During a three day visit to Pakistan, Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, signed 3 memorandums with his counterpart in Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, on trade, technical education and media.

The trade agreement, includes Pakistan offering an export credit line of $200 million, in order for Sri Lanka to import machinery and equipment. In exchange Pakistan would import goods, such as food.

The US ambassador at large for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, led a team of US officials, including the assistant secretary of state for South and Asian affairs, Robert O'Blake, to Vanni.

The delegation collected eye-witness testimonials from Tamil civilians in Mullaitheevu and Kilinochchi districts, reported Tamilnet.

The Sri Lankan Minister for Livestock and Rural Community Development, Arumugam Thondaiman, was forced to abandon his visit to the Tamil Nadu city of Coimbatore after protestors besieged his residence.

Arumugam Thondaman's visit drew angry crowds to his hotel on Saturday, before he fled to Chennai.

In his blog in The Independent, journalist Emmanuel Stoakes calls for an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes.

See below for extracts.

Writing in the Dawn newspaper, former BBC foreign correspondent based in Sri Lanka and Iran, Frances Harrison, highlighting the "living hell" experienced by Tamils during the finally stages of the armed conflict in 2009, argues that "without the truth, reconciliation and forgiveness are simply not possible and the grievances that led to conflict in the first place remain dangerously unresolved".

A German tourist has lodged a complaint with Sri Lankan police, stating that she was raped in her hotel room whilst staying in Dikwella in the Matara district.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has been under fire for failing to respond to Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report, despite assurances that he would.

In its latest edition, The Economist writes about the Rajapakse clan's stranglehold on Sri Lanka.

See below for extracts.

Douglas Devananda, a Sri Lankan minister and leader of the paramilitary group, EPDP, threatened physical attacks on journalists, reported Tamilnet.

In an article published Thursday, Tamilnet quoted Devananda as saying,

Members of the Tamil National Alliance met with US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Stephen Rapp, who is on a 4-day visit to Sri Lanka.

Mr Rapp and TNA leader R. Sampanthan and MP M A Sumanthiran held discussions relating to the issues faced by Tamils on the island.

The US State Department said on Monday two senior diplomats are due to visit Sri Lanka later this month for talks about war crimes committed during the final months of the military conflict against the LTTE.

“At a time when the failure of existing UN institutions is increasingly noted in relation to safeguarding human life and preventing brutal wars, the contribution of a documentary such as ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ in bringing to light not only this failure in the context of the war, but also promoting the need for reviewing and revitalising the UN’s capacity in cases similar to the Sri Lankan war, are immense."

“By bringing to light the breaches of international conventions by the Government of Sri Lanka in a bold manner and by piecing together numerous forms of evidence in a coherent way, the value of independent journalism to the building of a peaceful global order in the century ahead has been amply demonstrated by the ITN team.”