President Mahinda Rajapakse has said that he will not allow international ‘conspiracies’ under the guise of human rights to break Sri Lanka.

Addressing a May Day rally Tuesday in Colombo, the Sri Lankan president said "the unity of working people is essential to rebuild this nation".

Major General Prasanna de Silva, Sri Lanka's military attache at the high commission in London, has been reported to be planning his permanent departure back to Sri Lanka this week, after growing calls to declare him a persona non grata.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed that the vacant position caused by de Silva’s permanent return is yet to be filled.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has released its annual human rights report and has listed Sri Lanka as a country of concern, along with countries such as North Korea, Iran, Russia and Syria.

Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke at the launch of the report in London on Monday and welcomed the many positive moves towards democracy that had occurred around the world in the past year.

Sri Lanka imports 90% of its oil from Iran, and with US-EU sanctions on Iran looming, needs to source oil elsewhere.

But its sole refinery, at Sapugaskanda, needs upgrading if it is to refine oil from other countries.

Yet, Sri Lanka has rejected an offer by the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to do this.

Seven years have passed since the Tamil journalist and editor of TamilNet was found assassinated in Colombo, inside a High Security Zone.

No-one has yet been brought to justice for his murder, after a trial was postponed earlier this year.

2005 saw the deaths of Sivaram, and two other Tamil media workers, S. Suhirtharajan, Trincomalee correspondent for Sudar Oli, a Tamil daily and Mrs. Relanki Selvarajah, Tamil broadcaster.

The Dambulla dispute maybe resolved by intervention from the president, reports The Sunday Times.

Representatives of Muslim political parties hope to discuss the situation directly with the president in the hope a solution maybe found.

The Sri Lankan army has been collecting information on young Tamil men and women who it claims are former LTTE cadres, reports Tamilwin.

Upto 500 young men and women, including 200 in Trincomalee have been targeted. All in the name of 'rehabilitation'.

See also:

Security forces to search for 'ex-LTTE' returning from abroad (24 Apr 2012)

Speaking to the BBC, the senior Buddhist monk who led the protest against a mosque in Dambulla has stated that footage from the protest has been “technically manipulated”.

The footage showed a mob of 2,000 Sinhala protestors, led by the monk Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, violently attacking a long-standing mosque in the area while security forces stood by. It also showed a monk disrobing and exposing himself in front of the mosque, expressing his outrage that the mosque had been built in the area.

Muslims in Ampara and Batticaloa districts demonstrated for a second day through strike action, over the desecration of a mosque in Dambulla.

According to reports in the BBC, demonstrations were halted by the Sri Lankan military.

In a separate incident the office of the Mosque Federation in Kattankudi was set on fire last night in an arson attack.

Meanwhile, Muslims by the Dambulla mosque held an a special prayer session on Friday.

Despite the United Nations having released more evidence of cluster bomb use in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Army has continued to deny their use.

Noting that it was “not the first time such allegations have been hurled at us”, Brigadier Wanigasooriya said,