The International Monetary Fund has approved the final tranche of the recently suspended $2.6 billion loan granted in 2009.

Sri Lanka has been struggling to implement economic reforms tied to the loan, however the IMF’s board of directors said in a press release on Monday that the implementation of certain measures has put Sri Lanka on the right path.

In a statement released Monday, the Indian High Commission in Colombo dismissed reports made in a Sri Lankan newspaper that there were LTTE training camps in Tamil Nadu.

The statement read,

“The suggestion contained in the news item regarding the training of terrorists at three secret camps in Tamil Nadu, India is entirely erroneous and baseless. Relevant agencies of the two countries have ongoing cooperation and no such information has been brought to the notice of the Government of India."

Gary Anandasangaree, monitor for Sri Lanka at Lawyers' Rights Watch, and legal counsel for the Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC),writes in the Sunday Leader on the recently passed resolution at the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

See here for full article, extracts reproduced below:

Sri Lanka will eagerly be awaiting the outcome of Monday’s meeting of the International Monetary Fund, as they look to be granted a desperately needed $800 million tranche of a recently suspended $2.6 billion loan.

If the final instalment of the loan is granted, the payment will be given out at a rate of 3.1% interest as opposed to the 1% of the previous tranches, and will be paid in two $400 million instalments.

According to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it’s all those that are “contributing to the rise in global warming”.

In a speech at Kandy, Rajapaksa singled out the United States, stating,

“All plants and animal species could be wiped out by global warming. Considering it, the real war criminals and human rights violators are such countries, which are contributing to the rise in global warming. The western nations became the violators of these rules.”

An international Tamil diaspora organisation has launched legal action against the British Foreign Secretary William Hague, over the failure to declare a senior Sri Lankan diplomat accused of war crimes a ‘persona non grata’.

The Global Tamil Forum has instructed lawyers to launch a judicial review against Hague, citing the Foreign Office’s refusal to take action against Major General Prasanna Silva. The former senior Army commander is now Sri Lanka’s military attache to the Sri Lankan High Commission in London, and is accused of involvement on systematic attacks on Tamil civilians from January to May 2009.

The Sri Lankan government has raised taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and automobiles in an attempt to meet conditions for an instalment from an IMF loan, according to an opposition MP.