Sri Lanka’s Minister for Industry and Commerce, Rishad Bathiyutheen, said the country is taking measures to minimise the impact of the global financial crisis and will look towards India and China to increase their export market, reported ColomboPage.

The country’s exports to its traditional markets in the West have been declining recently and the minister said the government would take efforts to open Asian markets for their products.

As the 14th Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session gets under way at the UN Human Rights Council this week, the spotlight will once again fall on Sri Lanka and its human rights record - but just how meaningful a process will it be?

Last time Sri Lanka faced a review at the Council was in 2008, when Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had been elected on a tidal wave of popular Sinhala support for a renewed war effort, was intensifying his military offensive against the LTTE. Whilst the reports of paramilitaries, torture, abductions, killings, and the targeting of human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers were acknowledged in the recommendations, the scale of human rights abuses, war crimes and genocide that Sri Lanka unleashed less than a year later, made a mockery of the entire process. Re-visiting the 2008 recommendations, in light of what has happened and continues to take place, should be a sobering read to any within the UPR Working Group.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Mass Media and Information, Keheliya Rambukwella, said the government will discuss the effects of sanctions on Iran with the US government, reported the Sunday Times.

The Sapugaskanda oil refinery is due to close on Friday, as the supply of Iranian crude runs out.

Just after the defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa warned the 13th Amendment in the constitution was a "time bomb", the Media Minister and Cabinet Spokesperson, Keheliya Rambukwella, told the media that the government had not decided about the 13th Amendment, and that the President had reiterated the government's intention to implement the 13th plus.

Rambukwella said, "by the reference of 'Plus' it is envisaged to converge all minority groups in the provinces in a Senate."

Addressing the Sri Lankan community in Dubai this week, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa warned internet users that groups who sympathises with terrorists were attempting to “paint a wrong picture” of the country.

The Ministry of Defence reported Rajapaksa as saying,

Arrivals to Sri Lanka have increased by 18.1% in September, compared to the same month last year, according to the tourist promotion office.

Figures for the first 9 months have increased by 16%, to 693,772, compared to the previous year, reported LBO.

Visitors from Western Europe were behind most of the increase, with German visitors increasing by 46% and the so far disappointing British market showing an increase of 9.1%, compared to last September.

A day after a UK High Court halted the deportation of a number of Tamil asylum seekers over fears of torture on return, a Tamil asylum seeker in Australia was issued with a deportation notice.

The Tamil male, held in Melbourne, was told that he will be deported on 31st October. The notice states he will be liable for the cost of the deportation and will be invoiced before the set deportation.

Speaking to The Island, the GTF spokesperson, Suren Surendiran and the president of NCET, Panchakulasingam Kandiah, reiterated the absurdity of the government's claims of dialogue with the diaspora, and warned the government 'not to engage in futile propaganda exercises to deceive the international community ahead of the forthcoming UPR'.

Kandiah said it was a 'deceptive move timed for UPR process on Nov 1 in Geneva and four months before the UNHRC was due to review progress on the US sponsored resolution that was passed last March targeting Sri Lanka'.

Published 13:54 BST

Dozens of Tamil asylum seekers have sought last minute appeals against their deportation to Sri Lanka at the High Court on Tuesday.

Solicitors for the asylum seekers have cited previous evidence of Tamil deportees being tortured on arriving back in Sri Lanka, and lodged their appeals.

Speaking to The Guardian, Kulasegaram Geertharthanan, from Jein solicitors, said: