The Australian government announced that the family reunion concessions for asylum seekers arriving by boat, will be removed.

The minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris said in a statement:

“These changes will remove the incentive for people to travel to Australia by boat with the intention of bringing out their families on humanitarian visas,”

The Sri Lankan military - in charge of resettlement - announced that there would be no further IDPs as all Tamils had been 'resettled', on Sunday. 

The Security Forces Commander Boniface Perera said, 

"A total of 1,186 people from 361 families -the last of a group of more than 300,000 displaced during the war in the north - will leave the Vavuniya Manik Farm to their original places of residence in the Mullaitivu district today,”

India has urged Colombo to discuss and finalise a credible road map for the devolution of power with the TNA, during the Sri Lankan President's visit to the country.

Asserting that such a move would send a 'positive signal' ahead of the UN Human Rights Council in March, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed the importance of converting past discussions into firm action.

According reports, Rajapaksa said the issue had to be decided by the Parliamentary Select Committee.

Amidst protests against President’s Mahinda Rajapasa’s visit to Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said it was expected that Sri Lanka treated Tamils equally to clear doubts in the minds of people in both nations.

The visiting delegation from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was told of continuing discrimination at the hand of Sri Lankan authorities during a meeting with the TNA on Friday.

In a statement the TNA said they discussed disappearances, accountability and resettlement issues with Hanny Megally, the head of the Asia, Pacific, Middle East and Africa branch of the OHCHR.

The TNA said it also said it raised concerns about colonisation and changes in the demographics of the northeast.

Photograph posted on Twitter by @rkguruparan

Hundreds of Tamil protestors who had gathered outside the district secretariat in Mullaitheevu, demanding resettlement in their village of Keappa-pulavu on Thursday, were faced with intimidation by the Sri Lankan military.

Protesting for over one and a half hours the demonstrators demanded for the occupying military to leave their homeland.

Shouting, “We want our homeland, let the military quit our homeland”, the demonstrators held banners reading, "Keappa-pulavu is our village, SL army quite today! Let us go back and resettle."

As the protest got underway, the civil society activist, Guruparan Kumaravidvel, reported via Twitter, that there was a heavy Sri Lankan Army intelligence presence. Shortly afterwards, he reported that the TNPF's General Secretary's car had been attacked whilst returning from the protest on Ottuchuttan Road, and the vehicle carrying the TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam was also attacked near Theravil on the way back from Mullaitheevu.

Photograph posted on Twitter by @rkguruparan

The visiting delegation from the UN Office of the Human Rights Commissioner today met with members of the TNA reports Uthayan.

Discussions were held with reference to high security zones in Valikamam and Sampur, where resettlement has been impeded, and Tamils are restricted from accessing their places of worship due to military land-grabs. Concern was expressed about state sponsored settlement of Sinhalese, under the guise of development schemes, which are in fact changing the demographics of the North-East.

Buddhist monks led 300 protesters from the office of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) or National Heritage Party to demonstrate opposite a local UN office, reports the Associated Press.

The demonstrators were protesting against a visit from a delegation of the UN Office of Human Rights, complaining of unfair criticism and allegations of abuse since the end of the war in 2009.

The editor of The Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz has been sacked after the new owner of the paper said articles in the paper were too critical of the president and his family.

The Sunday Leader is one of the few newspapers in Sri Lanka openly critical of the government and has previously been the target of violence, including the assassination of its previous editor, Lasantha Wikramatunge.

Jansz said that the new owner, Asanga Seneviratne, who is a friend of the Rajapakses, had asked her to stop carrying articles criticising the president.