Thailand and Sri Lanka have agreed to double trade between the two countries to $1bn over the next three to five years.

Australia's Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connorhas once again reiterated his country's support for Sri Lanka hosting the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting in Colombo later this year, whilst visiting the island.

The Minister also stated that Australia had made it "very, very clear" that Sri Lanka had to do more to pursue reconciliation, as the summit approaches.

The Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Canada has slammed the Canadian government's threat to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka later this year, accusing Canada was strengthening "evil forces".

Brendan O'Connor, the Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, reported commended the Sri Lankan Navy for their efforts in preventing those seeking asylum from fleeing from the country, according to government sources.

A workshop for media in Sri Lanka was held by the government to mark World Press Freedom Day, under the title “Patriotism and the role of media”.

Marking World Press Day, the Jaffna Press Club called for action to stop the on-going "violence unleashed again on the media in the Northern part of Sri Lanka".

In a statement released on Friday, the JPC called on the international community and Sri Lanka, 

1) To create an environment conducive to journalists and media personnel;

The Sri Lankan state’s forcible appropriation of Tamil-owned land and property has escalated in recent weeks. The state’s de-facto seizure of vast tracts of residential land, plantations and farms, occupied and enclosed in ‘high security zones’ during the war by the military, has been ‘legalised’ by new decrees. However, instead of dousing Tamil resistance to Sinhala hegemony, it will have precisely the opposite effect, galvanising anew Tamil hostility to the state and the Sinhalese. The forcible appropriation of land and property brings home to the majority of Tamil families the force of Sinhala oppression today, and fuels the thirst for Tamil Eelam, in ways abstract nationalist appeals cannot.

Sri Lanka has rejected a US grant of US$ 3.5 million aimed at judicial reform stating that the grant's conditions would impact on Sri Lanka's sovereignty.

Speaking to the New Indian Express on Wednesday, Sri Lanka's Justice Minister, Rauff Hakeem said:

The leader of the new political front - 'Unity of Diversity', Asath Salley, has been arrested by Sri Lanka's CID (Criminal Investigations Department).

Writing in the BBC, Alan Strathern, a fellow in History at Brasenose College, Oxford,has explored the relationshi between Buddhist monks and violence, in light of attacks on Muslims by Buddhists in Burma and Sri Lanka.

Strathern is also the author of ‘Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land’.

Extracts from his piece have been reproduced below. See the full piece here.

“But however any religion starts out, sooner or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power. Buddhist monks looked to kings, the ultimate wielders of violence, for the support, patronage and order that only they could provide. Kings looked to monks to provide the popular legitimacy that only such a high moral vision can confer.”

“The result can seem ironic. If you have a strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview, then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important duty of all.”

“One of the most famous kings in Sri Lankan history is Dutugamanu, whose unification of the island in the 2nd Century BC is related in an important chronicle, the Mahavamsa.”

“It says that he placed a Buddhist relic in his spear and took 500 monks with him along to war against a non-Buddhist king. He destroyed his opponents. After the bloodshed, some enlightened ones consoled him: "The slain were like animals; you will make the Buddha's faith shine."”

The Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, received a Sri Lankan delegation led by the chair of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka at Marlborough House in London on Tuesday.

According to the Sri Lankan Ministy of Defence’s website, the delegation is in London to take part in “a Commonwealth roundtable on reconciliation”, from May 1-3.

Labor backbencher MP John Murphy has called for Australia to boycott the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, as Foreign Minister Bob Carr remained steadfast in his support for Sri Lanka.

Speaking out against the Australian government’s decision to attend the upcoming CHOGM, Murphy stated,

Speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday, the US State Department's spokesperson, Patrick Ventrell, drew particular attention to the attacks on the Tamil newspaper Uthayan and its workers, and called on the Sri Lankan authorities to conduct "thorough investigations".

Ventrall said: