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence.

The school is to be opened up by the Tamil Buddhist Association.

According to Ven Meegahajandure Siri Wimala Thera of the Jaffna Naga Vihara,

"Starting a Dhamma School in Jaffna will create the proper path to reawaken Buddhism in the North."

The Attorney General’s Department has issued no correspondence regarding investigations into an assault on Uthayan’s editor, reported the newspaper. The editor, G Kuganathan was left severely injured when he was attacked in July 2011.

Questions were raised regarding inquiries into the assault at an annual press meet held at Jaffna’s Police Headquarters.

Regional Superintendent Srikuganesan in response to the questions said:

Jaffna’s Military Commander Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe has declared that the Army is in Jaffna to protect citizens and not to seize their lands or money.

Hathurusinghe claims that since the end of the war in 2009, the army has improved its rapport with the people of Jaffna by providing security as well as various developmental services.

Uthayan reports the Commander as saying in a rather puzzling statement:

An Uthayan journalist who attempted to visit the Tamil families 'resettled' into the Suriyapuram forests on Friday, was stopped by the Sri Lankan army soldiers, reported the newspaper.

Despite showing his press pass, the journalist was told by the soldiers, that they had orders from above instructing them not to allow any more media personnel into the area.

The UN Refugee Agency expressed concern on Thursday, about the families who have been relocated from Menik Farm.

Despite seeing the closure of Menik Farm as a "significant step towards ending displacement", the UNHCR's representative in Sri Lanka Michael Zwack pointed out, "but there are still people displaced in different situations who need to find a solution."

On their website, UN Refugee Agency wrote,

A UPFA Pradeshiya Sabha member has been arrested over a series of rapes and murders of women in Kahawatta.

Lokugamhewage Dharmasiri, who is a former secretary of a cabinet minister, was arrested after in February after a 52-year old woman and her 19-year old daughter.

Police said that the politician ordered further killings to prove his innocence and convince authorities that a serial killer was on the loose.

Four other women were killed, some of whom were also raped.

Tamil protestors in Kilinochchi on Thursday demanded an end to the Sri Lankan military occupation of the Tamil homeland and called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to take action, reported TamilNet.

More than 400 protestors were reported to be at the protest organised by the TNA, TNPF and DPF. TNA leaders, Mavai Senathiraja, S. Sritharan and Vino Noakraathalingam, as well as DPF leader Mano Ganesan and Selvaraja Kajendren, the general secretary of the TNPF, addressed the protest.

Photographs Tamilwin

Tamil IDPs from Keppapulavu, supposedly 'resettled' by the Sri Lankan government earlier this week, were moved to the Suriyapuram forests by Nandikadal Lagoon, reports Uthayan and Tamilwin.

See here for coverage, including an interview, on TamilNet.

Dumped in little more than a clearing in the woods, families - many of whom headed by widows - have no access to drinking water, adequate shelter or food. 

According to Tamilwin, the families were moved by the Sri Lankan military from the Cheddikulam IDP camp to Vattrapalai school on Monday where they were told that they could return to their own homes. However, on Tuesday when the families demanded that they be allowed to return, the Sri Lankan military took them to the forests.