Indian and Sri Lankan navies are reportedly contemplating joint patrolling along the international maritime boundary in order to prevent any violence against fishermen.

The possibility was discussed by the Indian foreign secretary, Ranjai Mathai, during his three-day visit to Sri Lanka.

The mystery over the ‘development’ trust that former UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox set up to channel funds to Sri Lanka deepened this weekend when the Central Bank governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal claimed Friday the trust “did not materialize.”

Mr. Cabraal’s claims are contradicted by the results of investigations by several leading UK newspapers.

The 'Sri Lanka Development Trust' is reported to have funded at least three of Dr. Fox’s visits to Colombo, reports said.

The Chinese Army has promised Sri Lanka assistance with military training, with Sri Lanka responding with their own offer of military courses for Chinese soldiers.

A high level delegation from the People’s Liberation Army were received by war crimes accused Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya on Thursday.

Sri Lanka has announced that all state owned land in the North-East, part of the former war zone, will now be up for grabs, as the government looks to sell them commercially.

Urban Development Authority Rohan Fernando told a forum on property development at the Central Bank,

Four international human rights groups, working against the use of torture, submitted a joint report to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) to rival the committee's customary third periodic report of Sri Lanka, due to be discussed next month.

The 22 page report was compiled by Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) based in Hong Kong, REDRESS Trust in London, Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) in Denmark and Action des chrétiens pour l'abolition de la torture (ACAT France) in France.

The report condemns the widespread torture practised in Sri Lanka, the government's failure to adequately investigate such allegations and the "inadequate legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures taken to prevent acts of torture in territory under Sri Lanka’s jurisdiction".

The groups urged the UN to act, in order to ensure accounability and justice, given Sri Lanka's ongoing failure to make any meaningful progress on the issue.

"Should Sri Lanka continue to fail to take the requisite measures despite the availability of credible evidence of torture and ill-treatment, it is the responsibility of the United Nations and its organs, as well as the treaty bodies, to do their utmost to ensure accountability and justice for the victims of these violations."

"It is now the next logical step to call for a full implementation of the Panel’s recommendations.

"This could build on previous precedents where UN bodies have urged the Secretary-General to call for the establishment of an international accountability mechanism, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

"Conversely, a failure to take action would compound the climate of impunity in Sri Lanka and would constitute a betrayal of the Convention against Torture, which was adopted ‘to make more effective the struggle against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment throughout the world’."

The Sri Lanka President younger brother, Basil Rajapaksa, has been appointed electoral organiser of Kolonnawa on Tuesday. Basil Rajapaksa also a senior adviser of the President and Minister of Economic Development.
 
The role will involve being responsible for all political and development activities of the Kolonnawa elections.

The Kolonnawa electorate saw severe violence inflicted on rival political factions where Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra was killed alongside three of his supporters.

A trust set up by Liam Fox supposedly to help Sri Lanka’s development appears to have achieved nothing other than to pay for his trips to the country, one of his allies has told the Financial Times.

See the report here.

The Sri Lanka Development Trust consists of two funds, the “Sri Lanka Infrastructure Development Fund” and the “Sri Lanka Charitable Fund”.

Award-winning journalist Allison Pearson writes in her column for The Daily Telegraph on the Fox-Werritty saga:

These are extracts of The Times’ editorial on Wednesday Oct 12:

“Liam Fox has many questions to answer about the role of a personal friend at the Ministry of Defence. But one aspect of this imbroglio is already clear: in his dealings in a particular part of the world, Dr Fox exceeded the bounds of his ministerial remit.

The Times newspaper reports Wednesday that Liam Fox is to face new questions over his links to Sri Lanka after it emerged that three of his trips there were funded by a mysterious trust that is not registered as a charity or a company.

Three visits to Sri Lanka, which cost about £7,500 and took place when Dr Fox was Shadow Defence Secretary, were funded by the Sri Lanka Development Trust.